New School Update for North Fulton | Johns Creek High School Gets Principal
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Johns Creek Real Estate, Schools
With Spring Break over, all attention is back to the classroom and CRCT testing which began this week. I’m sure our students will keep our scores in North Fulton the highest in the county and among the top in the state.
As students sharpen their No. 2 pencils, new classrooms are under construction to house the continued influx of children into North Fulton school districts. The growth that we experienced in 2004-5, when 2,236 new students enrolled in North Fulton schools, has subsided somewhat. However, we still have over 1,000 new student each year.
By the 2011-12 school year, projections show that there will be almost 50,000 students in North Fulton public schools, up from about 45,000 today. Growth pains, as they say, are a good problem to have, but we have to find a way to have classroom space for these students. Currently we have some elementary schools that were designed for 850 student packed with over 1,000 students.
The most construction progress has been shown at the new North Fulton High School, which has creatively been named Johns Creek High School. It takes about two years to build a high school, so Johns Creek High School is not
scheduled to open until August, 2009. None the less, discussions between the School Board and community started this week to define the school’s attendance zone. Two more community meetings are scheduled for May.
As one insider at Alpharetta HS told me: "Johns Creek High is going to be an academic powerhouse. It is going to get the best of Northview and Chattahoochee High Schools."
Johns Creek High School Principal Appointed
Johns Creek is also getting Buck Greene as its first principal. Greene is transferring from Alpharetta High Schools, where he has served as principal since opening in 2004 and which won the Governor’s Cup this year for most improvement in SAT scores. Alpharetta HS was ninth in the state last year for SAT scores with an average score of 1647.
Birmingham Elementary School Planned to Open August 2009
In contrast to the visible progress on Johns Creek HS, is Birmingham Elementary School. You can’t tell by looking at the land - because no disturbance has been done at all - that in a little over a year there will be a new elementary school at Wood Road and Birmingham Highway, in Milton. The School Board is completely committed to this school, the plans are selected and the Board says construction should start soon. It takes about nine months to build an elementary school, they say. Looks like they are going to take it down to the wire.
Planning sessions with the community will begin this fall to discuss the new attendance zone. I’ve received a number of inquires from people about my opinion of who will go where. My OPINION - and it is only that - is that all neighborhoods north of Providence Road and west of Freemanville Road will attend the new school. Some scattered other neighborhoods like Fieldstone Farms, Wood Valley, The Oaks at White Columns and Highland Manor will also likely be zoned to Birmingham ES, but again, this is only a guess.
Just as Johns Creek HS stands to be very good academically because it is drawing from a good base, Birmingham ES will be a quality school academically no doubt because it is drawing from the same population as Summit Hill, Crabapple Crossing and Cogburn Woods, all excellent schools.
Freemanville Road High School
The Board of Education maintains that it is still committed to building a new high school on Freemanville Road, dispite the community opposition. The only thing that has changed recently is that they have pushed back the scheduled opening date a year to the 2012-13 school year.
The Board of Education also has mentioned building a Middle School adjacent to the Freemanville HS that wouldn’t open until 2014. Some private individuals who are opposed to any school development on Freemanville have paid to have an environmental impact study done which has revealed that, due to septic system demands, at best only one school could (or should?) be built on the proposed site just south of White Columns.
It remains to be seen how this will play out. I still maintain the the best solution is to redevelop the "old Milton High School" site with a multi-story design that work on the smaller land parcel while still providing all the amenities of a modern school. Obviously, many well designed high schools are built around the country in urban settings on far fewer acres. We shouldn’t rule out redeveloping the old site just because we have a templated model of how we build high schools in Fulton County.
This case calls for breaking the model because the alternative is to build a (sprawling?) high school on a piece of land that (1) is not well suited for it and (2) will definitely impact the character of the area. Will it "ruin" the area? No. Is there a better option in my humble opinion? Definitely.
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