Alpharetta Real Estate » More Schools to be Built in North Fulton

20Jan

More Schools to be Built in North Fulton

categories: Schools

There are six Fulton County high schools north of the Chattahoochee; soon there will be seven and maybe even eight. There are also plans to add a new elementary school in the Milton High School Cluster. At this time, I’m not aware of any plans for new middle schools in North Fulton.

High Schools

Of the six existing schools, four are east of GA-400: Centennial, Chattahoochee, Alpharetta and Northview. Alpharetta High School is the newest of these four, having open in August 2004 and its enrollment is already 170 students over its 1,875 state capacity.

That’s the good news, Centennial is 290 students over capacity; Chattahoochee is 433 over capacity and Northview is 712 over capacity. That’s 1,600 students over capacity across the four high schools.

To relieve the over crowding, a new high school is planned in the northwest quadrant of State Bridge Road and Medlock Bridge Road with construction starting in July, 2007. The first planned classes will be August 2009. The school site is immediately adjacent to the Medlock Bridge subdivision and across the street from St. Marlo Country Club.

There are also a lot of rumors going around about a third high school west of GA-400. Roswell High School is 711 students over capacity and the new Milton High School, which is a physically new school but doesn’t represent new capacity since it replaced the old school, was almost 200 students over capacity when it opened last year.

The question is where to locate a new school, which would need about a seventy acre site. There is no public sewer in most of that part of the county and building a high school on septic is not something the school district is eager about, I’m sure. If you think about locations north of Milton High School that have sewer, that leaves only locations along Highway 9. Mum is the word though for now; when in site acquisition mode, the school district is radio silent.

Elementary Schools

There is almost certainly going to be a new elementary school on Birmingham Highway at Wood Road. The school district already owns forty acres there, just south of the west entrance to the gated portion of White Columns. The remaining question now is how to pay for the school. The district is holding out for the SPLOST vote in the spring, which is the existing sales tax program that supports capital projects. The SPLOST is due for renewal and if passed again will provide the necessary funding.

If SPLOST is rejected, the district has hinted that it will still build the school but will have to finance it with bond issues or other funding mechanisms, which would increase the cost of the school by about 30%. Either way, it sounds like at this point that there will be a new elementary school opening August 2008 to serve White Columns and areas north of there.