OAKWOOD -- More than 100 south Hall County residents made their way to the Johnson High School gym Tuesday afternoon to speak with county school officials about the proposed redistricting of several schools in the area. Many of them were unhappy with suggested changes.
The plans, which were announced several months ago, would see a new middle and high school complex on the current Flowery Branch High School campus. Flowery Branch High School, C.W. Davis Middle School and South Hall Middle School would all return to the buildings they occupied up until the 2009-2010 school year. The new plans, if approved by the board, would go into effect for the 2018-2019 school year.
Hall County Schools Superintendent Will Schofield said the moves are being proposed because Flowery Branch High School and Johnson High School are both overcrowded. Johnson currently has 1,599 students enrolled, about 100 more than the listed capacity, and Flowery Branch has 1,757, which is more than 500 over capacity. Schofield, who spoke at the beginning of the public forum, said the county has tried to avoid having extremely large high schools.
"People can say what they want to, there's a lot of data out there about the size of high schools," Schofield said. "There is some very strong evidence that schools can get too large and you have no sense of community."
Schofield also said he believes the redistricting would allow more room for mobility of students who want to attend a different school within the county.
Many area residents, like Craig Lutz, said they were fine with Flowery Branch High growing to be a larger school.
"My wife's a teacher in Gwinnett County and my kids could go to Mill Creek High School and I chose for them to come up here to Flowery Branch because I love the sense of community we have, and I don't see where we've lost that," Lutz said.
Several residents from the Sterling on the Lake subdivision also expressed their concerns about the redistricting. The subdivision is currently districted to Flowery Branch High School's current campus on Spout Springs Road, which is less than a mile away. The new district lines would send them to Flowery Branch's new location on Hog Mountain Road, which is several miles away.
"Our kids like to walk to school, they like to bike to school, that's how they get to and from extra-curricular activities," Sterling resident Jennifer Kovach said. "Now it's going to be taken away because we're no longer attending those schools."
School board member Brian Sloan is the board's South Hall representative, and he said the board will have to think about some of the issues residents brought up.
"There were some strong points made by the people tonight, I can't deny that. Some we may be able to look at and some we may not be able to," Sloan said. "Obviously, they were leaning towards bigger schools. Our philosophy has been to try to keep our schools not at the real small level but kind of the medium level."
The board will host a second public forum Tuesday, May 30 at Flowery Branch High School that will be held in a similar format, with the school district presenting its plans and public comment being open afterwards and officials being available for one-on-one questions following the meeting. The board is set to give the proposal a final vote in July.
Several residents said they feared that their comments would not be considered.
"The optics are kind of bad, I get the sense that this is a done deal and we're just kind of speaking to get this off our chest," Lutz said. "I really hope that you give a little bit more consideration for those of us who don't really mind having larger schools."
Follow this link to see the plans as proposed by the Hall County School District.
