Decatur, GA
Decatur, GA
Dozens of Decatur students will attend classes in trailers this year at the College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center, while about 50 administrators run their offices out of a former elementary school.
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dozens of Decatur students will return to classes Monday in trailers while their administrators work from inside a half-empty school.
City Schools of Decatur officials say the trailers are temporary for one year while they finish building a new school.
But parents don’t understand why the 40 administrators who work out of the former Westchester Elementary School don’t spend the year in trailers instead.
“Anyone who is familiar with Westchester can see it’s a school built for children,” said Emily Kandetzki, who has four children in Decatur schools. “It’s heart-wrenching to walk into a classroom and see them filled with big black leather chairs and administrators.”
Westchester was built as an elementary school, complete with bathrooms in each classroom, brightly colored walls, cubbies and low-hanging hooks. A playground sits on a large grassy field.
The small district will use 10 trailers this school year while it finishes construction of a new school at the site of the former Fifth Avenue school, communications director Bruce Roaden said.
The new school, which is slated to open in Aug. 2011, will be for fourth and fifth graders. Renovations are also under way at the middle and high schools.
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