City tweaks elementary school zones

Published 11:34 pm Monday, February 11, 2008

Approximately 400 Dalton Public Schools elementary students will change schools this fall after the board of education on Monday approved changes to the school district’s elementary attendance zones

The moves will help lessen crowding at the five elementary schools by shifting children from City Park and Roan to Blue Ridge, Brookwood and Park Creek, facilities director Palmer Griffin said. That space is open due to 44 new elementary school classrooms. Griffin said the changes affect about 10 percent of the system’s approximate 3,700 elementary school students.

“One of the overarching concerns was how the construction would go,” Griffin said. “We didn’t want to put things in place too early. All of those projects have come in on time. We got all but one of the buildings in the dry before these last rains.”

Some students from the north part of Dalton who have been attending City Park will now go to Park Creek.

Students in a few neighborhoods in the east side of town will move from Roan to Blue Ridge, where 16 classrooms are being added, Griffin said.

In the south end of Dalton in the Lakeland area, some Roan students will move to Brookwood.

Board chairman Steve Williams said the changes could also help improve parent participation by having parents closer to the schools their children attend.

“This makes it more efficient for everyone,” Williams said. “This will make it more convenient for everyone.”

Notices of the changes should go out to students in the coming weeks, Griffin said.

“We didn’t want to put too much in motion, deferring to the board, because they could have said, ‘We don’t like this,’ and had to come back in another month,” he said.