Vote Averted! Facilities Plan to rezone Gould Elementary and other schools in limbo

No vote occurred at Savannah-Chatham County Public School System’s (SCCPSS) Regular Meeting of the school board regarding the revised 2024-25 Long-Range Facilities Plan on Dec. 6.

When Superintendent Denise Watts, Ed.D, presented the revised plan, she said, “We listened, we heard and made changes to the extent possible." She felt the district’s compromises were a “win-win” that “balances both student/staff/community needs and facilities/transportation needs.”

But the packed chambers felt otherwise.

Board members shared their feedback and asked questions. District 3 Representative Cornelia Hall and District 2 Representative Dionne Hoskins-Brown expressed concerns about steps to swing Formey Early Learning Center students to Shuman Elementary for one year while upgrades were made at Formey's East Broad Street facility. District 7 Representative Michael Johnson stated he could not support the plan because it was not what was best for citizens of West Chatham.

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Board members and public take issue with plan

Members of the public filled nearly every seat at Wednesday's board meeting; many of them signed up to speak. Two Gould Elementary parents spoke. Kelly Graham, parent of a Gould first-grader who had attended the school system's community meetings, thanked the board for listening and compromising. She expressed regret that not all Gould students would be able to remain. "I do understand that, as is and because of the tremendous expansion and growth in our district, Gould Elementary is way over realistic functional capacity."

Alejandro Del Razo, a community organizer for Migrant Equity Southeast (MESE), also spoke. He noted that a number of people from the Hispanic community who were slated to speak but not present had to leave to pick up their children from school. He thanked leaders for listening to the community, but said, "Please do not take apart the Gould community because there are still 394 students that are going to move to a different school."

The majority of public speeches taking issue with the plan, however, actually came from parents of New Hampstead High School students. They cited frustration over multiple rezoning moves made by the district over the past few years that had effected their children from elementary through middle and now high school. Parents asked the board members to vote 'no' because they felt their children were only being seen as numbers.

Eventually, Hall made a motion for the board to vote on the plan with the exception of the Formey Early Learning Center and New Hampstead High School components. Hoskins-Brown seconded.

They would both later rescinded their motions after Watts asserted, "There are pros and cons to each and every one of the possibilities" of the approaches to addressing overcrowding at New Hampstead. "One piece of this is a domino for another piece."

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What now?

Since the motion to vote on the plan was rescinded and no subsequent motion was presented, the board moved on to the next agenda item. While no formal consensus emerged regarding the facilities plan's next steps, informally, board members appeared set on revisiting the plan at a future board meeting.

Watts said at Wednesday's meeting that she was "happy to go back to the drawing table," but added, "When I come to you with the revision, it's going to create another group of people who are upset."

Before Hall made a motion to vote on the plan, she offered these thoughts. "As an educator from three different school districts in Illinois, South Carolina and Georgia, I can tell you, the children are going to be all right...if we let them be children, go to school and make friends...we adults need to be the ones who can grasp change and move with it."

Her statement preceded public comments, which began with a New Hampstead High School tenth-grader saying, "I personally cannot attest to that."

Suffice to say that opinions on the plan were abundant and varied. What remains constant: Some SCCPSS schools are overcapacity while others are underused because of dynamic shifts in population. The district also has a severe deficiency in bus drivers with only 197 covering 199 routes. Rezoning appears inevitable even though the particulars remain unclear.

As of Monday, Watts and SCCPSS staff had scheduled a press conference for Thursday afternoon. A district press release stated the press conference, “Will address questions regarding the plan as approved by the Board, as well as implementation plans.”

Whether the press conference proceeds remains a question, as does the future of the facilities plan.

Joseph Schwartzburt is the education and workforce development reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at JSchwartzburt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: SCCPSS rezoning of Gould Elementary and other schools in limbo