LISTEN: In Atlanta Public School's redistricting move, the Board of Education is set to vote on school closures to balance the district's shrinking student population. Some residents are skeptical of the plan. GPB's Amanda Andrews reports.

a hand written poster from the board meeting says "choose equity over efficiency save Dunbar"

Parents from Dunbar Elementary school brought posters to a November 2025 meeting to protest Atlanta's Board of Education potentially closing the school.

Credit: Amanda Andrews / GPB News

The Atlanta metro area has grown significantly in the past decade. Atlanta alone has added over 10,000 new residents in the past year. School districts in the suburbs are growing with the population.

The opposite is true for Atlanta Public Schools.

APS has seen a decline in student enrollment since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic. Now, leaders on the Atlanta Board of Education are narrowing down which schools will have to close under the APS Forward 2040 facilities plan.

Parents, students, and advocates filled every chair and lined the walls at the Atlanta Board of Education meeting in November. People like Claire Dozier are here to speak against the Atlanta Public School redistricting plan.

“When you say that sacrifices must be made, we see that those sacrificed are Black children in communities with the fewest resources,” she said.

Dozier was talking about Dunbar Elementary, one of 16 schools currently selected to be either closed or converted into something else as part of the APS 2040 plan.

 

Money saved — for for whom?

The new master plan is motivated by shifts in federal funding and demographics in Atlanta — both creating budget shortfalls. Because even as Atlanta’s population grows, the city is losing school-aged children. 

a graph showing two lines one going up is the Atlanta population since 2014 one going down in student enrollment during that time

Data from Atlanta Public Schools and U.S Census shows that since 2014 the Atlanta population has risen while student enrollment declined.

Credit: Grant Blankenship / GPB News

Every child unenrolled means a missing chunk of federal funding. Therefore, lower enrollment leaves APS with less money but, the same number of buildings to maintain.

Tracy Richter is Vice President of HPM, the consulting firm leading the redistricting effort. 

Outside the November board meeting, he said APS currently has about 20,000 more desks than students to fill them. The new redistricting plan will shave off about a quarter of that unused space. 

“It’s about $25 million of operational savings annually,” Richter said. “It saves about $70 million in deferred maintenance that the district wouldn’t have to spend on unneeded square footage. And so those dollars get redirected.”

The money they save would go towards offering new educational programs across the district. Richter said even with supplemental funding schools can’t offer full program options with limited enrollment.

“By getting the infrastructure right and not spending our money on unneeded square footage, we spend it on students and we spend it on teachers,” he said. “We spend it all on the resources that students need.”

One plan is to use the money that’s maintaining empty desks to focus on performing arts education. APS selected Carver Early College High School as the high school that would be repurposed into a districtwide school of the arts serving sixth through 12th grades.

That has some residents skeptical.

Monique Nunnally’s family has lived on Atlanta’s Southside near Carver for at least three generations. She asks: Who is this development designed for?

“If it's not for the kids that can stare out their front yard at this high school, then you're doing a disservice to my neighborhood,” Nunnally said. “Because these kids just going to go and not have what they need, and these are my babies. These are my kids. These are my streets. I live here.”

Students would have to apply to the new performing arts school. Applications from the kids in the Carver school zone will be given weighted preference, but they are not guaranteed a seat. 

That's a problem, Nunnally said. The board should know applications will block Southside families from attending the school in their neighborhood. 

“An application is a gatekeeper. It's a barrier. It's a roadblock,” she said. “If you ain't coaching folks all the way through that thing, it's not going to work.”

 

A dividing line

Atlanta city leaders say the city is divided on a line from northwest to southeast. Southwest of the line are most of the city’s Black residents, children in poverty and most of the schools on the closure list, which struggle academically. 

a map of atlanta with 16 dots of the schools that will be repurposed a red line goes through it and most of the dots are under the line

Most of the 16 schools selected by Atlanta Public Schools for closure or repurposing, in its APS Forward 2040 facilities plan, fall on the south and west sides of Atlanta — areas which are historically underserved.

Credit: Amanda Andrews / GPB News

Carver High School, where the performing arts school is planned, is just outside gentrifying Grant Park and right on the dividing line border. 

Nunally is fighting back even though she believes the plan to convert Carver high school has been decided on already.

“Once Atlanta takes over, the Atlanta way steps in, and the powerful influential establishment folks come to the table, and they've decided I want you. I want this school. I want this to be my experience for my community. I want this thing to happen for my political wins. It's all done,” she said.

The APS Forward 2040 plan predicts closing these schools would save 20 million a year in operational costs. Facility closures will begin in spring 2027. 

The Atlanta Public School Board of Education will make their final vote on school closures Wednesday. 

Tags: Demographic change  schools  APS  Atlanta Public Schools  Georgia  federal funding cuts