What's Wrong With Dekalb County? (Atlanta, Dunwoody: appointed, best suburbs, 2014)

[Tammy_West]

4 Years ago, I moved here from Detroit, Michigan. Much of what you hear about Detroit is myth. But yes, there is tons of crime, low property values, high taxes, and low quality city services. I have lived in the most affluent areas in Michigan thruout my time there, and graduated from UofM, but settled in detroit. When i moved here all I heard was the horror stories about dekalb county. I have found all of them to be untrue.

In the area I live, I have Stone Mountain, fantastic walking and bike trails, restaurants, and every store I would ever need within 10 miles. This was never possible within most areas of even the best suburbs in Michigan. Bits and pieces, but not all of that in one place. I have never had any issues with crime here. According to City Data there was only one murder in my city last year. I dont know if that's accurate, but its a far cry from Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, and a lot of other cities around the US.

I heard so many bad things about the schools. First let me say that school is what you make it. If you are an involved parent your kids will be fine. Currently, if I choose to stay in Dekalb, I see a tremedous track for my kids education. They currently attend D.A.T.E - its a fine school. although i think they take the uniform thing way too seriously (my son is on his fourth pair of shoes already because the school banned the other 3 pair) my kids love it. They come home happy about school. That never happened before. My son who is a bit of a weirdo and socially akward, has reported no bullying of any kind. After D.A.T.E I will have the option of DECA or Arabian mountain high school. ALL these schools are choice schools and there is a waiting list. But my kids were pretty far down on the list for DATE and they still got in.

Look at the TEST scores of the schools. Do not rely on ratings from Great Schools who I've found to rate schools in certain areas more harshly. There may only be a 3% difference in the math rating but a 4 point difference in the great school rating.

What's my point? For those moving down here, please dont take people's word as bible. Experience things for yourself. If you are coming from a major city chances are most cities in Atlanta are going to be safer and have good school choices. Not that it matters, but my subdivision is filled with people of all races. Don't get caught up in people saying "oh that's a black area or whatever" as in black means bad. Most of the black and white and african mexican etc people I've come across have been eloquent and helpful compared to where I come from. Michigan is the most segregated state in the US I believe. Atlanta is a melting pot of culture. You get more house for your money in Dekalb, and the city services are respectable. The only issue I have is people throwing trash out of their cars in Dekalb. Those SAME people, black white etc do not throw trash out of the window when they are in a different county. Besides that, I am so glad I made the move here.

[demonta4]

Sadly that's just how diverse areas are seen in Atlanta.

[jeoff]

No, most of Dekalb County is not as bad as folks make it out to be, and neither is Stone Mountain. But, it does come up way short of what it was, and what it should be. "Every store you could need within 10 miles"--it used to be that every store you could need was on Memorial Drive in Stone Mountain, and folks from other counties would drive there to shop and play. And, while I don't doubt that some kids can get a great education in the schools in SM--these schools will fail many students that would succeed in other systems.
Stone Mountain is NOT awful, but it is currently not a great fit for a lot of folks.

[Tito_d]

Your experience is not typical, it's an exception. Dekalb schools don't score too well in state tests. In the Atlanta metro area Dekalb score nears the bottom:
The top three scoring districts, according to the Governor's report, are:
1). City Schools of Decatur- 89.2.
2). Gwinnett County Public Schools - 82.8
3). Cobb County School District - 80.7
Lowest scores in the immediate metro Atlanta area are:
1). DeKalb County School District – 61.6
2). Atlanta Public Schools – 63.9
3). Clayton County Public Schools – 64.6

Dekalb residents pay the highest taxes in the metro area and get the worst services and one of the worst school system in the state. Some areas in Dekalb such as LaVista Hills don't have any parks worthy of the name, bike paths, side walks or amenities that correspond to the taxes they pay. News cities that separated from Dekalb like Dunwoody, Brookhaven saw an immediate improvement in services and quality of life with new parks, bike paths, amenities, faster services. The school system remains a problem even for the new cities and the only solution for the new cities will be to join an existent county with a better school system such as Gwinnett. The GA constitution does not allow the creation of a school system or a new county, but there is a possibility of joining a new county if a majority of the citizens elect to do so.

[whodean]

Dekalb County Government is the problem

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by whodean

Dekalb County Government is the problem

This.

[demonta4]

Originally Posted by whodean

Dekalb County Government is the problem

I'll agree with this. They are missing many amenities such as parks and recreation, sidewalks near schools, and paved roads. Many parts of the county look like they're in decay. Not saying it's actually in decay, but you get a depressed feeling whenever you drive through. (Except for Decatur)

[Tammy_West]

Originally Posted by Tito_d

Your experience is not typical, it's an exception. Dekalb schools don't score too well in state tests. In the Atlanta metro area Dekalb score nears the bottom:
The top three scoring districts, according to the Governor's report, are:
1). City Schools of Decatur- 89.2.
2). Gwinnett County Public Schools - 82.8
3). Cobb County School District - 80.7
Lowest scores in the immediate metro Atlanta area are:
1). DeKalb County School District – 61.6
2). Atlanta Public Schools – 63.9
3). Clayton County Public Schools – 64.6

I appreciate you providing this information. But someone will read this and automatically assume that every school in Dekalb county is bad. This is not true. Since you mentioned Decatur (which is in Dekalb county btw) I will compare DATE to the top great schools rated public middle school in North Decatur. These are the 8th grade test scores from 2014

English Language Arts
DATE 100% Proficiency
Renfroe Middle School (North Decatur) 97%

Math
DATE 82%
Renfroe 89%

Reading
DATE 100%
Renfroe 99%

Science
DATE 78%
Renfroe 86%

Social Studies
DATE 89%
Renfroe 93%

These numbers are basically splitting hairs, but to be exact that's Renfroe 3, DATE 2. However, on Great Schools Renfroe is rated a 9, and Dekalb Academy is rated a 4. Why is that?

High Schools

Decatur High School (top rated high school in what you're describing as the top rated district in the state)
Arabia Mountain High School (a top rated high school in what you're describing as the lowest rated district)

9th Grade (other grades are not available on Great Schools for these schools. Don't know why)

Literature
Decatur 96%
Arabia 96%

Integrated Math 2 (2013 numbers)
Decatur 77%
Arabia 65%

Biology
Decatur 94%
Arabia 87%

Economics
Decatur 89%
Arabia 98%

Now to be fair, Decatur high School is rated a 9, Arabia Mountain an 8. But again, when you lump that school in and just say Dekalb county is the worst, people will not even look at individual schools. And those numbers certainly don't look like one school is in the worst school system in Georgia.

[skbl17]

When people say that "DeKalb is corrupt", that usually means one of two things:

1) DeKalb County's central government. jeoff is right in that the problem is not necessarily the county as a whole, but the commission and some departments and organizations that make up the government in Decatur. Think about it: our last CEO is still in major legal trouble, one of our county commissioners is in jail, Watershed Management's overbilling, and now you have this report incriminating the county commission and interim CEO Lee May. That's an important distinction: DeKalb has not had a full-time CEO since Ellis was arrested.

2) DeKalb County Schools. Again, the problem here is not the school district as a whole, but similar to Clayton a few years back, the problem is Central Office (more infamously known as "the Palace" among certain parents' and teachers' circles). You have the huge excess of staff at the Palace, the numerous "educational programs" that DCSD overpays for and doesn't benefit from, a friends and family system that is nepotism in all but name, lack of transparency regarding Board meetings and minutes, the incredibly restrictive conditions for the last two superintendent searches, and the infighting within the Board of Education. SACS almost pulled DCSD's accreditation three years back, which to me (as a student) and many families would have been the worst possible thing to happen.

What makes this even worse is the fact that if you asked anyone a couple of decades ago about the state of DeKalb County government institutions, the general consensus would be one of approval. I highly doubt that would be the case now.

Again, that's not to say DeKalb as a whole is bad. DCSD, despite its overbloated and corrupt administration, has some good schools, good students, and good teachers. The libraries still work well. Sanitation works well. It's just that DeKalb has so many problems at the TOP that public perception shifts the problems onto the entire county.

Which brings me to the next problem: why this cycle continues.

In a reasonable, democratic society, corrupt elected officials would be voted out by the electorate; that's not to mention that the State of Georgia itself has mechanisms to remove and punish corrupt officials. However, the school board and county commissioners that are part of the problem are never replaced by voters - apathy and incumbency FTW! - and those that are (whether by vote or state intervention) are replaced by people who turn out to be almost as bad as their predecessors, whether that was their intention or they're slowly corrupted by the existing system. Despite having half of its members replaced by Gov. Deal during the SACS fiasco two years back, the DeKalb County Board of Education has made very little improvement. Lee May was appointed by Gov. Deal to replace Burrell Ellis as CEO, but I don't see any improvement.

- skbl17, DeKalb resident of eleven years

[lastminutemom]

DATE and Arabia Mt. are both schools of choice. DATE isn't really a DeKalb County school, it is a start up charter school with independent management.

Both schools have lotteries, and as you have experienced with the shoes, both can enforce their rules and ask students to leave.

Schools where parents have to choose to enroll their students have an inherent advantage over traditional public schools.

Let's compare your "home" DeKalb schools test scores to Decatur. Then we can really talk.

There is a long history in DeKalb, of I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine. In the public education arena this has played out in the form of school choice in S. DeKalb that allows those connected and those in the know to opt out of their dreadful neighborhood schools.