Grady High, North Atlanta High and Sutton and Inman Middle have lost Title I status. (Lilburn: low income, apartments)

[jeoff]

The Title I designation is based off of the percentage of low income students that attend a school. Most schools receive *some* Title I funding, but I believe that Title I Schools receive more, and have fewer restrictions on how the money is spent.
Five years ago every APS middle and high school had the Title I designation; four APS schools have lost this status; Grady High, North Atlanta High, Sutton Middle, and Inman Middle (Inman was the first). (Actually this is *old* news, this happened two years ago, but I did not know about it).
In addition to funding, I have heard from parents and students that this affects college acceptance rates at the more competitive universities (not verified as true). That is, in a world of super-inflated GPA’s, professionally edited college entrance essays, and SAT coaching, coming from a Title I school *may* help with admissions to competitive universities—even for children of wealthy parents (the higher-income Grady parents that told me this have kids at Tech and Yale).

The change in status appears to be the result of two things; a lower percentage of lower-income students attending the schools, and the Federal threshold for Title I designation has been raised from 40% to 50% low income. Grady’s percentage is in the mid-to-high 30’s. Interestingly, Parkview High (a popular suburban alternative for CDC-Emory folks) is at 40% low income, per “greatschools” (but, is still probably a better school).

https://www.atlantapublicschools.us/Page/58080

https://thesoutherneronline.com/6464...-funding-ends/

[red92s]

Grady and Inman have been off the list for a few years.

[jeoff]

Originally Posted by red92s

Grady and Inman have been off the list for a few years.

Yeah, I knew about Inman when it happened, but heard about Grady just the other day, and didn’t know about North Atlanta and Sutton until I checked the website and the weren’t listed. Figured my kids go to school there, and I didn’t know, so figure it would be news to a few others, too.

[aries4118]

Jeoff:

Why do you think Parkview is better overall than Grady?

[ronricks]

Grady and Inman dropped off the list a few years back. It is a good thing. Shows us change and progress works.

[jeoff]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Jeoff:

Why do you think Parkview is better overall than Grady?

While I am confident that Grady and APS will continue to improve over time, and I am less sure about Parkview and Gwinnett, I believe Parkview is a better school *now* because...

Students and parents—I think that the quality of students and parents are a good chunk of what makes a good school good. In regards to low income students, I think that Parkview is similar to a charter school, there is a barrier to entry for low income parents for both that weeds out the children of less-involved and less demanding parents. In a charter, parents may have to apply a year in advance, possibly provide transportation, and volunteer at the school. I believe that a healthy chunk of low income parents make actual sacrifices to live in Lilburn *only* for the high quality schools. To get in the Parkview school zone poorer parents are having to pay higher rents (there are few apartments in the school zone) and deal with minimal public transport—even folks on section8 may have to pay more in rent and Parkview landlords can be more picky. I believe there is less of that with low income families at Grady. Even if I am wrong about that, just the fact that every feeder elementary school for Parkview is superior to Hope-Hill is enough to affect the quality of the students going in—and the test scores reflect that. Low income and minority students score higher at Parkview than at Grady (and most everyplace else in the state).

Also, our experience with Grady and Inman teachers has been uneven (but you could see some improvement in both teachers and students at Inman in the last 5 years)—I am guessing that the overall infrastructure in Gwinnett has just been better than APS for so long that they have been able to more efficiently get and retain good teachers and get rid of poor ones. In a more tangible way, you can see differences in the infrastructure with APS’s school bus system. It has really improved over the last few years, but my suburban friends were in shock with how bad it was (and it’s not like it’s great now). Maybe there was a culture of low standards. Yes that infrastructure is improving, but Gwinnett has done a good job maintaining a great infrastructure that has existed for thirty-plus years, even as the county changed.

[Atlwarrior]

Well doesn't it mean the school are getting better. Requiring excellent is not a bad thing.

[BR Valentine]

Originally Posted by Atlwarrior

Well doesn't it mean the school are getting better. Requiring excellent is not a bad thing.

It means that the schools have fewer low-income students than in the past and nothing else. It has nothing to do with academic achievement.

Originally Posted by ronricks

Grady and Inman dropped off the list a few years back. It is a good thing. Shows us change and progress works.

It shows that school demographics have changed. That’s all.

[arjay57]

Gentrification.

[BR Valentine]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Gentrification.

Yup. The portion of FRL eligible students at Inman has declined by 2/3 in the past six years.