Schools, city to hold joint meeting

Decatur’s school board and city commission are holding a rare joint meeting Thursday from 7-9 p.m. on the first floor of the Wilson School Support Center, 125 Electric Ave.

The discussion topics, according to Superintendent David Dude, are “annexation policy” and the school system’s senior homestead exemption.

Regarding annexation, Dude and the board want to review Senate Bill 53 that emerged from the 2019 legislative session and was vetoed by Gov. Brian Kemp.

The bill was intended to protect DeKalb County’s school district from losing students after Atlanta annexed 744 acres of the Emory area. The SB 53 impact on Decatur would’ve resulted in separate boundaries for the school district and the city.

“SB 53 would have created two Decaturs: one for children attending our schools, and another for children not allowed to,” Decatur Board Chair Lewis Jones said after Kemp’s veto.

DeKalb Superintendent Stephen Green vowed to keep “fighting,” adding that, “Senate Bill 53 is coming back. This is encroachment, this is infringement on DeKalb County and the DeKalb County school district and it must stop. It must end.”

In a recent interview, Dude told the AJC, “We were blindsided by (SB 53). So we want to keep up to date (with any potential annexation scenarios). We want to make sure (the board and Decatur’s city commission) are all on the same page as we move forward.”

In the meantime, Georgia State University released its study of City Schools of Decatur’s homestead exemption for seniors 65 and older. The study concluded the exemption hasn’t altered CSD’s K-12 enrollment growth, and the district lost far more money than originally anticipated after the exemption took effect.