Tuesday, June 12, 2012
The superintendent offers these options: Move into the Beacon Hill Center or build at Howard and Commerce, on DHS land.
Discussions continue on where to move the central office of the City Schools of Decatur. This is important because attendance is growing, especially in the lower grades. The move would free up the Westchester building, where administrative offices are now located, to be used again as an elementary school. At the school board meeting on Tuesday, Superintendent Phyllis Edwards will give two recommendations: The board is not expected to vote on the options Tuesday night. In other business, the school board is expected to approve a 2012-13 budget. The millage rate would remain at 20.90 mills. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in the central office at the Westchester Building, 758 Scott Blvd. A work session on transportation will be held at 5:30 …
Monday, April 16, 2012
The two groups will hold an unusual joint meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday.
Decatur's school board and city commission will hold an unusual joint meeting Monday to talk about the possibility of moving the school administrative offices into the Beacon Hill Center. The joint meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in city hall, with the regular commission meeting starting at 7:30 p.m. The public is invited. The school administrative offices are now located in the Westchester building on Scott Boulevard, a former elementary school. School enrollment grew about 12 percent this year compared to last and the school system has talked about reopening Westchester as a school to handle the growing student body. The Beacon Hill Center used to be Trinity High, the high school for black students before integration. It now houses the …
Friday, January 20, 2012
"I was a country girl, so coming from Greensboro, Ga., it was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen."
Former Decatur Mayor Elizabeth Wilson remembers Beacon Hill, Decatur's early black community, as a warm and lively place when she was growing up. One restaurant sold pig ear sandwiches, knicknamed "hearing aid sandwiches." All the adults looked after all the children, giving credence to the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. "I was a country girl," she said, "so coming from Greensboro, Ga., it was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen." But starting in the late 1930s, the homes, schools and churches of Beacon Hill were gradually torn down in the name of urban renewal. She said the powers that be looked upon her neighborhood "as a cancer." Wilson described Beacon Hill's history and remembered some of the leading residents …
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Elizabeth Wilson will give her talk at noon Tuesday, Jan. 17.
Right after MLK Day, former Decatur Mayor Elizabeth Wilson will give a talk about "the Beacon Hill Community and Civil Rights in Decatur." She'll speak at noon Tuesday, Jan. 17, in the top courtroom/meeting space of the DeKalb History Center at 101 E Court Square, Decatur. The free event is part of the Lunch and Learn series. Beacon Hill was an African-American neighborhood near downtown Decatur bordered by Atlanta Avenue, Herring Street and Robin Street. The old Beacon Hill School is one of the last surviving buildings; it's now home to the Decatur Police Department and, temporarily, the city recreation center. Much of the neighborhood was wiped out by urban renewal that started in the 1940s, as described in a 2010 article in the …
Rhonda
7:26 pm on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Are you kidding me?! I am still spitting mad that they kicked our children out of Westchester in the first place, and now, just a few years later, they want to turn it back into a school again?? Guess they were relying on some faulty research that indicated Decatur had too many elementary schools, and gee, Westchester would be a super school to close. You can not begin to fathom the damage that … more ›