The Clarke County School District faces major attendance changes for its elementary school students as attendance zones convert optional school attendance to mandatory zoning in the upcoming 2009-2010 school year.

 Four attendance areas existed in the previous plan in which parents got to choose from up to four schools to place their children, said Cheryl Phillips, administrative assistant in the public relations office at the Athens Clarke County Board of Education. The attendance areas have now been rezoned and, after a period of transitional exceptions, optional schools have been eliminated.

 “The Choice Assignment Plan was started in the school year of 1995-1996,” Phillips said. “Parents ranked their options of schools and up to 96 percent received their first choice.”

 Changes are being made due to three reasons, Phillips said.  “We need to provide certainty to families in the registration process, equalize enrollment, and reduce transportation costs. “

“The number one reason for changing the Choice Assignment Plan is because of Athens’ increased transportation costs,” Phillips said.  “Athens has one of the highest transportation costs in the state.”  

 Clarke County spends almost double the state average in transportation costs per student, according to the Georgia Department of Education.

 The Board of Education’s new zones were designed to create more efficient transportation patterns and to equalize enrollment. 

According to the school district, Athens anticipates saving $1 million in annual transportation costs. 

The district aims to eventually have 400 to 450 students in each elementary school.  Inequality is a problem as both Whit Davis Elementary and Gaines Elementary schools currently have over 600 students, according to Clarke County School District.

 “I have too many kids,” Gaines Elementary School principal Phylis Stuart said.  “My school has 667 students.”

 Stuart expects that almost half of her students will be rezoned to different schools after the new Neighborhood School Attendance Policy is implemented next school year.  A new batch of children will be rezoned to Gaines Elementary School, bringing the student population down to six hundred.  A new elementary school opening next fall will relieve overcrowding at Gaines as well.

 Some parents oppose the new policy.

“Some parents expressed concerns moving to the Neighborhood Attendance Policy because their children were rezoned out of schools they had been in their whole lives,” Phillips said.

 “The parents want their kids to stay in Gaines,” Stuart said.  “There weren’t any protests or anything like that; they just came to me personally.”

 There are some transition exceptions that will ease parental opposition.  Students rising to their last year (5^th grade) in elementary school will be allowed to stay in their current school for one last year.   

Students are guaranteed a seat at the school they are zoned to.  However, school choice could remain an option on the condition that space is available in the desired school.   

Shantytown in Athens

The sounds of traffic surround the handful of shanties nestled at the corner of Lexington Road and Athens Perimeter.  

A canopied trail leads to the Athenian shantytown.  Plywood nailed to a simple frame make the huts that a portion of Athens’ homeless calls home.  This impoverished community lives with no electricity or running water. 

 Recent job crises and housing failures dump more people into tent cities across America, making modern-day hoovervilles, according to a New York Times report.  These shantytowns sprout across America, rooting themselves under power lines, near highways, in public parks and on fair grounds.

 The national trend of swelling and sprouting shantytowns foreshadow a growth to Athens’ Tent City.

Unlike most shantytowns, Athens’ Tent City is not an illegal encampment.   Homeless have camped on this private property – open to the homeless – for 17 years, freeing itself of any state regulation. 

More than 500 homeless people in Athens-Clarke County make up one of Georgia top homeless populations, according to Channel 5 News.

 Athens Area Homeless Shelter and other homeless assistance programs provide refuge for Athens’ homeless population.

 Athens’ hospitals spent at least $12.4 million on homeless patients in 2005, according to Athens-Clarke County Department of Human and Economic Development. 

 However, Athens does very little to improve living conditions for the homeless huddled at Tent City, Ronald Wynn a local advocate for the homeless said in an Athens Banner-Herald report. 

 “They need counseling to help their sense of self-worth,” Wynn said.  “Yes, they have to want to be helped, but if you don’t seek to find out if they want it, you will never know. There’s no liaison between the community and the people in the mud.”

 Crouched on a cot in one of Tent City ’s shanties, a homeless lady bursts out with a string of profanity as she expresses her disappointment in Athens ’ efforts to help their impoverished state. 

 “There are a few people who bring up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and water,” she said ungratefully as she put tobacco in rolling paper.  “We need supplies.  We need batteries, blankets, fuel.”

DUI Schools Flourish in Athens

On St. Patrick’s Day Daniel Wetmore, was stopped at a DUI checkpoint as he escorted a handful of downtown fun-lovers home.  Wetmore is an employee of Zingo, a transportation service aimed at cleaning the streets of drunk drivers.  

Athens’ downtown nightlife and alcohol culture makes Athens a great market for the DUI school industry. 

Athens has four DUI school, more schools than any other city in Georgia -minus Atlanta- according to Georgia Department of Driver Services.  Augusta and Columbus have three DUI Schools and have nearly twice the population as Athens.

The University of Georgia Police Department and the Athens Clarke County Police Department executed a DUI crackdown on St. Patrick’s Day and set up various checkpoints on Athens’ roads.  Police arrested 63 people for DUI after over 700 vehicles were stopped, according to The Red and Black. 

“[After arrest] there are many avenues that a DUI offender might take,” said Officer Darrell Ponder from the UGA Police Department.  “A DUI is a misdemeanor until their fourth offense, but every time a person arrested for a DUI punishment can vary from mandatory DUI classes and community service to jail time.” 

Some of these 63 DUI arrests will soon be presented with the option, maybe only option, of taking a course at one of the four Athenian DUI schools, Officer Ponder said. 

The course is 20 hours long and the total cost is $280, according to Georgia Department of Driver Services. 

Athens drinking and driving problem is a blemish on the community but the DUI schools flourish.

DUI offenses within five years of each other for one violator are beyond DUI schools’ help, according to the Georgia Department of Driver Services.  Multiple DUI violations require a heavier punishment.   

Upon the fourth offense they are considered to have a habitual violation status and a system is placed in the offender’s car.  He must pass a breathalyzer test to start his car.  If he fails the test he will be arrested, Officer Ponder said. 

“If they take a DUI class or not is up to the judge,” said Susan Poss, a DUI instructor that teaches the Prime for Life class at A-1Athens DUI and Defensive Driving School. 

“My class has an average of 15 students and there are always UGA students-an average of three or four,” Poss said.  “It teaches low risk guidelines in order to avoid future course of prevention and figures out [the DUI students’] level of risk.”

The University of Georgia Police arrested 207 people for DUIs in 2008, said Ponder.

The DUI industry has marched in to swallow the market Athens provides, said Mike Salck owner and of A-1 DUI and Defensive Driving School, the biggest DUI and defensive driving school in Georgia, owning 14 schools. 

Georgia consists of over 200 DUI schools owned by individually owned companies that fund and found two trade associations (Driving Educator of Georgia and Georgia association of Risk Reduction Education [GARDE]) that participate in the companies’ public relations and collaborate between the companies, Salck said. 

The state’s regulating hand is firm in this industry.  The state requires licenses for everything.  “The state licenses all DUI companies.  Each school has a separate license to operate.  The instructors of the courses have to receive a license,” said Salck.  “This ensures that all the classes are the same and that the students get the highest caliber of learning and training.”

Many options are available to prevent partiers from driving while intoxicated and all the dangers that come with it, other than a tag-along designated driver. 

Zingo sends designated drivers, like Wetmore, on scooters that collapse into the trunk of the customers’ vehicles and drive them to their destination in their own car.

On the busiest days of the week Zingo gets an average of 10-14 calls a night and over 20 calls during football season, said Wetmore, dispatcher and driver for Zingo. Zingo’s set price is $20 per ride and two dollars per mile after three miles. 

“I’d have to say 80 to 90 percent of our calls are from downtown [Athens],” said Wetmore.  “I’d say that most people, if Zingo did not pick them up they’d drive home drunk.”

 “I probably saved them thousands of dollars and their lives,” Wetmore said from that St. Patrick’s night.  “I love my job because I do feel like I’m saving lives.”

Athens Economy Recedes to Alcohol

Donned in green shirts, suspenders, bow ties, and leprechaun hats, crowds of partiers swarmed the streets of Athens Tuesday night to celebrate an Irish holiday and give downtown the needed economic influx.

Not only did celebrators around the United States find St. Patrick’s Day an excuse to drown themselves in beer but apparently the economic crisis is reason enough also.

As the hotels, Classic Center, and other downtown businesses in the hospitality industry in Athens spiral with the current national economic recession, bars tend to blossom.

Athens’ downtown has 1,115 hotel rooms, over 55 restaurants, over 20 coffee shops, and all within an award-winning entertainment district. This connection makes downtown Athens vulnerable to the domino effect. One’s losses are another’s losses too.

According to the Athens Banner Herald, hotels are suffering from the economic blow. Bookings for conventions in hotels are stagnate but for individual bookings are down. In general bookings for hotels in downtown Athens are down by eight percent since fall 2008.

The Classic Center has had a successful 14 years of existence since a public skeptical acceptance and has even managed to rid itself of a $250,000 annual city stipend, making it independent of public funds.

“There has been a shift from them asking, ‘How are you doing?’ and, ‘Are you making money?’ to, “What’s coming next on events?’” said Maureen Baker, Classic Center’s sales director. “The Classic Center was meant to be a cultural, social, and civic center for Athens, meant to maximize an economic impact by bringing outsiders or visitors to Athens,”

However, after almost a decade and a half of growth the Classic Center’s revenues have buckled with the rest of the economy.

This crunch has led the Classic Center to lay off some part-time employment and has discontinued new positions, adding to the present job crisis. It has even had to make a six percent pay cut for all employees and a 10 percent pay cut for its Executive Director, Paul Cramer, according to Blake Aeud’s article in the Athens Banner Herald, “Athens Tourism Hit but not Fatally.”

The Classic Center’s success is measured in “the level of revitalization of downtown. We want downtown to grow with us,” said Baker. “We need [other downtown businesses] and they need us. There have been many instances when our venues, restaurants, and other music venues are all full at the same time. Seeing downtown alive is very rewarding to us.”

Amidst this global bearing down of markets, alcohol sales bull up.

As the recession oozes deeper into the economy, going from shrinking stocks to a swelling tumor of unemployment, alcohol sales benefit. Many other consumer goods are struggling as the consumer crisis stifles wallets, nonetheless alcohol stands firm. But why is this so?
“People are drinking more, because people tend to drink more during tough times,” said JP Morgan beverage analyst John Faucher in a Reuters report. Industry figures confirm this statement by proving alcohol sales have gradually increased in the past few months.
A small sample of bars taken from the downtown area shows that Athens is following the national trend of spiked alcohol revenues during a recession. The Downtown Athens’ website lists 56 bars in downtown Athens! Well, supply must meet demand. Three bar managers- from Max Canada, The Loft, and Trapeze- have reported a boost.
“This lifestyle is so ingrained in Athens that I think it will be one of the last things to go,” said Patrick Ennis, Assistant Manager of Trapeze. “People do not want to give up luxury and this is a cheap form of luxury.”

The Bandwagon to Historical Preservation

You don’t have to travel to Paris or Rome to see a city stopped in time.  Historical preservation is sweeping the New World, even the smallest American town. 

Athens made it into the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of Dozen Distinctive Destinations for 2009 in January.  Athens’ eagerness to preserve historical sites in the city is responsible for this honorable recognition.

Historical preservation is not only taken seriously in Athens; it is a national trend that swallowed the Clarke County community decades ago.  The trend still goes strong as more sites are being historically preserved and other towns and cities establish new historic preservation foundations.

In 1959 the Athens Historical Society was founded with the purpose “to collect materials, especially original and source materials pertaining to the history of Athens,” according to its constitution.

The Athens Clarke Heritage Foundation started in 1967 and a group made up of “citizen experts” on historical preservation started in 1986, both aimed to historically preserve sites in Clarke County, said Milton Leathers (Athenian native, historian, and former volunteer president of Athens Clarke Heritage Foundation).

 “The preservation of Athens was influenced by Savannah and Columbus,” said Leathers.  “They had already begun foundations designed to historically preserve their city and Athens followed.”  Savannah’s historical preservation organization started in 1955 and Columbus was soon afterward. 

The 1960s saw a big wave of historical preservation in American towns and cities.  Buffalo, New York; Franklin, Tennessee; Santa Barbra, California; and Santa Fé, New Mexico; among other cities that share a spot with Athens on the of Dozen Distinctive Destinations’ list, have historical preservation foundations that started in the 1960s. 

“I’m sure the same influence we got from Savannah and Columbus went on to other towns,” said Leather. 

Now rural Georgian towns are adopting historical preservation organizations.  Bainbridge and Bowdon now have historical preservation organizations that started in the 1980s. 

The many heritage foundations have been successfully established throughout the U.S. and they are successfully preserving. 

In the past five years Athens Clarke Heritage Foundation has preserved 198 individually owned areas, 114 in the downtown district and 84 on the Reece Street district, said Amber Mason, head of the Planning Department for the ACHF.  Some are building and some are vacant lots.

The Heritage Foundation for Franklin, Tennessee has successfully preserved 38 sites and over 140 acres of Civil War battlefields in the past six years, said Mary Pearce, executive director of the Heritage Foundation of Franklin.

The Historic Preservation Commission in the small town of Bowdon has protected a handful of houses and churches in the past 3 years. 

What is it that makes historical preservation so appealing?

“Historical preservation is about tangible evidence of our past,” said Amy Kissane, executive director of Athens Clarke Heritage Foundation.   “It gives a sense of identity.” 

“Historical Preservation has given Franklin economical benefits,” said Mary Pearce.  “There are many outsiders that tour here in Franklin to visit our Civil War sites.”

”Of course there are economical benefits; many tourists want to see historical downtown,” said Kissane.  “However, I don’t think that should be the reason to preserve.  I think the main reason is for the sense of identity.  I’d hate to imagine a world of big boxed stores.  I think that would have a negative psychological effect.”

“That is how we would have to sell it to the city,” said Leathers.  “We’d have to show how it’d up tourism. Not that there is a problem with that.  We didn’t care about tourism; we just wanted to save the building.”

Leathers finds it “a bit ridiculous” that the historically-preserved label has been commercialized so much.  When he drives through small towns and sees their attempt to create a historically preserved district he says he wonders what someone from England would think.  “England!  Now that place has history,” Leathers chuckles. 

These historically-minded cities have adopted city ordinances to better protect their city’s history.  Athens has the Historical Preservation Ordinance which says what can and cannot be done to historically preserved sites.   The mayor has the power to choose which sites should be deemed historically preserved.  If the area is designated as historically preserved then the owner cannot change the building’s façade.  If someone wanted to change the façade of a preserved area, a planning commission of seven people must approve. 

Pearce described a similar process that one must go through to change a historically preserved area in Franklin. 

“I don’t think this trend will click with time.  They will probably start preserving the first indoor carwash 20 years from now,” she said.