Special ed students settle into new space at J.D. Davis Elementary School
A white poster board with red writing was still taped to the brick building at J.D. Davis Elementary School on Friday, welcoming special education students from the Woodall Center to their new facility.
The humble sign was just one indication that things have changed at J.D. Davis this academic year. New fencing has been installed to separate the Woodall Center from the elementary school building. Woodall has its own parking area for parents and faculty, and a stand-alone “Woodall Program” sign with the new address, 1822 Shepherd Drive.
Other than that, the first week of school was pretty much as it’s always been, said Carla Henry, the principal at J.D. Davis. She said everything went smoothly despite the Muscogee School District’s last-minute decision to move the Woodall Center to the elementary school. The decision was made after the state declared the center’s former building unsafe and unhealthy.
“It’s really amazing. There has been absolutely no impact on J.D. Davis with the Woodall Center being on the back wing of our building,” Henry said. “No interaction, no contact. It has required no use of my time whatsoever.
“J.D. Davis is functioning day-to-day, just like we’ve always functioned day-to-day,” she said. “Miss McQueen (director of the Woodall Center) has a wonderful staff back there with her program. And my staff is absolutely outstanding. So we’re doing everything each day to make sure our students are learning and thriving.”
So it was Friday, as students across the Muscogee County School District settled into a new school year. The week began with a district-wide enrollment of 31,715 students, said Superintendent David Lewis after the first day of school.
But on Friday afternoon, Valerie Fuller, the district’s director of communications, sent an email to the Ledger-Enquirer stating that “the district is still in the process of inputting assignment sheets, new registrations, and no shows.”
“We anticipate these numbers to be (inputted) and updated for a more accurate count next week,” she said. “We don’t anticipate a decrease or surge, but rather still around the 32,000 mark.”
At J.D. Davis, Henry said the elementary school has an enrollment of about 450 students, not including the approximately 40 students at the Woodall Center.
Woodall is one of 24 facilities in the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support, which serves students with severe emotional or behavioral disorders. The center is the GNETS program for students in Muscogee, Harris, Chattahoochee, Clay, Quitman, Randolph, Stewart and Talbot counties, as well as Fort Benning.
Woodall’s former building, located at 4312 Harrison Ave., is one of nine GNETS facilities that the state considers unfit for students because of health and safety problems.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice conducted an investigation, which found that the state’s operation and administration of the program violates Title II of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act by providing “unequal” opportunities and “unnecessarily segregating students with disabilities from their peers,” according to a letter that Vanita Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney general, wrote to Gov. Nathan Deal and Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens.
In a called meeting on Aug. 1, the Muscogee County School board unanimously voted to approve Lewis’ recommendation to move the program to J. D. Davis. That gave administrators at J.D. Davis and the Woodall Center little time to prepare for the transition, with school starting Aug. 8.
Henry said some people were apprehensive, and it helped that three district officials were on site to help with the transition.
“Initially it was a concern, not just among the parents, but among my faculty also,” she said. “But I think once we communicated how the facility would operate and how it would impact J.D. Davis, those concerns were eliminated immediately. They were concerned that I was going to be in charge of the Woodall program; that that program would become a part of J.D. Davis. But the program is a totally separate entity that’s operated by Miss McQueen, and I have absolutely nothing to do with that program.”
La Christa McQueen, director of the Woodall GNET program, said the moving process was tedious for her staff, but the students had a smooth transition. The program is now housed in a wing at the back of the property. The space was previously used as a data and storage room, as well as a place to meet with parents, Henry said.
“We are here and we are operating our program,” McQueen said Friday. “Our kids are safe, and our kids are learning and they’re getting their academics and the therapeutic piece that they need.”
As for the old building, McQueen said she and others at the center are not looking back.
“The program is the program; the program is not the building,” she said. “So there was not an emotional connection.”
Staff writer Mark Rice contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 12, 2016 at 8:59 PM with the headline "Special ed students settle into new space at J.D. Davis Elementary School."