Richmond County parents come out for last rightsizing meeting

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Tuesday was the last chance for parents to weigh in on the future of several Richmond County elementary schools.

This plan will shut down schools and merge others. We spoke with some parents about how they feel about the plan.

Surprisingly it wasn’t all bad feedback. Some parents think the plan is understandable with the way the population is shifting, but others had concerns. Classroom size, transportation, and most importantly the children were the biggest concerns.

“I just wanted to, you know, make sure that they have taken everything into consideration for the better education of these children,” said Alicia Harris, parent.

Harris is in support of the rightsizing plan. She hopes class sizes won’t suffer.

“I believe that what they’re doing with the rezoning or resizing would be great as long as we can stick to that 15 to 20 kids per classroom,” she said.

Monique Braswell says her family was affected by rightsizing ten years ago. She came to the meeting to reason with parents on why the school system is doing it this time around.

“There are no kids in those neighborhoods to fill the schools. So they have no choice. It’s not about the money for every situation here. Okay. It’s about the children at this point,” she said.

As far as the families at Willis Foreman, Wheeless Road, and the other Richmond County schools could be impacted, Braswell encourages them to see the other side.

“My heart definitely goes out to you because nobody wants to be shoved away from what they’re comfortable with. But as parents, we play a huge part in that too,” she said.

The school board says they’re taking all of the comments from the public hearings into consideration when making their final decision, and we’ll hear that decision at their next meeting.

Copyright 2023 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.