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Dunwoody parents demand school district repair damage as class days near

As of July, DeKalb County said more than 2,200 maintenance work orders are still open in the district. And some of them date back to 2017.

DUNWOODY, Ga. -- Mold, leaky roofs and overcrowding are just some of the issues Dunwoody parents don’t want their kids to see when classes start in three weeks.

They said they’ve been fighting the school district for years, but now they are fed up.

Kimmi Lenertz has two students in Dekalb schools – a rising sophomore and a seventh-grader.

“The trash cans were overflowing, there was never soap,” Lenertz said. “It was disgusting. I have a child at Peachtree, she refuses to use the bathroom. It’s just nasty.”

DeKalb County parents want to see change. So, about 30 parents and kids came together at Dunwoody High School on Friday dressed in school colors to demand it.

Lauren Fincher Taylor’s son will be a fourth-grader at Montgomery Elementary this year.

“We report the violations, we report the conditions our kids go to school in over and over and over again,” she said. “We have to beg, we have to do everything for basic sanitary things for our kids and our teachers.”

Taylor believes the conditions are getting worse. She shared photos of a crumbling ceiling at Montgomery Elementary taken in May and more from just two days ago that she said show mold in trailers used for art and music classes.

At Dunwoody High School, four trailers line the front of the school, one propped on slanted cinder blocks.

“We remain in what is truly a facility crisis,” Dunwoody City Council Member Lynn Deutsch said. “We have thousands of maintenance orders that are never handled, and it isn’t getting any better.”

As of July, DeKalb County said more than 2,200 maintenance work orders are still open in the district. And some of them date back to 2017.

The issues are widespread, but most are either carpentry, HVAC or roof orders.

Despina Lamas has three kids in the school district, one in third grade, another in fourth and the youngest in kindergarten.

“It’s just getting to a point where it is absolutely ridiculous and that’s why we have to go to media about it,” she said.

A representative for DeKalb County Schools said they are “working through the open work orders as they come in” and have budgeted for “more than 30 additional facilities maintenance staff to fix the problems.”

That would make for 141 facilities maintenance workers and 14 centralized custodians across 137 schools.

DeKalb Commissioner Nancy Jester said the solution is simple - though not immediate.

“You wouldn’t have to see this in any community if you simply redistricted and put every child in an actual building,” she said. “We have the space to do it. We should be doing it.”

Concerns from parents have grown so much that they started the Facebook group called Educate Dunwoody.” The group already has around 900 members – many of them parents looking for resolutions.

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