FHECC History

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The Forrest Hills Elementary Community Coalition was formed in the Fall 2003 and 1500 flyers were distributed to households in neighborhoods within the school district advertising its first meeting in Jan uary 2004. The goal of the group is to reach out to families in the school district, especially those with preschool-aged children, in order to offer support and plan for future attendance at Forrest Hills Elementary.

In spite of a high-mobility rate (50-60% turnover in the classrooms each year) the test scores are come up and have been getting higher each year for the last four years. In 2003-2004, 68% of the students met or exceeded the standard in Math and 73% met or exceeded the standard in English/Language Arts (since 2000: up 19% in Math and up 27% in ELA)

Some parents are concerned about the lower socio-economic households that the majority of the students come from (90% on free or reduced lunch). There is a high transient population since many students come from rental communities with 6 months to 1 year leases.

The school's diversity does not reflect the diversity of the community. The coalition hopes to increase the diversity through enrollment of children from families from homes throughout the school district. Families who are homeowners in the community will lower the turnover rate and the "core" group of students will remain constant and more stable.

The coalition wants to get more information out to the community through the media in order to combat the negative perception and inaccurate information about Forrest Hills Elementary.

PTA is a very important element of the success of this coalition. Through recruitment, information and assistance, the coalition hopes to form a well-organized and student-supporting group of parents, teachers and community members for the 2004-2005 school year. We are currently recruiting parents and the next PTA meeting will be on September 23 at 6pm .

Other projects/goals include:

    • tutoring initiative (pdf)
    • collaboration with other community coalitions
    • partners in education
    • publicity
    • fundraising
    • community outreach

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Forrest Hills Neighborhood Association - P.O. Box 293, Decatur, GA 30030