Brookhaven-area families in the Cross Keys cluster could lose their only middle school to a new district and have no funded replacement waiting.

That is the core argument of a Wednesday, Sept. 23 analysis by Brookhaven Planning Commission member David Felfoldi, who sits on the DeKalb County School District (DCSD) Student Assignment Project Community Advisory Team. Sequoyah Middle School, which currently serves Cross Keys students, enrolled 1,453 students this fall. In October 2025, the school held 1,522 students against a listed capacity of 1,170 seats, making it 130% utilized. Sequoyah Middle is slated to become part of a new Sequoyah cluster when a replacement building opens in fall 2027. DCSD has not funded a dedicated middle school for the Cross Keys students left behind.

The gap is not new. DCSD's 2022 Comprehensive Master Plan called for both a new Sequoyah cluster and a new Cross Keys middle school. The middle school never moved forward. Board member Whitney McGinniss said at a Wednesday, Sept. 16 meeting that Cross Keys Middle School was on the ESPLOST VI construction list but "was the first project cut," as reported by Decaturish.

One of four ESPLOST VII options presented at that Sept. 16 board meeting does include a $100 million Cross Keys Middle School conversion and modernization. But the project does not appear in all four options. Voters will decide on ESPLOST VII on Nov. 3. The tax is projected to collect $825 million over five years.

Board member Andrew Ziffer raised the issue at the same meeting. "If you don't have a middle school there, you're going to have some crazy split feeders around there," Ziffer said. "… It's probably an urgent problem that we're not necessarily paying attention to because the voices who would actually attend that school are not very loud."

Felfoldi's analysis underscores that point. DCSD reported 2,328 completed surveys in its first round of public feedback on the Student Assignment Project. Only 2% of respondents identified with Cross Keys, compared with 30% for Chamblee, 27% for Lakeside and 21% for Dunwoody. The Cross Keys Community Advisory Team drew only 20 to 30 participants and flagged outreach, language and communication barriers.

Without a funded middle school, Felfoldi identifies three possible paths for Cross Keys: distribute middle grades across PK-8 programs at John Lewis, Montclair and Woodward elementaries; repurpose Dresden Elementary or Woodward Elementary as an interim sixth- through eighth-grade school; or build a permanent middle school, either by rebuilding Woodward or using the Briarcliff property. He estimates the cluster would need roughly 1,100 to 1,200 middle school seats based on current elementary cohorts.

Interim Superintendent Norman C. Sauce III said in August, when DCSD announced its revised redistricting timeline, that the district wanted "to ensure that students have equitable experiences … across the county" and that it was "a little premature to talk about what decisions will or won't be made," as reported by Atlanta News First. DCSD has not publicly responded to Felfoldi's specific analysis.

The second public comment session for the Chamblee, Dunwoody and Cross Keys clusters is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 24. Community Advisory Teams meet Tuesday, Sept. 29 and Thursday, Oct. 1. A third round of public comment sessions follows Tuesday, Oct. 20 and Thursday, Oct. 22. The Board of Education plans to consider Student Assignment Project recommendations by the end of 2026, according to the district's published timeline.