Tucker Cluster News

THS alumni pro football players host students for World Mental Health Day.

One of the lesser-known celebrations in March is National School Breakfast Week.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics programming promotes critical problem-solving skills and challenges students.

Many high school student athletes around the nation are striving, jumping through hoops, and putting in blood, sweat and tears to earn an athletic scholarship for college.

Two students sit at a table in a brightly lit room. There is a green screen behind them, and they take turns reading text off a teleprompter. 

Open communication has been an important part of Mrs. McCloud’s tenure as principal of Smoke Rise Elementary School since 2014. 

Get to know our local principals and put a face with the name.

This time last year, the students of Damanko-Baduli Junior High School in Ghana did not have a library.

During the 2021-2022 school year, the District emerged from pandemic-related shutdowns. Kids returned to classrooms, bolstered by additional mental health supports and interventions for learning recovery.

The Tucker Cluster Council was created in 2017 at the urging and under the direction of our former DeKalb County School District Board Member Jim McMahan.

"The opportunity to work in a space that allows me, through collaboration, the chance to continue strengthening and building the relationships between the schools within the Tucker cluster is what brought me back to this community."

Get to know Tucker's own Valedictorian Alexander Rice and  Salutatorian Alyssa Brooks.

Across America, music in schools has something of a fraught history. 

There are many ways to support your local schools. Some of the most well-known include joining the parent-teacher association or volunteering for school events.

While women make up 48 percent of the workforce, their employment has lagged in the field of computer science.

Exciting things are happening at all seven of Tucker’s cluster schools. Students are achieving and growing, and great strides are being made inside and outside of the classroom.

Smiling photo of Dr. Brenda Cunningham outside the entrance to Tucker Middle school.Things have changed in education since Dr. Kathy Cunningham began her career four decades ago..

In a school district the size of DeKalb County, change is inevitable. The Board of Education recently decided the time was right to undergo a Comprehensive Master Plan (CMP) process.

At Midvale Elementary School, students have a brand new outdoor laboratory, the learning garden. 

America today is hampered by workforce shortages the likes of which have not been seen in generations. 

The school shares the same model as other recently constructed DeKalb County schools including the new Fernbank Elementary and Pleasantdale Elementary.

Teaching is one of the toughest professions around. Sure, there are perks...

Congratulations to Tucker High School’s Class of 2021! The 2021 class is headlined by valedictorian Benen Chancey and salutatorian Sofia Khemani.

During that meeting, several members of the DeKalb County School District leadership team provided updates to the group on how things are going in the District on a number of fronts.

Coaching changes are pretty rare when you’re talking about the Tucker High School football team.

For months, the issue of reopening schools was very much a partisan one.

Most high schoolers are doing well to find ways to make a difference in their community.

With the scientific community coalescing around the notion that in-person learning is, in fact, the best and safest option for children, students across the DeKalb County School District are headed back to class.

Tens of thousands of students and parents across the DeKalb County School District have nearly completed their fall semester of virtual learning... 

Pick up and drop off are a little bit busier these days at Rehoboth Baptist Church. 

Easily Tucker’s most diverse school, Idlewood boasts a student population that hails from several dozen countries and speaks a variety of languages.

Sometimes being small can have its advantages. Just ask the administration of Smoke Rise Prep, a private K-8 school on Hugh Howell Road here in Tucker.

The search for a new superintendent of DeKalb County schools was a longer process than the Board of Education might have expected. But when the dust cleared, there was one woman standing from that nationwide search.

One of the biggest unanswered questions from the coronavirus pandemic is what we will do with our nation’s children when the new school year begins.

For years, STEM has been a big buzz word in education. Not just here in metro Atlanta, but all across the country, schools have rushed to gain STEM certification.

Congratulations to Tucker High School’s Class of 2020! This hard-working class is headlined by valedictorian Luma Younis and salutatorian Bidhya Pradhan.

One of the groups whose routine has been most disrupted by the outbreak of the coronavirus is young people. Just as they were beginning to count down the days until Spring Break, their semester was abruptly cut short, leaving them with a lot of questions and uncertainty.

Simone Kelly is a busy woman. In addition to leading the gifted program at Livsey Elementary School, she also moonlights as the school’s theatre teacher. And the Academic Bowl advisor. And the Science Olympiad coordinator. 

Allyson Gevertz is one of seven elected representatives on the DeKalb County Board of Education. Elected in 2018 to represent DeKalb’s District 4, Gevertz represents an area that includes the Tucker Cluster.

As Timothy Simmons conducts his choir at the Tucker Middle School Winter Concert, he looks back at a crowd of familiar faces. It’s not just his students’ parents who have come to see the performance tonight. 

Erica Bower walks the halls of Tucker High School just like any other senior. As she counts down the days to graduation, Erica’s mind jumps between any number of topics ... 

If you ask a teacher why they chose that particular profession, you could get any number of answers. For some, it’s the opportunity to shape and mold young minds. 

Students in Mr. Minott’s ESOL class at Tucker High School have a unique way of learning. These students are picking up the English language, so traditional textbooks and novels aren’t always the best tools.

The new school year always brings new school supplies, new friends and, for one Tucker Cluster School, it brought a new principal. Idlewood Elementary School welcomed Ms. Robin Elder to their campus this August with open arms and hearts. 

Longtime DeKalb County School Board member Jim McMahan died last month in an accident at the age of 53. The death of McMahan, who represented an area which includes the Tucker Cluster schools, made the news because of his position as a former elected official. But here in Tucker, his death had people talking because of the type of person he was and because of what he stood for: our students.

This summer marks a huge milestone for a project three years in the making. Contractors for the DeKalb County School District are expected to break ground in the next couple of months on a new, state-of-the-art elementary school to replace the existing Smoke Rise Elementary. 

Students and teachers in Tucker’s seven cluster schools are out for the summer, but at the schools themselves, there is a lot of important work going on to enhance safety. 

It’s a sunny Tuesday afternoon and Sophie Johnson and her friends are making the most of it. Grabbing a notepad, the second-grader sketches some hostas she’s planted in the courtyard of Brockett Elementary School. 

Recently Region II Superintendent Trenton Arnold delivered a State of the Region Address to parents and educators for DeKalb School District Region II, which includes the Tucker Cluster, that highlighted continued improvements across a number of areas during the 2018-’19 school year.

James Hartry owes everything he has to basketball. Don’t believe it? The proof is right there in his family tree. “Trace the Hartrys out of Milledgeville. Five brothers, all five of us went to school on basketball scholarships,” he recounts. 

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It’s Valentine’s Day at Tucker Brewing Company and several well-dressed men have come out in search of love. But despite their best efforts, these guys won’t have a say in which lady becomes their date for the night. That’s because they’ve signed up to participate in the first-ever Tucker Brewing Bachelor Auction.

February is recognized as National Library Lover’s Month. In past generations, the school library was seen as a place for bookworms to dig through a card catalog or silver screen delinquents to spend a Saturday detention. Today, the school library is a high-tech spot. 

Walk through the second-floor hallway of Tucker Middle School at 4:30 on any given Monday afternoon and you’ll hear a buzz. As you get closer to Room A202, that buzz intensifies, growing to a roar. Inside the class, dozens of pre-teen boys are locked in fierce competition, trash talking one another and sweating it out as they vie for victory. 

Over the years, Habitat for Humanity has become a familiar concept. A family in need applies for a home repair, renovation or brand-new construction. If they are accepted, they will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with volunteers working on their own home.

Tucker’s schools are enjoying a renaissance. Several of the Tucker Cluster schools have gained STEM and/or IB certification, CCRPI scores are routinely meeting or exceeding state averages and Tucker High School’s graduation rate is now routinely among the highest in DeKalb County.

In the classic film The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy clicks her heels together three times and declares, “There’s no place like home.” While he doesn’t wear anything resembling ruby red slippers, the new principal of Tucker High School can understand where Dorothy’s coming from. 

Region II Superintendent Trenton Arnold delivered a State of the Region Address to parents and educators at Tucker High School. Region II, which includes the Tucker Cluster, continued its impressive improvements across a number of areas during the 2017-’18 school year.

The Tucker Tigers football team had 17 young men sign national letters of intent Wednesday to continue playing football at various collegiate levels. Five of those players signed to play at Power Five schools, while four are headed to the Southeastern Conference.

Carolyn Collins has become something of a cult celebrity around the City of Tucker. The Tucker High School custodian has quietly provided necessities like coats, shoes and food for homeless students for the past three years. 

Tamra Watts knows she’s stepping into a great situation. “I tell everybody I’ve died and gone to heaven,” she explains. “The people here are wonderful (and) the students are just fabulous.”

It’s understandable if the Mustangs of Midvale Elementary School seem to be galloping proudly into the summer break. Administrators and faculty celebrated last month when they officially received their STEM certification from AdvancED, an international accrediting agency that works with schools in more than 70 countries.

Fresh off an appearance in the AAAAAA state championship game, Tucker High School head football coach Bryan Lamar was named the Atlanta Falcons’ Coach of the Year this week.

Tucker High School saw an increase in its graduation rate in 2016 to 90.4 percent, one of the highest rates in Metro Atlanta. According to statistics released by the Georgia Department of Education, Tucker had a 3.5 percentage point increase in its graduation rate from 2015, making it one of just five high schools in DeKalb County to achieve that amount of progress year-over-year.