DeKalb County Schools plans to release draft redistricting plans this week that could bring major changes for Brookhaven families.

Here’s what you should know:

DeKalb has about 10,000 fewer students today than in 2014 — leaving the district with about 30 school buildings that are under capacity. To create greater efficiencies and better serve students, the district is considering changing school boundaries, closing schools and making programming changes, including to school choice/magnet programs. The same consulting firm that helped Atlanta with its plan to close 16 schools last year is advising DeKalb.

The enrollment decreases are mostly in the southern part of the county and any school closures are likely to be concentrated there too. But Brookhaven schools could face other kinds of changes, including the possibility of new attendance zones.

The big picture: Ashford Park and Montgomery elementary schools are both seriously overcrowded and in aging buildings. Chamblee High School is expected to be at 123% capacity by 2030. Sequoyah High School will open in a few years, likely affecting the Cross Keys’ attendance zone. There are going to be some changes.

Ashford Park is currently the most overcrowded school in the county and “deserves particular attention,” School Board Member Andrew Ziffer, whose district includes north and part of central Brookhaven, wrote in a recent Facebook post.

“In addition to being severely overcrowded, the site itself is constrained by a smaller lot, making large-scale expansion or full replacement difficult,” he wrote. Planned renovations will improve the building’s condition, but won’t add capacity. (Past discussions of easing overcrowding by rezoning some families to other schools have drawn significant opposition.)

Cary Reynolds Elementary School on East Nancy Creek Drive, across the lake from Montgomery, is expected to return to Chamblee cluster use and could be used to ease overcrowding in the cluster, Ziffer noted.

Chamblee Middle School and Sequoyah Middle School are both expected to be over capacity by 2030. The county will “need to focus carefully to avoid simply shifting pressure from one building to another,” Ziffer wrote.

Chamblee High School and Cross Keys High School are also likely to be an area of focus. Chamblee is projected to be at 123% capacity. Once construction of the new Sequoyah High School is complete, and assuming Sequoyah shares the current Cross Keys attendance zone, Cross Keys and Sequoyah together are expected to be at just 55% capacity. In his post, Ziffer said the imbalance between Chamblee and Cross Keys is a “problem that cannot be solved without looking across cluster lines and reconsidering long-standing boundaries.”

One “key” question: Is moving Chamblee’s magnet program to Cross Keys under consideration? It’s an idea that’s been suggested before. The plans released this week will show if it’s still on the table.

During a recent board discussion, Board Member Whitney McGinnis (who represents south and part of central Brookhaven) addressed community skepticism:

The district will share multiple scenarios this Thursday. In an email that probably also hit your inbox, Interim Superintendent Norman Sauce noted those scenarios are “a starting point for community dialogue.”

Timeline:

Learn more on the Student Assignment Project website, which includes data, meeting videos and presentations.

Related: DeKalb is also planning for an upcoming ESPLOST election which would ask voters to approve a sales tax to pay for school construction and renovation projects. That process is separate from the Student Assignment Project, but obviously related.

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Six AI-enabled Flock surveillance cameras in Brookhaven were exposed to the open internet, allowing anyone to watch live footage of residents. The Brookhaven cameras were part of a national security lapse affecting dozens of Flock cameras across the country, technology news site 404 Media reported.

On a feed from an exposed camera, reporters at 404 Media were able to watch a man rollerblade down Brookhaven’s Peachtree Creek Greenway:

Flock told 404 Media that the security lapse was part of a “limited misconfiguration” and has since been fixed.

Brookhaven’s Flock cameras are part of a multi-million dollar investment in the city’s Real Time Crime Center that uses cameras, drones and other technologies to fight crime across the city.

Flock, a $7.5 billion, Atlanta-based company, is known for its automated license plate reader cameras. More than two dozen cities have terminated their Flock contracts in the past year over concerns about data privacy and federal immigration agencies’ access to the data.

Last month, the Dunwoody City Council paused renewal of a $200,000 Flock contract.

However, the Brookhaven cameras and others cited in the 404 Media investigation are not license plate reader cameras. They’re a different model that records and tracks people. Brookhaven has about 70 of those people-tracking cameras currently installed across the city, mostly on major roads and around city parks, Brookhaven Police Capt. Abrem Ayana said.

Flock notified Brookhaven about the security lapse shortly before the 404 Media article was published, Ayana said.

The Peachtree Creek Greenway camera is in a public space, he said, and “does not hold any information that an individual, a member of the public, wouldn’t be able to gather if they were just standing on the Greenway.”

Brookhaven is not taking any action against Flock in connection with the lapse.

“This is the first lapse of this kind that we’ve seen involving our camera network. We looked at the data that was left available to the public. We understand directly how this occurred,” Ayana said. “They've been transparent with us in how it occurred, and been transparent with us with the steps they've taken since that incident, and we feel comfortable with where they are.”