Sounds like you're unfamiliar with Grady. The surrounding neighborhoods do send their kids there (the high home prices are due to great demand for the school district). The Grady cluster is legendary for parental involvement; that's precisely what has made the school successful (starting 30-40 yrs ago, with people with the courage and tenacity to support their local schools in the face of white flight). I agree it would be great if other districts would do the same. The Jackson cluster has the capacity to do so, given the increasing gentrification of the eastside.

Articles in AJC and Patch tout Grady's repeatedly winning state, regional, and national competitions in Debate, Robotics, Mock Trial (world - yes, world - champions), Journalism, Chorus, Orchestra, JROTC, etc, beating other public and private schools alike. They have an outstanding Fine Arts dept. and excellent AP academic achievement. Grady kids win top scholarships and are accepted at the most selective universities in the nation. Andrew Nichols, Grady math teacher and robotics team coach, recently won the 2013 MIT Inspirational Teacher Award.

The Grady community recognizes the value of exposure to socioeconomic diversity. (Going to school with only over-indulged rich kids does not seem a very good education for the real world.) But this also brings the challenges that come with economic disadvantage. And as long as there is bad parenting, rich or poor, there will be bad apples, like the girl with the gun.

If you'd like to see how MH Jackson HS is coming around, see the East Atlanta Patch article, "Jackson High Is Changing, New Principal Will Show You How."

Barbara, I am unfamiliar with the exact current happenings of Grady-- as I am not a student there. I made my comments simply based on the articles and the comments I've happened to read about Grady on The Patch, as well as the one about Inman and other schools... and there just seems to be a lot go negativity in general. There seems to be innuendoes aimed at a particular demographic of students that I feel is abhorred and unfair, not to mention ignorant depending on what is said.

My comments were simply to provide my opinion of direct solutions to the negativity. It doesn't sit well when people criticize without offering some type of solution. And I know personally that parent involvement greatly helps in the success of a school. As well as funding and good teachers/staff.

I spent my undergrad years mentoring and tutoring kids on a weekly basis in various Atlanta Public Schools. I have had friends and associates who attended various APS schools, and many other schools in Georgia-- so my opinion also comes from that.

I am glad to hear that Grady is a top school in many regards concerning its students. That makes me very proud as someone who lives in the neighborhood. Please continue to share with the world all of the accomplishments of Atlanta Public Schools, like Grady-- it's exactly what people need to hear. That type of positive reinforcements goes so much further than negative ones in perception and reality.

Zoe, thank you for your open mind and your service to needy kids. If more of these complainers would volunteer to mentor kids who aren't getting appropriate attention at home, perhaps we'd have fewer thugs on the streets of Midtown.

Stephen, there's really only been one article ("dumb kid brings pistol to school. Shoots self in leg") and all of the rest of it has been all of the comments & follow-up. That said, I hear what you mean about the starbucks across from grady....before my kids started there, I was scared of that scene too. But once i got into the school, I began seeing the kids as individuals...and seeing past the loud herd, if you will. Grady is like every gathering of teenagers...loud, borderline rude...and some on their way to success & others to parts unknown. :)

Stephen, Grady has about 1500 kids. How many of them are you seeing in that public parking lot? What do you think the other 98% are up to?

Do you judge a school by how a small number of reckless teenagers behave off-campus after school? If so, you must have a low opinion of pretty much all high schools, public and private, throughout the nation.

As you say, bad behavior is a parenting problem, not the school's fault. Perhaps it is even more to Grady's credit that it consistently performs so outstandingly despite a segment of population that is not so great.

If parents can't or won't do their job, then the only thing that will help these kids is individualized intervention (e.g., mentoring; effectively, surrogate parenting), the earlier the better.

But we don't have enough resources for such needs, because we must use our limited opportunities for tax revenue on more important things like an unneeded and unwanted new football stadium.