About Fernbank
Fernbank Elementary School is a DeKalb County school. It has served the children of Atlanta since 1957 and is located in Druid Hills, a beautiful historic neighborhood in Atlanta.
Our school is a fully-authorized International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme school. While our primary focus is on providing a quality basic education for all students, we strive to enhance the total education of each child with foreign language, art, music, physical education, and computer/technology literacy.
Quick Facts
Grades: PreK - 5th
School Hours: 7:40am - 2:25pm
School Mascot: Falcon
School Colors: Green & White
Principal: Aaronlyn Wright
Cluster Middle School: Druid Hills Middle School
Cluster High School: Druid Hills High School
International Baccalaureate
The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programs of international education and rigorous assessment.
These programs encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.
School History
The institution that today is known as Fernbank Elementary had its beginning in September of 1919, in the Atlanta suburb of “Druid Hills,” the charter for which had been granted by the DeKalb County Superior Court in June of 1908. The school was started to serve Emory University faculty and staff children, along with those already in the area. Its first home was a temporary wooden building, used as a chapel and assembly hall on the Emory University campus.
The school continued to experience rapid growth through the 1920s, such that the facility on Emory’s campus was no longer adequate and a larger building was again needed. Therefore, the residents of Druid Hills petitioned for the creation of a special school district and the issuance of bonds for the construction of a new school building. This application was approved by the DeKalb County Board of Education on April 18, 1927, and the Druid Hills School District thus was born.
On November 30, 1927, voters within the district approved the issuance of $250,000 in bonds to build a new facility. The trustees of the Druid Hills School District selected 10 acres on Haygood Drive for the new building. On May 8, 1928, the school district purchased the land from Emory University for $10,000. The building was completed on April 22, 1929, and was named Druid Hills School; it housed all grades, elementary through high school. This is where Druid Hills High School now stands.
After World War II, in 1947, the Druid Hills School District was abolished and control of Druid Hills School was transferred to the DeKalb County Board of Education. As enrollment continued to grow, a new building was planned that would house all of Druid Hills School’s elementary and middle school students together in one location. Ground was broken for the new building, to be located on Heaton Park Drive, on February 11, 1957, at 10:30 a.m. The area surrounding the new building’s location was known as "Fernbank." The new school opened in September 1958 and remained in use until 2012. It was demolished and a new, state-of-the-art building was errected in its place. Fernbank's students were housed temporarily in the former Avondale Middle School building during construction, and moved back to Heaton Park in fall of 2015.
