Any day now,

the phone will ring in the homes of Crabapple Lane Elementary School's

two dozen teachers, its support personnel, its cafeteria workers, and

to alert workers in the facilities maintenance office in Fayetteville.

The message?

"Start moving in."

Dialing the

"emergency phone chain" will be Doe Evans, principal of the

new north Peachtree City school, which will welcome its first students

ever Aug. 11 even though it wasn't contracted for completion until late

in the year.

On Monday,

Evans was still waiting to receive a certificate of occupancy from the

state fire marshal. "They wanted to look at it one last time,"

she said from makeshift quarters at the LaFayette Educational Center.

"Unless

something unforeseen happens, I'm hoping to have the permits in hand on

Saturday, if not earlier," Evans said. "When Cleveland and Minter

elementary schools opened last year, teachers worked over the weekend

to get everything ready."

Crabapple teachers

will be working right on up to Aug. 11 to get their classrooms ready,

too, Evans suggested, but an elaborate, well-planned moving strategy will

hopefully make it efficient and painless.

"Once

we get the OK we'll try to move in all the administrative stuff right

away," Evans said. "All the desks, administrative furniture,

the big-ticket items. Then I'll do the phone chain, and as teachers get

the word they've been instructed to come on over and move in right then."

When they arrive,

each teacher will find his or her personal supplies quick on their tails

if not already sitting in their classrooms.

That's because

movers at the county office will be ready to roll out to the schools where

Crabapple teachers taught last year, load up boxed and labeled supplies

prepared in the spring for the journey, and then deliver them to the proper

classroom at the new school.

Still more

supplies are stacked and ready to move out at nearby Kedron Elementary,

where Evans was prepared to double-up her more than 400 charges if the

new building had not been finished in time.

"It's

important to have all that over first before the teachers can set up,"

she said.

The faculty

won't have to go it alone. Parent volunteers will surely come out in droves,

and the PTO of Flat Rock Middle School has stepped up to lend a hand,

Evans said.

"Grace

Evangelical Church is going to send some volunteers," she added.

"They just called me out of the blue."

As of Monday,

Crabapple had enrolled 475 students in grades K-5. It was projected to

house just 417 this year. "We'll probably be closer to 480 by the

end of the week," Evans said, saying she had no explanation for the

increase.

"I still

have to hire one more teacher," she said. "We'll have 23 homerooms,

four of everything except 5th grade, where we have just three classes."

Last spring,

rising fifth graders could choose to stay at Kedron if they wanted to,

Evans explained.

Also last spring,

the children voted to make The Cardinal the school mascot.

"We have

just the cutest little cardinal mascot printed up on T-shirts," she

said. "We'll have a naming contest for him later in the year."

Evans said

she hopes to have an official ribbon cutting of the school on the first

day as well.