Plano West to soon have largest HS in all of Texas (Dallas: elementary schools, living in)
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Funny how in all 4 scenarios, Frankford and Renner go to PWHS?
I haven't been able to find any info about plans to move forward with a magnet school. Hasn't a building been purchased already? Is it even on the agenda?
Funny how in all 4 scenarios, Frankford and Renner go to PWHS?
That doesn't bother me - Renner is co-located with PWSH, and the only other semi-plausible assignment for Frankford would be Vines/PSHS, which would leave Shepton half-empty. It's the nonchalance with which they vaporize the current Jasper that demonstrates chutzpah.
An important thing to note is that these 4 scenarios are "official" scenarios, issued by the PISD administration. They're not just some pie-in-the-sky dreamed up by a small group of parents. Given that, they need to be taken seriously by PISD residents.
All 4 of the scenarios have, to me, fatal flaws.
2 of them have "islands" of students being bussed to Shepton from the far northern parts of the district, including neighborhoods that can currently walk to Jasper. How do you justify a "Plano North" when kids living along McDermott will be bussed to Plano Pkwy. for 9th grade?
The other 2 have "out of zone" schools. That is, the entire school population is being bussed in from areas NOT including the campus. One plan has a "Plano North" zone excluding Robinson. Another plan has a Vines zone not including Wilson.
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Setting those glitches aside, all 4 plans produce enrollments at Shepton in the 2400+ range. If I'm a Willow Bend resident, and I have to choose between the following sets of enrollments:
Shepton 1650, PWSH 3150
Shepton 2450, PWSH 2450
I think I'd find the first one much more attractive.
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Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I see this 4th senior high idea as a non-starter.
Given the enormous dust storm caused when PISD tried to move 1/3 of the kids out of Jasper, I can't imagine a universe where Jasper parents will stand by and allow their school to be hijacked for use as a kludged-on senior high.
Plus, Friedman is on record, during his campaign, as opposing a 4th school and admitting PISD doesn't have money for a 4th senior high.
You ask me, the PISD admin released this set of particularly unworkable options to provide political cover for the trustees to forget about 4 senior high schools and go to Plan B.
Plan B, IMO, is going to be revoking the Schimelpfenig choice zone, something Friedman and Stolle are BOTH on record as being unhappy with.
I'm in total agreement, and I think your cynicism is well-founded.
So -- you think the official agenda (4th HS) will be struck down, and they instead will rescind the Schimelpfenig choice rule - which is what the PWHS racist crybabies really wanted in the first place?
I'm in total agreement, and I think your cynicism is well-founded.
So -- you think the official agenda (4th HS) will be struck down, and they instead will rescind the Schimelpfenig choice rule - which is what the PWHS racist crybabies really wanted in the first place?
Yeesh!
I think that's the endgame. The $17 million plan for proposed renovations to PWSH includes accomodating 1/2 of SMS. Remove those 300 or so kids from the campus (bringing the projected PWSH enrollment to the 2800-2900 range), and the project's scale and cost can be reduced.
Demonstrate to the district as a whole that keeping the choice zone for one middle school will require an additional cost of several million $$$ in PWSH renovations, and that small segment won't have a leg to stand on.
Offering a weak defense for PWSH people: While I DO think that's what a lot of PWSH people wanted in the first place (including Robinson and Rice parents), that's NOT what the anti-Asian component was angling for. They want RICE to be shuffled off to another senior high. It's not plausible to justify moving Rice back to PSHS, thus the need for artificially introducing a 4th senior high.
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The official agenda packet refers to 4 approaches to be considered:
The Administration understands that the Board is considering 4 different options and that this report is the first step. The Board and the Administration will discuss: the current alignment plan, adding a 4th senior high, balancing PWSH and PSHS, or balancing 3 senior highs. This report is not a recommendation by the Administration, but does provide a platform for these discussions.
However, they only provide information for approaches 1 and 2. There are currently no official PISD admin options on how to re-align the boundaries, while keeping 3 senior highs.
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Also, in a not-so-unrelated note, the board is planning to raise the debt service tax rate by 2 cents. That's BEFORE they undertake tens of millions in additional projects.
Big G and other PISD residents;
It would appear to me that PISD is fracturing into battlefields pitching different groups against one another; East Plano vs West Plano, Asian vs Non Asian, and now, self absorbed vocal minority from Willow Bend vs everyone else. It seems that this is just a smaller, scaled down version of the battles that took place in DISD back in the 70s...eventually leading to a mass exodus out of DISD that the district has really not recovered from till this day. Is it safe to say that PISD is inevitably headed down the same path? I keep hearing the battle cries over realignment as everyone tries to get away from everyone else...So to a future homeowner with school age kids why should I not look to a more 'stable' district like say Allen?
I don't have a dog in the fight, but as a graduate of PWSH, I'm interested.
I've followed this thing from the start back when they first started all the propositions. I've always been against the SMS Choice. It's just stupid. Big G made an excellent point when he said taking away the choice would lower the expansion cost and scale.
Instead of that, they're talking about spending 33 mil on a new senior high school? what?
It seems that this is just a smaller, scaled down version of the battles that took place in DISD back in the 70s...eventually leading to a mass exodus out of DISD that the district has really not recovered from till this day. Is it safe to say that PISD is inevitably headed down the same path?
??? - It's not even the same set of players. The ethnic breakdown of PISD is approximately 50/20/20/10 white/Asian/Hispanic/black. There is no "black" neighborhood in PISD - they're distributed fairly evenly throughout the district. Yes, even in Willow Bend.
Is the district going to go down the toilet? I doubt it - RISD hasn't.
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I keep hearing the battle cries over realignment as everyone tries to get away from everyone else...So to a future homeowner with school age kids why should I not look to a more 'stable' district like say Allen?
That's exactly why so many people are up in arms about re-opening the zoning debate. One thing a mature district like PISD or RISD can offer is stability. The district isn't building schools and re-zoning neighborhoods every 2 years, like Frisco ISD. (The 2009 re-zoning was the first major district-wide change in 10 years.)
In general, that would have been a good precedent to stick to. People shopping for houses would like to have a clear idea of what schools go with that house. Adopting a policy of jacking the borders whenever the board feels like it doesn't help at all.
??? - It's not even the same set of players. The ethnic breakdown of PISD is approximately 50/20/20/10 white/Asian/Hispanic/black. There is no "black" neighborhood in PISD - they're distributed fairly evenly throughout the district. Yes, even in Willow Bend.
Is the district going to go down the toilet? I doubt it - RISD hasn't.
That's exactly why so many people are up in arms about re-opening the zoning debate. One thing a mature district like PISD or RISD can offer is stability. The district isn't building schools and re-zoning neighborhoods every 2 years, like Frisco ISD. (The 2009 re-zoning was the first major district-wide change in 10 years.)
In general, that would have been a good precedent to stick to. People shopping for houses would like to have a clear idea of what schools go with that house. Adopting a policy of jacking the borders whenever the board feels like it doesn't help at all.
My apologies, I should have phrased it better...no PISD is not a mirror image of the race politics of the DISD in the 70s...it just seems to be a different type of war now, more economics based...especially in the eastern reaches of the district where rich parents in Parker/Murphy/Richardson would DEARLY love to get away from the poor in East Plano...although no one would be crazy enough to say that out loud in today's ultra PC environment. Do you think it's safe to say that the jockeying to carve out exclusive zones for certain groups will only continue as time goes by and Plano continues to age/brown/diversify?
Because here's how I see it, this won't be pretty so brace yourselves.
If Plano continues the way it's going, then it will continue to age, as it ages it will become less and less desirable...now this should be a slow process unless something catastrophic happens to speed up the process, but make no mistake that it's happening...and as the process continues, the affluent professional families will vote with their feet to get out of PISD and run to Frisco, Allen and so on...this decline will eventually affect all parts of Plano, some parts slower than others, but it will happen.
A radical plan would be to preserve the 'affluent' parts of Plano...give them their own schools, no more attempting to 'balance' out rich and poor areas by mixing and matching as seems to be the case today. With this method, the affluent areas dont decline as the wealthy have no reason to fear being overrun by the "less desirables" being in their schools, hence no reason to flee to "newer" suburbs.
An imperfect analogy for this would be the Lewisville ISD...this ISD covers a wide swathe of affluent and poor areas, yet the affluent areas (like Flower Mound, and to a lesser extent Frisco and Plano) have their own schools, there is no moving kids from here to there based to keep School A from being "too poor" or on the other hand "too rich" either. Now I know, it's not a great comparison since Flower Mound is it's own city within the Lewisville district but hopefully you get the idea.
Now the downside to this is essentially the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" you're going to see some great schools side by side with schools that resemble DISD...so I know it's EXTREMELY unlikely to be enactable.
...especially in the eastern reaches of the district where rich parents in Parker/Murphy/Richardson would DEARLY love to get away from the poor in East Plano...
I don't see that as a common attitude among those residents. They knew, when they bought their houses, that PISD is a district serving rich AND poor. If they had a problem with their kids associating with others of different economic means, they would have bought in Southlake or HP.
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Do you think it's safe to say that the jockeying to carve out exclusive zones for certain groups will only continue as time goes by and Plano continues to age/brown/diversify?
Oh, probably.
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Because here's how I see it, this won't be pretty so brace yourselves.
If Plano continues the way it's going, then it will continue to age, as it ages it will become less and less desirable...now this should be a slow process unless something catastrophic happens to speed up the process, but make no mistake that it's happening...and as the process continues, the affluent professional families will vote with their feet to get out of PISD and run to Frisco, Allen and so on...this decline will eventually affect all parts of Plano, some parts slower than others, but it will happen.
That's already happening. Look at RISD, and you can see the future of PISD. Thing is, that's a positive statement, not a negative one. RISD shows that it's possible to maintain a high-achieving school system in the face of economic decline. I see no reason why PISD can't also maintain its status as a respectable district as the growth moves north.
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A radical plan would be to preserve the 'affluent' parts of Plano...give them their own schools, no more attempting to 'balance' out rich and poor areas by mixing and matching as seems to be the case today. With this method, the affluent areas dont decline as the wealthy have no reason to fear being overrun by the "less desirables" being in their schools, hence no reason to flee to "newer" suburbs.
PISD has done very little economic balancing. The poor areas of PISD are heavily concentrated at PESH, and will continue to be. The areas being added to PWSH have extremely low poverty levels - the additions will actually REDUCE the poverty percentage at PWSH significantly.
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An imperfect analogy for this would be the Lewisville ISD...this ISD covers a wide swathe of affluent and poor areas, yet the affluent areas (like Flower Mound, and to a lesser extent Frisco and Plano) have their own schools, there is no moving kids from here to there based to keep School A from being "too poor" or on the other hand "too rich" either. Now I know, it's not a great comparison since Flower Mound is it's own city within the Lewisville district but hopefully you get the idea.
Well, the current PWSH (before the future addition of heavily-Asian Rice MS), is essentially what you describe. It's a school for the affluent area of PISD - Willow Bend and Far North Dallas. It is also 30-40% smaller than the current PSHS and PESH. Now, you'd think such a school would be in high demand. However, there is a net transfer of around 50-100 students per year OUT of PWSH and INTO the middle-class PSHS. That is, there are far more kids living in the "rich area" choosing to attend a larger, poorer school than there are kids from the middle-class area wanting to go to the "fancy pants" school. That seems to indicate that having a "rich school" isn't necessarily a power draw.
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Now the downside to this is essentially the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" you're going to see some great schools side by side with schools that resemble DISD...so I know it's EXTREMELY unlikely to be enactable.
Since PISD allows students to freely transfer among schools (subject to capacity constraints), any school that became significantly better or worse than the others would see a corresponding flow of kids into or out of it. So I don't see a Pinkston vs. Woodrow situation developing in PISD.
My apologies, I should have phrased it better...no PISD is not a mirror image of the race politics of the DISD in the 70s...it just seems to be a different type of war now, more economics based...especially in the eastern reaches of the district where rich parents in Parker/Murphy/Richardson would DEARLY love to get away from the poor in East Plano...although no one would be crazy enough to say that out loud in today's ultra PC environment. Do you think it's safe to say that the jockeying to carve out exclusive zones for certain groups will only continue as time goes by and Plano continues to age/brown/diversify?
Because here's how I see it, this won't be pretty so brace yourselves.
If Plano continues the way it's going, then it will continue to age, as it ages it will become less and less desirable...now this should be a slow process unless something catastrophic happens to speed up the process, but make no mistake that it's happening...and as the process continues, the affluent professional families will vote with their feet to get out of PISD and run to Frisco, Allen and so on...this decline will eventually affect all parts of Plano, some parts slower than others, but it will happen.
A radical plan would be to preserve the 'affluent' parts of Plano...give them their own schools, no more attempting to 'balance' out rich and poor areas by mixing and matching as seems to be the case today. With this method, the affluent areas dont decline as the wealthy have no reason to fear being overrun by the "less desirables" being in their schools, hence no reason to flee to "newer" suburbs.
An imperfect analogy for this would be the Lewisville ISD...this ISD covers a wide swathe of affluent and poor areas, yet the affluent areas (like Flower Mound, and to a lesser extent Frisco and Plano) have their own schools, there is no moving kids from here to there based to keep School A from being "too poor" or on the other hand "too rich" either. Now I know, it's not a great comparison since Flower Mound is it's own city within the Lewisville district but hopefully you get the idea.
Now the downside to this is essentially the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" you're going to see some great schools side by side with schools that resemble DISD...so I know it's EXTREMELY unlikely to
be enactable.
Actually it's only a very small section of Richardson that is trying to get away from the poor section of east Plano. Murphy and Parker and some Richardson families worked hard with people in East Plano to come up with a scenario that worked during the 2009 realignment and that's what they came up with. There's more Title 1 students at Bowman and Armstrong than at Otto or Murphy, but the plan that everyone ultimately supported splits it up Armstrong/Murphy to McMillen and Otto/Bowman to Williams. And honestly I'm not sure most people at Otto that want their kids to go to McMillen don't really just want "shiny new" rather than "old and renovated" and not just not to be around poor people.
It's definitely not a diversity thing tho, because there's a surprising variety in the entire east cluster.
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what?
