White Rock ISD (Dallas, Allen, Sanger: credit, loan, lawyers)

[Lakewooder]

Originally Posted by rantanamo

I think its a big assumption and maybe wrong in some cases that the DISD board would be against this. We probably look at this too much through the more obvious scope of suburban areas. Guarantee you some are for and some against and might even go through political means to make it happen. Even some of the parts of town we might perceive as low income might actually be considered wealthy school districts if broken up because of their commercial property. Those areas may feel like they can better suit the education to the needs of their local students as well.

I agree. Not mentioned here is School Board Trustee Mike Morath's enterprise zone/charter district plan where we create our own board of directors and management then contract to run the schools from DISD. He says he has the votes to get it passed. Other areas are also interested in this.

[Squirl]

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

I agree. Not mentioned here is School Board Trustee Mike Morath's enterprise zone/charter district plan where we create our own board of directors and management then contract to run the schools from DISD. He says he has the votes to get it passed. Other areas are also interested in this.

This concept has been presented in Las Colinas. As an owner in LC I am not supportive, tho I certainly understand. I believe that our focus should be the Improvement of Irving ISD.....which suffers many of the same problems of DISD

[Gator-in-Steiner]

I did some research and the new ISD gets a negotiated package of buildings and an allocated portion of the debt from the prior ISD. I think the consensus of parents in the district would be to keep the Mata as PK-8 Montessori concept that is currently in the works. Love the idea of a 9th grade center and converting Woodrow to 10-12. I would be interested to see how many private school parents would come back to public if there is the perception of more control of their local schools. The mayor cares more about having strong public schools and increasing the number of people who want to live and work in the city versus the burbs. I don't see how keeping DISD an inefficient behemoth furthers those interests.

Having said all that, the hurdles for getting this passed are astronomically high. The number of registered voters who would have to vote in a school election is higher than any turnout in recent history.

[Lakewooder]

I haven't seen anyone introduce the idea of a 9th grade center. Personally I would prefer to keep Woodrow a smaller school and have all four years attending. Having the freshmen in another center sort of deprives them of having the full experience.

You are right, it will be very tough to go the election route. As I understand it, DISD voters would also have to approve in a 25% turnout. Perhaps if North Dallas and/or Oak Cliff also got a movement going... I don't think there is enough population in South Dallas to do so, but that might fly if they could combine areas just outside. There is a threshold of 8,000.

See: http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/...rock-isd.html/

[Considering Coming Back]

Originally Posted by Gator-in-Steiner

I did some research and the new ISD gets a negotiated package of buildings and an allocated portion of the debt from the prior ISD.

Having said all that, the hurdles for getting this passed are astronomically high. The number of registered voters who would have to vote in a school election is higher than any turnout in recent history.

Interesting. That includes pensions? Would a new district be allowed to retain teachers? Would those teachers salaries be renegotiated?

Have you seen any projections for what tax revenue would be at current evaluations and rates?

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

I haven't seen anyone introduce the idea of a 9th grade center. Personally I would prefer to keep Woodrow a smaller school and have all four years attending. Having the freshmen in another center sort of deprives them of having the full experience.

You are right, it will be very tough to go the election route. As I understand it, DISD voters would also have to approve in a 25% turnout. Perhaps if North Dallas and/or Oak Cliff also got a movement going... I don't think there is enough population in South Dallas to do so, but that might fly if they could combine areas just outside. There is a threshold of 8,000.

Ahem, I introduced the idea. Co-located 9th grade centers work very well actually. The 9th graders have a chance to step into high school and participate in extracurricular activities and advanced classes, while still get a little coddling. Considering the drop out rate, it's a good strategy.

Woodrow can't stay a smaller school and break away from DISD. The Woodrow zone has 5,878 students. An unknown number of them transfer in (though some out, let's call it a wash). So there would need to be an addition of 2,000 students, 33%. And my understanding is that you can't count private school students.

I wouldn't worry about the voter turnout. You would hold this during a larger election cycle, not board election season.

ETA: I think the racial element is what will derail this. Food for thought: There are 788 white Kindergartners in DISD today. 257 of them (33%) are in the Woodrow zone alone, another 94 are in 75218 and Hillside (which would have to be added to make the district big enough) that's 45% of the white students in DISD. So what incentive would those in North Dallas, Uptown, NOC, Addison have to vote for this? That's before we get into what LULAC and the NAACP will have to say.

[Lakewooder]

Well, if you are going to have a "co-located" 9th grade center some property will have to be acquired and houses torn down. Then the center must be built...the only other possiblities would be using Mata or the Old East Grand Baptist Church on Glasgow and East Grand, which I believe is for sale. But I don't think it's large enough. Under your scenario I am guessing there would be over 600 in the freshman class.

When you say adding Hillside what do you mean? Hillside Village area is already in Woodrow. Dan D. Rogers Elementary (Ridgewood Park, University Meadows) to the north is not, but they tried to get the school board to shift them from Hillcrest to Woodrow a couple of years ago. They were turned down because there is not enough room.

[Gator-in-Steiner]

Don't know about pensions. A portion of the pension is Texas Teacher Retirement System, which would remain the same. Don't know about the vesting system for the DISD pension but I would assume that once you are vested, it is similar to other retirement plans? You can roll it over into your new plan or keep it in the original plan over a certain amount? Just like any other ISD, there would need to be a determination about competitive hiring packages.

[Considering Coming Back]

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

Well, if you are going to have a "co-located" 9th grade center some property will have to be acquired and houses torn down. Then the center must be built...the only other possiblities would be using Mata or the Old East Grand Baptist Church on Glasgow and East Grand, which I believe is for sale. But I don't think it's large enough. Under your scenario I am guessing there would be over 600 in the freshman class.

When you say adding Hillside what do you mean? Hillside Village area is already in Woodrow. Dan D. Rogers Elementary (Ridgewood Park, University Meadows) to the north is not, but they tried to get the school board to shift them from Hillcrest to Woodrow a couple of years ago. They were turned down because there is not enough room.

I laid out a scenario in post 25. I said Hillside meaning the Dan D Rogers area.

There isn't enough room, but there also aren't enough kids. So how do you solve that catch 22? You either add all of the Bryan Adams attendance zone, which would be a huge financial drain. 75228 is a bunch of <$100K houses and apartment complexes, plus there is no valuable office space on that side of the lake. Or you take a more financially viable portion-- just 75218 and send them to Woodrow. That would be way too many students for the current Woodrow facility, hence turning Long into a 9th Grade Center.

The Woodrow folks have to stop trying to figure out how to go this alone. They won't meet the 8,000 student threshold. An 8,000 student district would be in the 600-700 range per class.

[Gator-in-Steiner]

CCB - wouldn't the racial percentages of DISD be largely unchanged? We are talking about a drop in enrolled students of less than 10% for DISD? Frankly, DISD could care less about their white percentage going down as they have open disdain for attempting to attract or retain middle class and upper middle class student populations (which in Dallas is overwhelmingly white).

[Considering Coming Back]

Originally Posted by Gator-in-Steiner

CCB - wouldn't the racial percentages of DISD be largely unchanged? We are talking about a drop in enrolled students of less than 10% for DISD? Frankly, DISD could care less about their white percentage going down as they have open disdain for attempting to attract or retain middle class and upper middle class student populations (which in Dallas is overwhelmingly white).

First, I don't share your views about "disdain". The UMC in Dallas is no different than anywhere else, they don't want to go to school with poor minorities. That's not DISDs fault, that's a nationwide trend.

The remaining district would go from 5% white to about 2.5% The Hispanic share would rise from 70% to 71% and the black share would increase from 23% to about 25%. I can actually see a scenario where the black community thinks this is a win for them-- proportionally they don't lose tax dollars and they gain a seat on the school board.

But if my map were used WRISD would be about 40% white on day one and grow from there. That sends some pretty significant images. In order to not be a taker district in Robin Hood you would have to draw some tight lines specifically to avoid concentrations of apartment complexes off NW Highway and Ferguson. There would be almost no black students and a large portion of the Hispanic students would live in the path of gentrification (which I would expect to accelerate towards WRISD).

This would, in my opinion, be a big win for real estate values in 75218. There are almost no low income apartments in 75218, but the people there are zoned to schools with lots of nearby complexes. We don't change that now because it would be a violation of Brown v Board of Ed (drawing tight lines in Pleasant Grove was what sparked the 1971 desegregation of the district).

The security in the current Woodrow of zone, of knowing progress will hold, would also be a big win. The plurality of Kindergartners in the Woodrow feeder are already white, that would have a bigger chance of staying true. But I can't help but think of Lakewooder's distaste for Lakehill as a white flight academy and Lake Highlands as a white flight 'escape' neighborhood and wonder why we would want to do that, too.