School Rezoning (Plano, Garland, Allen: fit in, established neighborhood, buying)

[biomedmark]

Is this a common practice? I read an article in a local paper that one town is adding 3500 students every year and by the time they get to projected 80K+ students, they'll have twice as many high schools as they have today? How does that work? Is it possible to say no, if you want to keep your school?

[TurtleCreek80]

Yes, it's common in rapidly growing suburbs such as Frisco (I assume the suburb to which you refer). Because the housing development growth is happening all over a large land area and then filling in between vs development that starts at one point (say, south) and moves systematically to the north, there is a need to continue rebalancing the school populations as new schools open. Frisco has done a good job of vocally stating it's intentions of being a "small school district" vs suburbs like Allen and Plano that have mega-sized schools, and this reshuffling as the population & housing grows is a bad side effect of that. But- if you live there- you definitely know it's a possibility because it happens every few years.

I know one family in my office whose oldest kid went to 5 schools between K-12 vs the normal 3 due to Frisco school shuffling.

No, you don't get to say no. They may "grandfather" in some classes so rising high school seniors aren't sent to new schools for their final year but in general, you go.

[stephwin]

That is one of the downsides of buying in a city/area of a city where there is a lot of new construction. For instance, all of those people buying in Richwoods/Lawler Park and Phillips Creek Ranch (new Frisco neighborhoods) will probably have their kids shuffled around quite a bit in the next few years as new schools are built to keep up with the growing population.

We bought in an already established neighborhood in Frisco and we haven't had any rezoning in the 5 years we've been here. So if you don't want your kids to be moved around, you need to buy in an area that is built out. But even that isn't a guarantee.

[biomedmark]

Smaller class size matters but smaller campuses just add extra administrative expenses and complicate logistics. It would likely limit variety of course offering and extra curricular at high school level. It sure offers a value during elementary years, assuming class sizes are significantly small as well but I don't see much benefit in high schools? Why not just split them into junior and senior high to make it efficient yet be able to take advantage of pooled resources.

I guess just paying off all the buildings would be a massive expense and probably a reason for property tax hike. It does make getting on the teams easier with less completion so that's a good thing. Is this a way to game the athletic competitions by avoiding bigger and better teams?

[DitsyD]

Originally Posted by biomedmark

Smaller class size matters but smaller campuses just add extra administrative expenses and complicate logistics. It would likely limit variety of course offering and extra curricular at high school level. It sure offers a value during elementary years, assuming class sizes are significantly small as well but I don't see much benefit in high schools? Why not just split them into junior and senior high to make it efficient yet be able to take advantage of pooled resources.

I guess just paying off all the buildings would be a massive expense and probably a reason for property tax hike. It does make getting on the teams easier with less completion so that's a good thing. Is this a way to game the athletic competitions by avoiding bigger and better teams?

The state sets the class sizes for Texas public schools. A large campus has more students, but the maximum number of students in a class remains fairly constant. The state doesn't give the districts enough money to have small classes; that is a dream.

Plano has three large senior highs just because of the variety of classes they can offer ~ both academic and vocational; extra-curricular is an extra benefit. (Plano doesn't call the 9th/10th grades schools "junior highs", they are just high schools.)

[MurphyPl1]

And to follow up with what Ditsy is saying - elementary and middle schools are not mega-sized. They are typical of all area school districts. As a matter of fact, the 9/10 schools aren't mega-sized either. They are all between 1000 and 1500 students. Granted that makes larger than usual class size, as far as grade level, but the actual number of students in the school isn't what I'd call mega-sized.

[biomedmark]

That makes sense. Thank you.

[Souleiado]

Originally Posted by biomedmark

Smaller class size matters but smaller campuses just add extra administrative expenses and complicate logistics. It would likely limit variety of course offering and extra curricular at high school level. It sure offers a value during elementary years, assuming class sizes are significantly small as well but I don't see much benefit in high schools? Why not just split them into junior and senior high to make it efficient yet be able to take advantage of pooled resources.

I guess just paying off all the buildings would be a massive expense and probably a reason for property tax hike. It does make getting on the teams easier with less completion so that's a good thing. Is this a way to game the athletic competitions by avoiding bigger and better teams?

Actually it doesn't reduce the number of classes in high school . Frisco has a large center called CTE that regroups a large variety of classes and available to the entire district ( including an association with Collin county for dual classes) It is actually a model that is looked by many surrounding districts. The center is of course an added advantage since all the schools are already offering a large amount of classes. My son is able to take classes that would difficult to take in other district like a business class with a concentration on the stock market ( they participate in an advance program with 250 other campus nationwide) A smaller high school also offer more chances in different activities like sports , clubs etc.... I also really like the fact a 4 years high school also offers more opportunities like mentoring ( it's more difficult with only one year apart) and mainly the fact that smaller classes and less kids mean that the teachers know better the students, that alone is valuable.

[DitsyD]

Originally Posted by MurphyPl1

And to follow up with what Ditsy is saying - elementary and middle schools are not mega-sized. They are typical of all area school districts. As a matter of fact, the 9/10 schools aren't mega-sized either. They are all between 1000 and 1500 students. Granted that makes larger than usual class size, as far as grade level, but the actual number of students in the school isn't what I'd call mega-sized.

Not quite true about elementary schools. Boggess Elementary in Murphy is a super sized elementary with 857 students currently enrolled. It is the largest elementary in the Plano ISD.

The other large elementary schools in PISD:
Andrews 769
Brinker 715
Christie 765
Hunt 720
Jackson 715
Stinson 720

The smallest elementary schools in PISD:
Bethany 374
Harrington 440
Hedgcoxe 451
Saigling 390
Shepard 447

The others all fall in between:
Elementary Schools : Plano ISD

[MurphyPl1]

You're right about Boggess and I'm still confused as to how that's been left to occur when they were supposed to have been constructing the elementary school in Parker to alleviate some of that. Hunt has construction going on now, so I expect they'll get some of the Boggess kids when that is finished.

But 700 kids isn't an overly large school to me. Garland ISD has similar numbers and no one is calling them mega-sized.