Spring ISD: How can it be fixed? (Houston, Katy: low income, apartment complex)

[alyce]

I taught in a middle school with kids like this before. I quit that place by December of that year ( a bunch of us did, actually). Holidays were no longer long enough to recover from the mess that you have to put up with from kids like these.

And you want to hear the biggest irony? Those same bad-a** black kids treated us black teachers way worse than they did white teachers. It was like self-hatred, and hatred of anyone who looked like them. That happened like that at that middle school and a high school that I taught at. When you see teachers looking a little haggardly and crazy, this might be why. Those bad kids (like the ones in the video I mean) can wear you down--and I'm a strong person as were those other teachers.

Some parents can get their kids under control, and some show up and you see where the kid gets their bad behavior from. Some of the kids AND the parents are off the chain.

[westres1]

Originally Posted by buffy888

The teachers -- who are there to teach classes, not provide crowd control -- are probably in their classrooms teaching (or eating lunch during the lunch video). I'm sure you were really wondering about the whereabouts of the administrators and staff members who should be the ones responsible for things like lunch duty and patrolling hallways. I would be hard-pressed trying to place the blame on teachers rather than parents when kids act out or to say that whatever they are teaching "isnt [sic] civics" because the kids are choosing to behave this way.

I definitely agree re: behavior towards the special needs student. The parent(s) should have taught these students from a young age that they should respect and celebrate differences rather than mock them. Parents can easily model more appropriate behavior in this regard when out in public places.

Hey, I taught school in Aldine so I know what the role of teachers and Admin are. No one said it was the Teachers fault they are acting like idiots. I said I wondered where they were. Special needs kids are typically walked to and from lunch. I taught Special Ed and I would have had those kids butts in the office asap!

[Callo]

Originally Posted by tstone

That's exactly what tipped me off. They wouldn't be flashing different gang signs, invading each others turf w/o a fight. According to C-D, this high school is in zip 77090. Look at the data; this is a middle class, suburban area with higher incomes, home values and relatively little poverty vs the whole of Houston. I'm sure most of these kids are middle class, just acting stupid. The worst trouble most of these kids will get into is being caught w/ a dime sack in their shoe.

Nothing more to see here.....

I assure you that those guys are NOT suburbanites. They live in Red Oak Place, Glen Oak, and the various Cypress apartments. Not to mention from Greenspoint. The thing you have to understand is that those demographic numbers are deceiving. They were taken before some of these apartments opened up, and before Katrina. Things are unfortunately not what they once were.

[tstone]

Originally Posted by Callo

I assure you that those guys are NOT suburbanites. They live in Red Oak Place, Glen Oak, and the various Cypress apartments. Not to mention from Greenspoint. The thing you have to understand is that those demographic numbers are deceiving. They were taken before some of these apartments opened up, and before Katrina. Things are unfortunately not what they once were.

Perhaps they're not suburbanites. But I don't hear any ghetto-NOLA accents among those guys. Only ghetto-Texas.

[usc619]

Originally Posted by tstone

I'm not trying to act like a black parent. This exact thing was going on in the highly acclaimed Fort Bend ISD schools some 15 years ago. All kids sat or stood around in clusters wherever they landed. The retarded kid walked by and screamed and they had a cheap, 10 second laugh. (A flashing or mooning was worth a 1 minute laugh. ) And these guys weren't necessarily blocking any lines. Many of these schools have 3000-4000 kids (with 1400-1500 fresh fish) and the hallways between classes flow packed to the walls. During lunch every day, there was standing-room only all 4 years of my HS days.l:

BINGO! I was at Cinco Ranch HS.(last week) and seen the exact same thing

[Callo]

Spring ISD would collapse without Olde Oaks, Oak Creek, Northgate, Ponderosa, and Westador. They account for a large amount of the tax revenue generated for the district, yet almost no kids from the area go to the schools. And for good reason. So you got a ridiculous situation here where the district is leeching off of unwilling residents while contributing nothing. I think it sucks.

[Mr. Football]

I'd like to see those neighborhoods North of FM 1960 (Ponderosa, Old Oaks, Northgate, Oak Creek, Westador, etc) get out of Spring ISD. The government (the School District, State & Federal Housing Authorities, FEMA, Harris County, etc) has really done a number on these homeowners. The way all of this has occurred, I wouldn't be surprised if this weren't some sort of Ford Foundation social engineering experiment.

BTW, There are two more subsidized apartment complexes going in across Ella Blvd from Westfield HS. (will these be zoned to DeKaney?)

http://www.tdhca.state.tx.us/multifa...tiesAppLog.pdf

[AK123]

Originally Posted by Mr. Football

BTW, There are two more subsidized apartment complexes going in across Ella Blvd from Westfield HS. (will these be zoned to DeKaney?)

http://www.tdhca.state.tx.us/multifa...tiesAppLog.pdf

Wow. As if the area needed more.

Have you looked through that whole list? It's scary. I can't believe all of these would need to be built, when the city seems to suffer from too many of these in the first place.

This is just going to create more and more sprawl as middle and middle-upper class families leave the areas to places like Cypress, The Woodlands, Katy and Fulshear looking for affordable homes with good schools.

[EasilyAmused]

Originally Posted by AK123

Wow. As if the area needed more.

Have you looked through that whole list? It's scary. I can't believe all of these would need to be built, when the city seems to suffer from too many of these in the first place.

This is just going to create more and more sprawl as middle and middle-upper class families leave the areas to places like Cypress, The Woodlands, Katy and Fulshear looking for affordable homes with good schools.

As stated earlier in this thread, the sprawl seems to be crawling back towards the city.

I think with the traffic you can only "push" people so far out before they cry uncle.

[AK123]

Originally Posted by Callo

Spring ISD would collapse without Olde Oaks, Oak Creek, Northgate, Ponderosa, and Westador. They account for a large amount of the tax revenue generated for the district, yet almost no kids from the area go to the schools. And for good reason. So you got a ridiculous situation here where the district is leeching off of unwilling residents while contributing nothing. I think it sucks.

It does suck.

And 20+ years ago, those neighborhoods were full of kids who attended the schools. And the schools were good.

Then tons of apartments were built in the area... way too many of them... and many of them low-income. Developers were able to do whatever they wanted, and even got subsidies from the government for it. And well, just go look up those schools now. The whole area suffered because of it.