Interracial family looking for a diverse community

[ParkRowPioneer]

I don't think I can agree with "FarNorthDallas" that Plano and Richardson are diverse. Both have grown largely due to "white flight." And if you don't like McKinney, I doubt that you will like Murphy or Wylie or any of those other exurban towns. You're better off in one of the inner-city suburbs, like Uptown (if you can afford it -- 2 br townhomes start at $400K) -- mostly young, educated professionals; Bishop Arts; or Park Row - South Boulevard (a 4600 sf 5-4 on a third of an acre is $465K).

[FarNorthDallas]

Originally Posted by ParkRowPioneer

I don't think I can agree with "FarNorthDallas" that Plano and Richardson are diverse. Both have grown largely due to "white flight." And if you don't like McKinney, I doubt that you will like Murphy or Wylie or any of those other exurban towns. You're better off in one of the inner-city suburbs, like Uptown (if you can afford it -- 2 br townhomes start at $400K) -- mostly young, educated professionals; Bishop Arts; or Park Row - South Boulevard (a 4600 sf 5-4 on a third of an acre is $465K).

Huh? Come on into the year 2009. Richardson, for example, is a majority minority school district. It's enrollment numbers are in decline. Check out the demographics of the school district:

White 34.6%
Hispanic 31.1%
AfricanAmerican 25.9%
Asian 7.9%
NativeAmerican .4%

Plano is right behind them. "White flight" is now in Frisco, McKinney areas. That's why folks looking for diversity need to look at Dallas and the inner ring suburbs like Richardson, Garland, Carrollton, Mesquite, and, yes, even Plano.

[ParkRowPioneer]

Your figures don't really show the story. Sure, the city of Richardson is roughly divided in thirds ethnically, but the public schools are not. So let us look at these statistics.

Richardson Statistics
These are the statistics for Richardson ISD, pulled from www.city-data.com. They are the same as the ones you present.

Ethnic Mix in Richardson ISD [Source: www.city-data.com]
 White 34.6%
 Hispanic 31.1%
 African-American 25.9%
 Asian/Pacific Islander 7.9%
 Native American 0.4%

Races in Richardson [Source: www.city-data.com] *
 White Non-Hispanic 69.6%
 Hispanic 10.3%
 Black 6.2%
 Chinese 3.8%
 Other race 3.7%
 Asian Indian 2.7%
 Two or more races 2.6%
 Vietnamese 1.9%
 Other Asian 1.4%
 Korean 1.2%
 American Indian 1.0%

* Total can be greater than 100% because Hispanics could be counted in other races

Almost 70% of Richardson is white, although only half that percentage is represented in the public school population. Either a lot of whites in Richardson do not have children, or they are sending their children to private schools. Furthermore, looking at the school district statistics overall cannot tell the whole story. Let’s look at a couple of high RISD schools. [Source for all RISD statistics: RISD web site]

The first is Pearce HS, which has 1956 students. It is mostly white, but also is almost exactly representative of the ethnic/racial mix of the city of Richardson as a whole.

Pearce HS (RISD) Students by Ethnicity (Reported Source: TEA Annual Performance Report 2006-2007)
White 65.3 %
Hispanic 21.4 %
African-American 6.2 %
Asian/Pacific Islander 6 %
Native American 1.1 %

And by contrast, here is a fairly integrated high school, Berkner, which has 2888 students. Since the population of Richardson is about 11% Asian, 10% Hispanic, and 6.2% Black/AA, this school is either in a minority neighborhood, or the minorities have huge families. I believe that the former is the primary reason for the skewed statistics.

Berkner HS (RISD) Students by Ethnicity (Reported Source: TEA Annual Performance Report 2006-2007)
White 37.6 %
African-American 25.3 %
Asian/Pacific Islander 18.4 %
Hispanic 18.2 %
Native American 0.4 %

Richardson may be a perfectly fine city, but, definitely, it is not what I would call “diverse.” I worked in a satellite office in Richardson off an on for about six years and a different office several years before that. I never particularly liked the city, but then I always hurried back to Dallas (or Austin) at the end of the work day.

To have some balance, let’s look at some similar statistics for Dallas.

Dallas Statistics
Races in Dallas [Source: www.city-data.com] *
 Hispanic 35.6%
 White Non-Hispanic 34.6%
 Black 25.9%
 Other race 17.2%
 Two or more races 2.7%
 American Indian 1.0%
 Asian Indian 0.6%
 Vietnamese 0.6%

* Total can be greater than 100% because Hispanics could be counted in other races

Ethnic Composition of Dallas ISD [Source: Dallas ISD website]
 Hispanic 103,247 65.3%
 African American 45,443 28.7%
 White 7,584 4.8%
 Asian 1,519 1.0%
 American Indian 333 0.2%

Impact?
It may help to visualize the impact of these statistics to see them side by side. The following table shows the previous statistics, plus the percentage differences in the population at large and the student populations in the public schools. The numbers are telling.

Ethnicity RISD City of Richardson Delta in Schools DISD City of Dallas Delta in Schools
White........ 34.6% ... 69.6% ... -35.0% ____ 4.8% ... 34.6% .. -29.8%
Hispanic..... 31.1% ... 10.3% .... 20.8% ___ 65.3% ... 35.6% .... 29.7%
Black/AA.... 25.9% ..... 6.2% .... 19.7% ___ 28.7% ... 25.9% ..... 2.8%
Asian/PI...... 7.9% .... 11.0% .... -3.1% ____ 1.0% ..... 1.2% ... -0.2%
Native Am.... 0.4% ..... 1.0% ..... -0.6% ____ 0.2% ..... 1.0% ... -0.8%
Other *..................... 3.7% ..... -3.7% ____............ 17.2% .. -17.2%
Two+ * .................... 2.6% ..... -2.6% ____.............. 2.7% ... -2.7%

* These figures for the population cannot be correlated with public school population figures using the available data.

As far as the school situation, Richardson ISD has only six high schools, which includes a remedial learning center plus one magnet program within one of the high schools. The total population is about 35,000 students and roughly 4800 employees. That does not allow for much diversity in their programs.Conversely, the Dallas ISD is almost five times the size of the Richardson ISD. Dallas ISD is the twelfth largest school district in the country. Here is a quote from their web site.

The Dallas ISD is the 12th largest school district in the nation with a diverse population of more than 160,000 students. Almost 70 different languages are spoken in the homes of our students. Serving these students are more than 19,000 employees, making the Dallas ISD one of the largest employers in the city.

So in summary, while it is true that Dallas schools have gone down over the past few decades, it is not true that they are without merit. Two schools in Dallas were named to the U.S. News & World Report 2009 Gold Medal List. Five others were recognized. Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts was recognized as one of the eight most successful magnet schools in the U.S. by the US Board of Education. Nine of Dallas’ 32 high schools are magnet high schools. And with so much diversity and a $1.6B budget, there is something for everyone. There is gold to be found in the hills if you are willing to search for it.

[Apologies for the awkward table formatting. It was difficult to align using the forum editor.]

[caligurltotx]

I live in VR and can agree I see biracial (black/white) on a daily basis. Not that I am looking for it just guess being AA I can't help but notice it.

[FarNorthDallas]

I guess I am not following you, ParkRow. The original poster has 2 small children soon to be school age. They are looking for diversity. Richardson schools are diverse - individual schools' demographics vary -some are more white or more black or more hispanic than others, but it's a mix for almost all schools (not quite all - a couple are mostly Hispanic and another is mostly black and several are mostly white). Richardson ISD won the best large school district by HEB - their Excellence in Education award. Most majority minority districts struggle, but Richardson does well.

Richardson has four high schools. Not six. No one considers Richardson High's magnet programs a separate school, nor do they consider the alternative school on Greenville as a high school. It's where kids go temporarily when you have gotten in trouble at your home school. It's mostly blacks and Hispanics as Richardson ISD has a tendency to punish minority children harsher than white kids (hopefully they are working on that, it's wrong they do that).

Richardson was built out in the late 60s and 70s and mostly by white people. Those "original owners" are now empty nesters. Newer families with school age children are moving in and they are all over the map as far as demographics. Have you been to "downtown " Richardson lately? It's shops are targeted to Asians and Indians.

Most of the Richardson school district is located in the city of Dallas. The city of Dallas is diverse, no question, although many many of the Dallas schools are mostly Hispanic - no diversity whatsoever. Most of the "good" schools in Dallas ISD are selective. Not just anyone can attend Booker T Washington or the TAG magnet. It's selective and they select a mix of kids, not to mention they are high schools and the posters kids are ages 2 and 4.

What public elementary school will the original posters children attend if they live in a $400,000 townhome in Uptown? How many of their neighbors will have kids?

[ParkRowPioneer]

Moderator cut: personal attack

There are many little enclaves of good elementary schools in DISD. In Dallas, as in every city in Texas, elementary schools are neighborhood based. So if the OP wants to control what the ES will look like, she can shop around for the appropriate neighborhood.

I gave the figures for Uptown and South Boulevard merely as contrasting examples. Most people are not looking for $400K houses in this economy, even if they can afford them.

I have no direct knowledge of elementary schools, and they are much harder to judge than are high schools, anyway, as high schools at least have some subjective measures (graduation rates, rankings, etc.) to recommend them. For an elementary school, a parent's choice is often more subjective and personal. Can my child walk to school? Is it close to my office? Is the principal professional? Are the teachers nice? Do they have a good nurse? And so on.

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by FarNorthDallas

Huh? Come on into the year 2009. Richardson, for example, is a majority minority school district. It's enrollment numbers are in decline. Check out the demographics of the school district:

White 34.6%
Hispanic 31.1%
AfricanAmerican 25.9%
Asian 7.9%
NativeAmerican .4%

Plano is right behind them. "White flight" is now in Frisco, McKinney areas. That's why folks looking for diversity need to look at Dallas and the inner ring suburbs like Richardson, Garland, Carrollton, Mesquite, and, yes, even Plano.

I'll have to agree w/ FarNorthDallas. As a parent and resident in this area and many friends w/ kids in these schools......... these suburbs ARE diverse. VERY DIVERSE!!! One of the new elem. schools in Richardson but in the Plano ISD has HUGE percentage of non-white students and it is not from the hispanic or AA crowd either. If you could see a picture of my childs elem class you'd see a VERY DIVERSE bunch of kids w/ not even half of them being "white" and this is in a very upper middle class neighborhood.

I don't even think one can use "white flight" to describe ANY suburb of the metroplex. If one is wanting to "white flight" they are going to have to go even further out and into the small towns that are NOT growing at all.

[Grainraiser]

I felt that a person wanting to live in a diverse neighborhood meant there was enough diversity for a non-white person not to feel isolated. I don't think any of the burbs mention would make me feel isolated (i'm AA). Plano grew in size due to white flight in the 80's but there is certainly enough diversity there for any group to feel comfortable. A minority would have to live in the outer ring small towns or Highland Park/ University Park in order to feel isolated IMHO. Richardson has plenty diversity from my viewpoint.

[calimom66]

Well thank you all for the input! My husband and I looked into the Plano/Richardson area and like both areas alot. Right now we are going to rent and we saw a ton of wonderful apartment communities! I am very excited about our upcoming move! Now we just have to decide which apartment to take! Also, I absolutely cannot stand the commute from McKinney to Richardson, back to Mckinney and then back to Richardson again! With the traffic on the 75, I feel like I am still in Los Angeles! But again, thanks for all the info, keep 'em coming! We welcome it all! )