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There is information out there if you want to look, but as far as I know there is no single source. Most individual district websites will have a section on history, most districts were founded by groups of individuals around the turn of the century, some later, some earlier. You can find some "consolidated" districts, where smaller districts (usually one HS districts were consolidated with others) first example I know of is Hays Consolidated ISD. New Braunfels has a long section on the history of its ISD.
Often, developers negotiate to have their communities included in districts if they are developing empty land that is not already inside one. Texas is lucky, it is a growing state and most ISDs are dealing with the problems of growth, I have family in Iowa which is shrinking and school districts are constantly consolidating and merging and downsizing.
I think a lot of the remainder of Texas outside the big metro areas is not much different than Iowa. Have read stories of consolidations.
An interesting facet that I know has happened here in this growing part of Collin ounty.... ISDs that did not have a high school but had agreement with a neighboring district. For example I can remember when the Lovejoy ISD only went K-8 and the high school students went to Allen High School. the ISD has experienced growth and decided to build their own high school but I know it is younger than the 14 years I have been living in McKinney. I think there was a similar agreement with Melissa ISD and McKinney in the not too distant past.
The question I have on the boundary lines... Boundary lines have to be in agreement for both parties on either sides of the lines. I am wondering what the process was between neighboring districts to determine where said line would be drawn. I am sure there were disputes. Who settled these disputes?
The elected school boards of the respective ISDs is where I think disputes would be settled. One case study might be the AISD (Austin ISD) Round Rock (RRISD) boundaries, both districts grew incredibly in the 1980s and 1990s and the boundaries must have been adjusted. If you have access to Lexis/Nexis or other newspaper archives you could probably find it.
I think a lot of the remainder of Texas outside the big metro areas is not much different than Iowa. Have read stories of consolidations.
An interesting facet that I know has happened here in this growing part of Collin ounty.... ISDs that did not have a high school but had agreement with a neighboring district. For example I can remember when the Lovejoy ISD only went K-8 and the high school students went to Allen High School. the ISD has experienced growth and decided to build their own high school but I know it is younger than the 14 years I have been living in McKinney. I think there was a similar agreement with Melissa ISD and McKinney in the not too distant past.
The question I have on the boundary lines... Boundary lines have to be in agreement for both parties on either sides of the lines. I am wondering what the process was between neighboring districts to determine where said line would be drawn. I am sure there were disputes. Who settled these disputes?
Lovejoy High School was built in 2006. Before then 7-12 attended Allen. However, Lovejoy ISD turns 100 this year. The ISD boundaries were drawn 100 years ago and there has been little change. If a neighborhood wants to change from one district to another they need both ISD boards to approve. There is a dispute resolution process with the TEA. A neighborhood in Marble Falls ISD switched to Lake Travis ISD. A McKinney ISD neighborhood petitioned to join Lovejoy a few years ago, but McKinney ISD tabled the vote until Lovejoy voted and Lovejoy voted "no."
The main reason why ISDs don't follow municipal boundaries is because ISDs have to cover every square inch of inhabited Texas. There can't be any homes anywhere that don't map to an ISD whereas there are huge swaths of unincorporated areas that don't pertain to any town or city. The only other jurisdictional boundaries that do the same thing are the county boundaries. But counties are really too large to use for school district boundaries as there are often many towns and communities within a single county.
No one has mentioned racial gerrymandering. But it sure looks like some of the ISD boundaries were drawn with this in mind. Waco is an example of this. The boundaries between Waco ISD and La Vega ISD (mainly minority) and the surrounding surburban districts which are whiter follow pretty convoluted paths that pretty closely match housing patterns. The cause and effect might be reversed though. Builders might be choosing to put all the new subdivisions into the more affluent and whiter districts. But the effect is the same. The convoluted district boundaries look like they are drawn along racial boundaries.
Looks like the same thing in San Antonio. There are what....15 different districts covering all the different parts of San Antonio? That seems very excessive. And the disparities in wealth and resources between the northern and southern districts in San Antonio are pretty dramatic.
What is different about Texas compared to many other states is that there has been very little consolidation of districts over the years. In other states a lot of smaller districts have been consolidated over time to form larger and more coherent districts. That rarely happens in TX and usually only when towns get so small as to be unable to really support their own schools. Or more recently when some districts have such a failing record that the state dissolves them and absorbs them into surrounding districts which has happened a couple times in recent years.
Last edited by texasdiver; 01-16-2018 at 11:12 AM..
When the ISD system was founded Texas was going through a period of decentralization. County Judges had sweeping powers at that point and cities were very weak. During this period County government power was diffused to the point where most county department heads are now elected separately. In that overall environment they wanted independent governments.
The system was created with income from large State holdings of land since Texas had kept it's frontier lands after annexation unlike other states that had been created by the federal government privatizing land. So compared to other states early Texas had a fair bit more funding and a much lower and more rural population. City school districts weren't realistic because cities were small and nearly all of them had significant out of town population where the city school would be closest.
So what you had was ISDs created around cities and pretty much any population center that could support them. Countywide wouldn't work because some counties were still massive. At one point Nueces County(Corpus Christi) went from Corpus all the way to the border, a ten day wagon ride in good weather. Some counties were too small population wise(and still are) so multi county districts were common in rural areas.
In mid to large cities now you have many school districts because the cities have grown and absorbed the formerly outlying farm towns.(In early Texas a heavily populated area had towns a day's ride from each other or about 10-15 miles apart with worked farms and ranches along the way) In some cases those towns were unincorporated and were annexed or chose to be municipally absorbed but separately the school district decided not to merge. In other cases the town and school district both stayed independent but in those cases the town is almost always smaller than the ISD geographically.
That's the result of Texas city annexation laws. Basically in Texas the larger the city the larger it's extra territorial jurisdiction(ETJ). An ETJ is an unicorporated zone extending from the edge of a city a certain number of miles, the bigger the city the more miles. A city can only annex in it's own ETJ. So as the mid and big cities grew their ETJ pushed outwards and got bigger in distance to the point where a small town would have a small ETJ entirely surrounded by the large city ETJ and eventually be surrounded by the large city itself. Memorial in Houston is a good example of this.
quite the racket / prosperous gig. (if you can keep it going).
Racket indeed. Charge exorbitant taxes and constantly come back with more bond elections. Build facilities and football stadiums that are ridiculously fancy and overpriced. If anyone complains, insinuate that they don't care about children.
I think a lot of the remainder of Texas outside the big metro areas is not much different than Iowa. Have read stories of consolidations.
An interesting facet that I know has happened here in this growing part of Collin ounty.... ISDs that did not have a high school but had agreement with a neighboring district. For example I can remember when the Lovejoy ISD only went K-8 and the high school students went to Allen High School. the ISD has experienced growth and decided to build their own high school but I know it is younger than the 14 years I have been living in McKinney. I think there was a similar agreement with Melissa ISD and McKinney in the not too distant past.
The question I have on the boundary lines... Boundary lines have to be in agreement for both parties on either sides of the lines. I am wondering what the process was between neighboring districts to determine where said line would be drawn. I am sure there were disputes. Who settled these disputes?
Most ISD borders were set 100 years ago when Texas allowed schools to be a separate entity from municipalities. If both school boards agree then a neighborhood or property can be redistricted. If they don’t the homeowner or neighborhood can appeal. A McKinney ISD neighborhood petitioned McKinney and Lovejoy to switch ISD’s. McKinney met first and obstained and Lovejoy voted no, then McKinney voted no. I don’t think their was grounds for appeal. At least on District has to vote yes.
Here is the link to a case in Austin. The neighborhood most likely would not have been able to switch ISD’s if Marble Falls School Board hadn’t dropped the ball at every possible opportunity.
Or more recently when some districts have such a failing record that the state dissolves them and absorbs them into surrounding districts which has happened a couple times in recent years.
Examples:
* Mirando City ISD into Webb CISD (2005) - Laredo area
* Wilmer-Hutchins ISD into Dallas ISD (2006)
* Kendleton ISD into Lamar-Consolidated ISD (2010) - Houston area
* North Forest ISD into Houston ISD (2013)
* La Marque ISD into Texas City ISD (2016) - Houston area
I know some African-Americans disliked the closures of four of five districts above (Mirando City ISD was not majority African-American), but I feel the districts couldn't support themselves as there weren't enough well-educated, high-earning residents to support the proper tax base, and being part of a bigger district can give you advantages.
The main reason why ISDs don't follow municipal boundaries is because ISDs have to cover every square inch of inhabited Texas. There can't be any homes anywhere that don't map to an ISD whereas there are huge swaths of unincorporated areas that don't pertain to any town or city. The only other jurisdictional boundaries that do the same thing are the county boundaries. But counties are really too large to use for school district boundaries as there are often many towns and communities within a single county.
No one has mentioned racial gerrymandering. But it sure looks like some of the ISD boundaries were drawn with this in mind. Waco is an example of this. The boundaries between Waco ISD and La Vega ISD (mainly minority) and the surrounding surburban districts which are whiter follow pretty convoluted paths that pretty closely match housing patterns. The cause and effect might be reversed though. Builders might be choosing to put all the new subdivisions into the more affluent and whiter districts. But the effect is the same. The convoluted district boundaries look like they are drawn along racial boundaries.
Looks like the same thing in San Antonio. There are what....15 different districts covering all the different parts of San Antonio? That seems very excessive. And the disparities in wealth and resources between the northern and southern districts in San Antonio are pretty dramatic.
What is different about Texas compared to many other states is that there has been very little consolidation of districts over the years. In other states a lot of smaller districts have been consolidated over time to form larger and more coherent districts. That rarely happens in TX and usually only when towns get so small as to be unable to really support their own schools. Or more recently when some districts have such a failing record that the state dissolves them and absorbs them into surrounding districts which has happened a couple times in recent years.
The disparities in wealth in San Antonio are newer than the school district lines. Its just that the northern areas grew and became prosperous. In the 60s, I think there was only one high school in both the northside and northeast ISDs. South San, Edgewood and Harlandale go back for ages, not some recent carve-out of the poor areas in the southern part of the city. Its more that schools drive the disparities in home values than the disparities in wealth drove the ISDs.
Usually the consolidation is forced, like Wilmer-Hutchins into DISD, North Forest into HISD, Kendleton into Lamar Consolidated ISD in Ft. Bend County and LaMarque into Texas City ISD.
Its more that schools drive the disparities in home values than the disparities in wealth drove the ISDs.
This is why Highland Park and University Park became so wealthy and esteemed. They were separate from Dallas ISD and therefore didn't have to racially integrate.
Meanwhile the wealthy neighborhoods in Houston were largely in Houston ISD (the Memorial Villages are mostly in Spring Branch ISD, though)
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