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pineda

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Posts posted by pineda

  1. Ah, my old stompin' grounds! Parker Elementary, Johnston Junior High, and Westbury High. I wonder what these schools are like nowadays? Beautiful house though, flipper! I haven't seen tile done like that before in a shower with the big slab tiles, and I really liked it. Do you find that a pretty good number of homes in the Westbury area have foundation problems?

  2. A little story about Gringo's you may not know about. The original name for Gringo's was to be Pinche's, TRUE STORY ! The City of Webster said, "NO WAY JOSE !", for obvious reasons, so Gringo's was the substitute. The original owner was the owner of The Mason Jar. He REALLY wanted that name.

    Russell Ybarra owns Gringo's.

    His dad, Eugene Ybarra, owns El Toro.

    Who is the original owner you mention?

    I hadn't heard that either Ybarra owned a Mason Jar.

  3. They're just twice as wide at Klein Oak.

    I don't think so, but if this a reason to re-build Klein? No.

    It was more a general statement of how we build schools, pineda. But if you want to talk about Klein High, then look at the picture at the top... do you call that architecture?

    So, it's not pretty like Klein Collins. Is this a reason to re-build Klein? No.

    How do you force a bond on someone? It's an election. It's up to the public whether they want to pay for something. But overcrowding means there are more families, which means there should be more money to pay for schools.

    Oh, you're definitely right about it being an election, but why do some of the steering committee members find it necessary to form their own PAC to make sure it passes, with the Klein High re-build included? I wonder...

    Because in Klein, we are heavy on the residential side and light on commercial tax base, the residents here have to pay a heavier share of school taxes than other commercial-rich districts, so we don't necessarily have more money here.

    I look forward to seeing you at the polls, H-Town Man! Hopefully, the school board members and the superintendent have been getting e-mails from the residents affected and the current proposal will be revised downward and the Klein High re-build postponed until the overcrowding issues are addressed first and then I'll be happy to vote in favor of it.

  4. Check out how crowded those hallways are between classes sometime.

    Well, I know how crowded they are at Klein Oak already and they are no more crowded at Klein, in my opinion.

    I think the architecture of a school sends a message as to the seriousness of what takes place there. It's called visual rhetoric, and students do respond to it, albeit subconsciously for the most part.

    Are you trying to imply that the current architectural elements employed at Klein High do not send this message already?

    The people who live in this area can afford a bigger bond, just a matter of priorities.

    Wow, that's a pretty broad and sweeping statement, but nevertheless, even if the people who live in this are CAN afford a bigger bond, is that justification enough in your mind to force one upon them for over $500 million dollars?

  5. Maybe because having a one-story building with narrow hallways at the heart of a 5A campus just isn't something that's worth preserving?

    Yeah, I'm sure all those "grand old high schools in cities like Boston and Philadelphia" didn't have any one-story buildings with narrow hallways, NOT!

    What does this have to do with building quality architecture?

    Oh, that refers to this;

    Look at all the grand old high schools in cities like Boston and Philadelphia... the people that built those schools knew the value of education, and the students who walked into them got the message.

    Were you actually trying to say that because the grand old high schools LOOKED impressive that the students attending those grand schools had a higher appreciation of the "value of education" than students attending Klein High do now?

    You're starting to sound a bit rhetorical. I didn't know that we lived in such "precarious financial times."

    Sorry, yeah, I'm guess it's just little old me that's living in precarious financial times. Lucky you!

    I will agree however that bureaucracy and waste is something that needs to be cut down.

    Ah, something we both agree upon! YES!

    As I have stated before, I have no problem voting for a bond proposal, just not the one currently proposed to us.

    Address the overcrowding issues FIRST, that is a more pressing need, in my humble opinion.

    Lower the current bond proposal numbers. Whittle the thing down, remove the "wants" out of it.

    Then, maybe, in four years, IF the current overcrowding situation has been properly taken care of, THEN re-build Klein High.

  6. Well, it was a joke of course. I'm glad you found it funny. And I know that there is no "flagship" in a public school district (though if you really want equality, you'll agree that Klein HS needs serious attention relative to Klein Oak and Klein Forest).

    But I am serious about architecture. Architecture gives the students pride, and it gives the community pride. It also signals that the community places a high value on the mission and purpose of the school. Sure there should be grandeur. Look at all the grand old high schools in cities like Boston and Philadelphia... the people that built those schools knew the value of education, and the students who walked into them got the message.

    The irony is that most of those people lived in houses that were, by our standards, not that fabulous. Yet they were still willing to put serious money into their school. Today we live in grand McMansion houses, but our schools are built on the cheap. Says something about our values.

    Actually, there is a mention somewhere on the Klein ISD website that refers to Klein High as "the signature school" for the district, so I guess, even though you meant to be funny, it really wasn't that far off the mark.

    As for the architecture thing, there's always been a perception, that for some reasons, buildings built in some parts of the country are not only better built but better maintained, than buildings here in the Houston area, where it seems like once something is approaching the 40-year mark, we need to bulldoze it and start over. Why that is, I don't know.

    I also think that when you are looking at a $640 million dollar bond package, when we just passed a bond election just four years that was about one-third of this one, and we're already looking ahead four years from now to passing another one, perhaps even larger than $640 million dollars, that maybe we should be paying closer attention to what's being included in that bond proposal, and I don't think we are.

    You are referring to simpler times, people focused on the educational aspects and good, safe buildings in which the learning took place. You had a small school board, a small maintenance staff and a small teaching staff.

    Take a look, in comparison, to what the modern school district, like Klein ISD, has become, and it's not even close. Our administrative staff is bloated, we have programs that cost exorbitant amounts of money (like the Chancery system) that even when the programs turn out to be ineffective or worse, we don't ask for our money back, we hire more consultants to find out why it's not working, and we keep making excuses to our taxpayers and we keep asking for even more money.

    We hire other consultants (like the PASA group) whom we pay even more money to for their advice, and then we ignore it. But, we keep hiring them back every year. There are other ineffective programs just like this, that keep getting paid for.

    I understand that you think it's a good idea to re-build Klein High, and IF we didn't face serious overcrowding issues at our other schools that will now be ignored for four more years if Klein High is re-built, and IF the bond proposal was not for $640 million dollars, I would definitely be agreeable to that re-build, because after all, we want the students at Klein High to be as proud of their school as the Klein Oak students are of theirs.

    The bond proposal for this amount of money in these precarious financial times for many of the 42,000 Klein ISD homeowners is just too much to ask for at this time. If the school board can seriously whittle that number down and cut out all but the most necessary items, then I'll vote for it. If they address the overcrowding that is happening RIGHT NOW, and not just four years into the future, and bring that number down, then I have no problem with Klein High getting their re-build.

    However, if the number stays the same, and the school board decided to stick with their plan to add a wing onto Klein Oak, which will increase the population to 5,000 kids, then I will be voting NO to the bond proposal.

  7. HA! ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!

    My "vision" for all Klein ISD schools:

    100% graduation rates from all Klein ISD high schools, 100% going to college or trades they've been trained for at the high school level.

    I couldn't care less about aesthetics/architectural designs. Heck, Klein ISD has so many attending classes in trailers now that maybe our future schools should just be a big lot loaded up with lots of portable trailers!

    And, seriously, enough of this talk about "flagship" schools, how about equality for all schools, since we're all paying the same amount of money for the same quality of education for our kids?

    Grandeur, flagship, pffffffttttt!

  8. I believe that a large group on that committe think this is a good idea, however that large group is primarily made up of KHS parents. I don't think this will be well recieved outside the KHS zone. Maybe they should pull that section out of the bond package since it is the most controversial and have the KHS issues voted on independently. Just a thought.

    I like this idea!

  9. You're right, my bad, the current building being used by students and being proposed by the bond committee for demolition is 45 years old, not 65 years old. BTW, any idea what a TEP/DAEP program is? It is listed on the bond proposal to be built concurrent with the re-build of Klein High for a proposed cost of $23 million. The Klein High re-build is already over $133 million in proposals, with inflation expected to add to that. Un-friggin'-believable!!

  10. That's sad. I went to KHS, I'd hate to see the old bird demolished. There's a lot of history in those buildings. The school has been around for over 65 years.

    At one of the bond committee meetings, someone gave some background information about Klein High School. They said that the original building had been built in 1963, making it 35 years old, not over 65 years old. Maybe you're thinking of the original one-room schoolhouse, but not the school currently located at Steubner Airline & Louetta.

  11. they could add on to Klein Oak or Klein Collins.

    In the current bond proposal, I believe there is a provision to add an extra wing onto Klein Oak, in lieu of building High School #6, even though that is the area of the greatest projected growth in the district.

    Has anyone mentioned yet the location of the site of the proposed new stadium? And beware, if you don't like Berry Center, you won't like what's being discussed for the plan of the new Klein stadium.

    The district has already conducted a preliminary phone poll to gauge the public perception of the bond outcome and has characterized the overall feeling from the district citizens as weak support for the bond issue.

    I personally think they're going to have a tough time getting this bond election passed.

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