tiredofschoolburea

Dear Spring ISD parent:

You will not find out anything of value by either visiting the Spring ISD website or by calling or e-mailing someone. You will need to start attending the school board meetings to learn about where all the money goes.

There is usually some time during the meeting set aside specifically for public comments, and you can comment or ask questions at that time only. Usually you will have to wait for a written response from the district, probably after they've had time to consult all their attorneys that you're paying for, before they will answer you, but you will get some answer.

It might not even be one you like to hear, so you will have to keep coming back, and you will probably be labelled a pest or troublemaker by the board members or administration, but keep telling yourself, you are a resident, you pay taxes, you have a right to get answers.

It helps to find other like-minded individuals like yourself, so you'll have company at the meetings. Good luck & don't give up!

I agree, I've been attending the meetings since they started moving schools on us again, 2nd time in 2 yrs. There were a bunch of the neighbors present. They limited our addressing the board to 3 minutes. But, we have attended and plan to continue to attend. When we asked about a previous concern to the superintendent of cirriculum, we were told to "stop beating a dead horse"! Nice reply from a tax payer based employee huh? The district doesn't know what they have done... they have encouraged us to be as involved as possible. Which in my opinion, they really DON'T want. They prefer to have these low attendance meetings as they are used to, and pass motions that no one is present to oppose. So, we'll be there and we will haunt them. Everyone of the residents that requested in person meetings were asked to be on a committee. So they will and they will keep the public informed as well, but that does not stop us from attending the meetings! The district will know every single one of us, we are already labeled as trouble makers. We take that as a compliment .

From the website, the bond failed in 2005, so the two planned middle schools are not under construction. They only have a planned site for one, with the other still attempting to locate property for. The 4th HS has been planned on Cypresswood, but it is not planned to open until like 2012 or something like that. The middle schools are so overcrowded that they just this week rezoned again to ease the overcrowding. But, this plan puts all the middle schools WELL over capacity with no other schools under construction as of yet. Mean while, the old Westfield 9th grade builing with the capacity to ease the overcrowding, sits empty. This building was origianally built to be one of the middle schools, but was converted into a 9th grade only high school to Westfield to ease, again, overcrowding. So, instead of repairing the building and making it a MUCH needed middle school for the most overcrowded side of the district, they'd rather keep shuffling our kids from school to school. If the bond failed in 2005, they have had time to plan something before now. And this building sitting empty is not acceptable when we pay too much money in taxes with a desperate need for another middle school to sit empty. I've been to these meetings, there was no mention of repairing the empty building to ease the overcrowding. And Drapers dialogue on the website is a joke! The district reps are morons and need to be removed, what benefit have any of them brought to us since taking office. Most of the are new to the district, with the Draper gang starting in 2005 with his arrival. Plus, so many teachers dislike him and his policies that they are leaing by the droves. My kids middle school has no principal named yet for next year, current prinicipal is leaving dodge. Not sure which side of the district you live on, but I'm close to the airport. We too pay high taxes here. I want to see 1-where my $ is going, 2- why are we seeing so many things on the news about spring 3- what does the district plan on doing about all these problems. If they are not building schools, not investing in security (knife incident at Wunsche; not reporting to parents another knife incident with a 9 yr old), and losing laptops with personal information including SSI #'s, where the heck is our money going? The district HATES your phone calls and emails asking them what they are doing. Both my kids personal info was on that laptop, the district offered us advice on how to monitor credit reporting acgencies for possible fraud, but refuse to pay the fees charged for monitoring these agencies. Their fault this info is out there, any other incident I've seen where similar info had been compromised, the party at fault offers to pay the monitoring fees, but the school district is refusing. I can't pay these fees, I'm a working parent just making it this high gas, high energy bills world. They don't care, they just don't care and will NOT accept responsibility. This is why we need to fire every single one of them and get some experienced people running this show for us!

From dealing with Draper, I think he is the first one that needs to be run out of office. What exactly has he accomplished during his almost 3 yrs here except provide elusive answers to direct questions? Once we get him out and get someone in there that doesn't mind talking to the "little people" of the district (you know those of us who pay taxes and his salary), then we need to clean house completely. Two knife incidents, stolen computer with all our kids personal info, what next? The 9 yr old incident with the knifw was not even related to parents of the school it happened at or other district resident, channel 2 had to tell us . And that incident was not even considered an assault!!!!????? Where is this zero tolerance I have to sign every year at the beginning of the school year? What is the sense of even having this policy if it is not enforced?

When are we going to band together as local residents and remove these tax-dollar-sucking-a-pay-check out this district and get REAL qualified district reps? Has anyone even tried to talk to him in person or on the phone? Well, get ready to be spoken down to! Apparently receiving his Doctor of Education in 2006, after he was hired in 2005, that makes him much smarter than us common folk, so he uses little words to get his point across! Try it sometime, talking to him I mean, see if you hear that "gosh why am I even talking to you" tone in his voice. That tone only accompanies his voice if you're AGAINST his perfect resolution to a problem.

Well, us little people need to send a big message and remove him from our district. Who knows what to do to remove him? Let's get this ball rolling and show him how "ignorant" we really are.....

Spring superintendent Ralph Draper, who started work at the district only four days before the election, said the message voters sent the school district is loud and clear.

"This bond election, at this time, was not the way they wanted to go," Draper said. "What we have to do is get everyone back to the table, including those who may not have been at the table before, to build broad-based community support for a plan that will meet the district's and students' needs.

"Our next move is to run a slate of officers against the existing school board members in the next election," Williams said. "We would like to see people with a fresh perspective on the board

Spring ISD builds elementary schools, but what about middle schools? There are currently only 6 middle schools that all these elementaries feed into. And even fewer high schools that the middle schools feed into. Now they are going to bus kids from one side of the district to to another side. This results in our kids being on buses on 1960 in traffic everyday to get them to and from school. This increases cost of fuel and kids sitting on buses for possibly an hour or more, depending on traffic. This is ridiculous. When are they going to build more middle schools? Apparently they don't know yet either. Is anyone else tired of this district making more and more poor choices with our children and our money? All they are doing is moving our children around like chess pieces to "make room" for all our kids. When are they going to use our money for what it is meant for? MORE SCOOLS.......