Sacrificing Convenience For Diversity?

[pineda]

Neighborhoods at opposite ends over the school zoning issue

By: CHAD WASHINGTON, Reporter, HCN

As expected, the Fort Bend Independent School District is facing major heat from a prominent subdivision in Sugar Land regarding zoning proposal for a new high school.

Why expected? Because zoning high schools is like fights between brothers and sisters; plenty of words are exchanged - a lot of them harsh, people take sides, threats are made and feelings get hurt. But at the end of it all, the argument is about something deeper than the issue at hand.

In this case, New Territory residents are playing the crying, whining child. In the district's latest proposal, the subdivision would be split in half, with half of the kids living there being zoned to High School #10, while the other half will continue to go to Austin High School.

This has upset many residents there, because splitting the community by high school attendance would further divide the 4,600-home community that is already separated by Grand Parkway.

Plus the community wants all of the kids living there to attend the same schools - from elementary to high.

While it is noble for a community to want its children to go to the same schools and start friends at kindergarten and continue them in high school, this is a very hard task for a fast-growing suburb like Sugar Land to do.

With new communities popping up like wildflowers and so much tax money that the district can spend, some communities will have to share schools not only to survive, but to give the children the best education possible.

And the bigger subdivisions, like First Colony, will have to have their kids go to different schools.

Also, the district has more pressing responsibilities than just keeping a small-town atmosphere in one subdivision.

In making up the identity of the new school, Fort Bend ISD must make sure that diversity, one of the district's bright spots, must be an integral part of High School #10.

With areas like Mission Bend in the zone, the school can achieve that goal. But it also needs New Territory to balance it out.

Since the district's proposal became public, residents of New Territory gave three new proposals to FBISD. All of them have drawn all of its community to one school, either Austin or the new school. But most of these proposals fail at not only diversity, but also in proximity.

The first proposal would have a massive zone for High School #10, stretching from Waterside Estates, New Territory, all the way to the most western part of First Colony.

The Meadow Lakes area of First Colony, already zoned to Kempner High School despite being less than five minutes from Clements High School, would have to fight gridlock on the Southwest Freeway and U.S. 90 just to drop off and pick up their kids from High School #10, located on Grand Parkway and Harlem Road.

Plus,High School #10's diversity numbers would mirror Clements, which has high numbers for Anglos and Asians, but very low for blacks and Hispanics.

The second proposal fails in every aspect. In this plan, New Territory is zoned to Austin High, but it fails to solve the overcrowding problem that has plagued Austin since it was built in 1995. Kempner and Bush High would also see an increase in enrollment, while #10 would only get 684 students, 1,252 students less than in the district's proposal.

New Territory's third proposal can be tweaked, but it would force residents of Mission Bend and smaller neighborhoods like Kingsbridge and Tealbriar to be zoned to #10 instead of closer schools like Bush or Austin.

Other communities that are affected by the rezoning efforts, like Mission Bend and Pecan Grove, have supported the district in splitting New Territory. They understand that for a school to have its biggest impact is to have a fair makeup of not only its community, but of society as a whole.

This is something New Territory residents either fail to understand or fail to recognize.

But instead of embracing the efforts of trying to create high schools that reflect the society that their children will face, they rather have a mostly white and Asian school that suits only their community.

Of course, this is not just an isolated incident. In the other zoning controversy, most Missouri City residents are upset that the new middle school in Sienna Plantation will take a low number of surrounding neighborhoods and a low student count, while Lake Olympia Middle will remain minority-laden and overcrowded.

Superintendent Betty Baitland says that they want to keep Middle School #12's numbers low because it is a new school. But this is simple mathematics: If one school has over 1,600 kids, and you build a new school, why would you only allow 600 kids to go to the new school?

Now, back to the new high school. To be fair, I know some New Territory residents like the district's proposal. They understand that there must be a sacrifice of convenience for diversity. Only time will tell if the other residents will come to understand this sacrifice.

Reader Opinions:

Tom Miller Dec, 01 2004

Dear Chad Washington,

I take exception to three things in your article:

(1) NT residents are not "playing the crying, whining child." We have the right and the obligation to make our opinions known to our elected officials.

(2) Your remark that New Territory's "second proposal fails in every aspect" is misinformed. That particular map was offered as a starting point only, and based strictly on proximity to each campus, something FBISD did not point out when it was posted on their website. This map points out that HS #10 is being built in a less-populated area of the district, and thus is not in the best location based on the current student population.

(3) Please check FBISD's criteria for zoning; keeping neighborhoods and feeder schools tracking together is one of the zoning goals. Your article implies that this is not important, which I disagree with.

Regards,

Tom Miller