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High School Boundary Plan Incenses Parents: McKinney: Some Say Map Forces Many Students to Commute Too Far

Posted on: Thursday, 12 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By Karen Ayres, The Dallas Morning News

Jan. 11--McKINNEY -- Parents from across the school district said Tuesday night that the proposed high school boundaries for the coming school year would unfairly force many students to spend extra time commuting to school.

Many of the 200 parents and students who attended a public forum on the plan said they supported the district's desire to balance the number of poor students at each school, but they objected to the specific borders in the economically balanced proposal.

Several parents said the long drive times in some sections of town would put student safety in jeopardy and hurt parent participation in school activities.

Dozens of people stood up to support parent Clara Rankin when she said the plan unduly burdens specific sections of the community and could squash support for the unusual economic policy.

"If certain areas are unduly burdened by this map, you will lose support for that socio-economic balance," Ms. Rankin said.

With Boyd High School set to open in August, a committee of 50 people recently created the zoning proposal for all three of the district's high schools. The school board is expected to vote on a final plan by the end of the month.

The district administration directed the committee to continue the long-standing policy of balancing the number of poor students at each school, so the proposal assigns many students to a school that is not the closest to them.

The plan calls for the northern section of the district to attend McKinney North High School, but it also pulls students from the southwest side of town to that campus.

Students from each side of Central Expressway are divided between Boyd and McKinney high schools.

Several parents said the proposal would increase the amount of time they spend in the car taking their children to school events.

"It is physically just so destructive on our family time and our emotions," said Clennie Hawthorne, who said she spends four hours a day taking her children to school.

Other parents said the proposal treats people on the southwest side different from those in other neighborhoods.

"It's not about economic diversity. It's about hardships the map is going to foist on us," Pat Nolan said. "I really feel the proposed map marginalized our neighborhood."

Several parents said they supported another plan the committee reviewed. Though that proposal wasn't discussed Tuesday night, supporters said it continues to balance the number of poor students while reducing the number of students who face long commutes.

The committee is slated to review the dozens of comments from the meeting at a review session Thursday. The proposal might be altered before it is presented to the board on Tuesday.

"Given the input tonight, I think there will be some looking at other maps," Superintendent Tom Crowe said.

After the school board votes on Jan. 23, students who are reassigned to Boyd will be required to go to the new school unless they have a sibling who will be a senior at one of the other schools.

Students who attend one of the two existing high schools will be allowed to stay put if they are assigned to the other school. A McKinney High student, for example, can stay there if he or she is reassigned to McKinney North.

E-mail kayres@dallasnews.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Dallas Morning News

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Source: The Dallas Morning News

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