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School Bond Plan Too Big for Some: Forney: Fast-Growing District Can't Wait, Proponents Say

Posted on: Sunday, 30 April 2006, 00:00 CDT

By Jim Getz, The Dallas Morning News

Apr. 29--An outsider looking at the Forney school district's $232 million bond proposition might think opponents would focus on the price tag, the largest for any school district in Kaufman County history.

Instead, what the opposition sees is this: a second high school, with some mascot other than the Jackrabbits, looming in one version of a future that's rushing at them too soon.

"It's not an uncommon attitude in our town," said Florence Benedict, who said she is coordinating a grass-roots effort against the measure. "We do not want to have a second high school at this time. We don't think it's necessary."

But Ticoy Young, chairwoman of a facilities committee appointed by the school board to help shape the bond package, made clear at a public meeting April 20 that the committee thinks the district needs to get ahead of its growth, which is among the fastest in the state.

"I know this means someone won't be a Jackrabbit anymore," she told the small crowd, "but we've grown more than anyone ever thought we would."

Supporters of the bond issue say new students are pouring in so fast that a new elementary school will be needed each year for a good while to come and a new middle school and high school by 2009. District enrollment is expected to double from the current 5,300 within a year or two after that.

But opponents of the bond measure say the board and committee refused to consider building a center for ninth-graders, or for ninth- and 10th-graders, as is done in Plano and other districts, instead of a new high school.

"The main thing is that ninth-graders do better socially and academically when they're not pushed ahead into the senior high concept," Ms. Benedict said. "

Ms. Young, school board President Keith Bell and others point out that the board and committee decided before the last bond election that the district should be composed of elementary schools through sixth grade, middle schools of seventh and eighth grades, and high schools of grades nine through 12.

"All configurations of the high school were considered, not only this time but in 2002," said Dwayne Thompson, the district's business, finance and operations director. "If you want to have a 2,000-student senior high school and a 2,000-student ninth- and 10th-grade center, what do you do when those get full? The board chose not to put off that decision."

For some, such as Forney girls softball league president Jeff Fudge, the issue is how the bond package was crafted and the fact that it is a single, all-or-nothing proposition -- voters cannot pick and choose the parts they like.

"To me, it wasn't representative of the community," he said of the facilities committee. "It was relatives or friends or people who had ties to the school board."

Mr. Thompson and district communications director Jennie Moore say there is plenty of proof the process has been open: The Forney Messenger newspaper ran three front-page notices last fall asking for residents to become committee members, and nine of the 20 who served had not served on previous bond committees.

Mr. Fudge, though, is looking beyond what he hopes will be the measure's failure to a possible November vote on a revised package.

Ms. Young says that if the bond measure fails in May, then some kind of package must win in November because the district can't afford to wait.

E-mail jgetz@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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