The Collin County Observer

The Dallas Morning News' Plano Blog has been covering the continuing debate over drawing school boundary lines in east Plano. The trustees are faced with difficult decisions, and they know the parents are watching.

Presently, McKinney ISD buses middle school students in order to balance the demographic makeup of its schools. Plano trustees are trying to balance the socio-economic disparity that exists between older schools in inner East Plano and the newer schools in more affluent suburban neighborhoods.

The DMN's Matthew Haag wrote a very nice piece in the Plano Blog yesterday describing the latest idea for achieving balance while still maintaining the concept of neighborhood schools.

Bill

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Plano ISD reforms: Trustees look into magnets

Thursday, Nov 05, 2009
Matthew Haag/Reporter / The Dallas Morning News

Plano ISD trustees weighing whether socioeconomic factors should be used in drawing school boundaries spent more time this morning on another topic: magnet schools.

Trustee Missy Bender said Plano ISD is at a crossroads. Student enrollment has mostly plateaued, she said, but pockets of Plano have seen aging housing and an influx of ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. At schools in those areas, Plano ISD has focused on putting the right set of principals, while also adding needed resources.

That system has worked so far, but Bender and other trustees wondered if Plano ISD could reach a point where doing only that isn't enough to address students' academic needs. So, Bender told fellow trustees John Muns and Duncan Webb, she thinks Plano ISD has three options in drawing the school boundaries.

"This is a defining moment for the district," she said. "I don't think there is a silver-bullet answer."

She said that the district can stay the course, where Plano ISD has tried to assign students to nearby schools. But the overall goal has always been to make sure enrollment figures across Plano's schools are balanced, she said.

The second option, she told the trustees, is to keep the current system but add a magnet school that parents could choose to send their children to. This model has been used at Richardson High School. Students who live nearby go to Richardson High School, but it also offers magnet courses that attract students from across Richardson ISD.

Under that system, such a hybrid magnet school would attract high-achieving students and blend them with students who live in the neighborhood. But trustees wondered if that type of magnet school could work in Plano ISD. Richardson High School has four grade levels, while Plano, of course, has high schools and senior high schools.

"Our system isn't setup like that," Webb said.

But Bender said that Plano ISD could try to perfect this magnet model. If it's done right, she said, it could become an example of what other districts should follow.

"We always talk about doing less traditional things," Bender said. "We have a chance to take that further."

Muns added that Plano would have to make sure there's a demand for this type of school. Attendance would likely be voluntary, so would children show up to specialize in automotive repair, engineering or music, Muns asked.

A third option for drawing the boundaries is to do them based on socioeconomic factors. Mari McGowan, an attorney for Plano ISD, told trustees that the district shouldn't draw such a boundary in just one part of town.

McGowan? said those boundaries would have apply across the district.

"A uniform process is always advisable," McGowan? said.

Webb said he thought those boundaries could cause excess transportation costs and additional busing to ensure diverse students are spread among the district's schools.

The board members then explained three magnet school options they had researched. In Coppell, the district started New Tech High, a school where student learning is driven by projects. (The DMN's Katherine Leal Unmuth wrote about the school last April.)

"It was incredibly exciting," Muns said.

Trustees and deputy superintendent Danny Modisette said the New Tech High model is based on only having 400 to 500 students. Plano high schools, however, enroll thousands of students. But Modisette said that the company that provides the curriculum, training of teachers and model for New Tech High is looking to bring the concept to a bigger schools.

The next magnet opportunity discussed was the one at Richardson High School, where students can specialize in anything from communications to science. As I wrote earlier, the school is also attended by children who live nearby.

The last magnet model discussed was one recently implemented in Spring ISD near Houston. The district started Wunsche High, a school focused on providing numerous career paths students can follow. The school doesn't look like one from outside. It looks much more like a professional office building, and that's on purpose.

At Wunsche, for example, a student would take medical courses there but go back to his/her home school for extracurricular activities or math and English. Bender said the school has generated a lot of energy in that district and has been full since it started three years ago.

The trustees seemed excited about at least looking into the possibility of adding a magnet school in Plano ISD, so I would expect them to further discuss the idea in future meetings.

"There is no one best way to do it," Bender said.

The trustees then closed the open portion of the meeting to discuss the boundary changes with McGown?, the attorney. Trustees aren't expected to vote on the boundary changes until December.

link to post on the Dallas Morning News' Plano blog.....