Opposition surfaced two days before two scheduled public hearings on the Fort Bend school district’s two school attendance zone plans.
The first hearing is slated for today at Hightower High School, 3333 Hurricane Lane, followed by the second on Thursday at Schiff Elementary, 7400 Discovery Lane. The campuses are in the Missouri City area. Both hearings will start at 7 p.m.
At a Monday night school board meeting, a group of neighbors of Sienna Point, a so-called “country estate” of huge lots off FM 521 in the Sienna Plantation area, showed up wearing badges that read “Sienna Point for Sienna schools” and urging officials not to send their children to the district’s 45th elementary under construction near Rosharon.
Neighbors Michael Florance and Krystene Woodard told trustees that their subdivision is part of the Sienna Plantation development and Sienna Point kids should attend the same schools as those of Sienna Plantation.
Florance attributed the perception that Sienna Point is separated from Sienna Plantation to the developer’s failure of constructing a path to link Sienna Point with Sienna Plantation.
The district plans to open next year the new elementary at 636 Glendale Lakes Drive off FM 521 south of Texas 6.
The new campus would enroll 448 children from both sides of FM 521, including the transfer of 111 Sienna Crossing elementary pupils from the Arcola area. Sienna Crossing Elementary is at 1011 Steep Bank Trace in Missouri City.
With the proposal, a small southern portion of the Schiff Elementary attendance zone, including the Waterbrook subdivision where there are 12 pupils, would be absorbed into that of Sienna Crossing Elementary.
An eastern section of the Sienna Crossing zone, where the 111 pupils live, would be annexed to the new elementary's attendance boundaries.
The plan would reduce Schiff's enrollment from 799 to 503 pupils, including 43 who live in Sienna Point, and that of Sienna Crossing from 974 to 881.
Sienna Point parents said their kids should stay put next year because only a year ago they were relocated from Sienna Crossing to Schiff.
The district’s zoning proposal for a new high school in the Sienna area also drew protest from a parent.
The new campus, the district’s 11th, is being built at 500 Waters Lake Blvd., south of Sienna Plantation near the Hillwood residential development.
In an angry tone, parent Trish Fisher told officials at the school board meeting that they had failed to seize the opportunity to fix the long-standing overcrowding problem at Clements High School.
She said she won’t support another district bond referendum unless Clements’ issue is resolved.
Previous options proposed when setting the attendance zone for the new high school had involved rezoning some students from Clements to Dulles High.
Those options also would have relocated Vicksburg subdivision students from Elkins to Hightower just two years ago after they were transferred from Hightower to Elkins.
But trustees later preferred to not affect Vicksburg reassigning students from Sienna Plantation south of Texas 6 who attend Elkins and Hightower to the new high school.
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Comments
FBISD ignores the big picture...
Rezoning is an unfortunate by-product of growth, and in this case poorly managed growth. As most current students will be grandfathered to their current schools, we are talking about new students or younger siblings.
Next year FBISD will have 5 HS below 4A levels, while several others are well over thier "functional" enrollment. A landlocked Dulles specifically could absorb some kids from the Clements zone, who, btw, where zoned to Dulles just 2 years ago. It might also be time to either close Willowridge or make it a 9th grade campus to feed the combined enrollments of Marshall and Willowridge.
It appears to me FBISD has taken the easy way out and once again bowed down to developers and special interests. The best interest of the majority and fiscal sanity have long gone by the way side.
Beware of developers who make promises
I agree with your assessment. The cart is pulling the horse and making us all pay for it.
transparencyingovt
Stop the bonds!
"The district’s zoning proposal for a new high school in the Sienna area also drew protest from a parent.
The new campus, the district’s 11th, is being built at 500 Waters Lake Blvd., south of Sienna Plantation near the Hillwood residential development.
In an angry tone, parent Trish Fisher told officials at the school board meeting that they had failed to seize the opportunity to fix the long-standing overcrowding problem at Clements High School.
She said she won’t support another district bond referendum unless Clements’ issue is resolved."
This says it all!
transparencyingovt
Clements H.S. sets wonderful
Clements H.S. sets wonderful property values and easy sales for new developments that feed into it. Why would a developer allow homes that he is trying to sell to be rezoned out of Clements? He wouldn't, and he makes the decisions about school zoning.
What is good for students, parents, and teachers is entirely secondary.
Patriot Missive
Special Interest Anyone?
Wow, that's pretty close to how it is called patriot. The education foundation is filled with district vendors and that body picks our current and future board members, just like they are going to help Steve Smelly in his campaign against Patterson. It violates TEC and state law, but it will happen through their district-wide e-mail list. I wonder how many of the district vendors are also members of the Greater Fort Bend Economic Development Council? Perhaps Jeff Wiley and Herb Appel could answer that one.
;-)
transparencyingovt
Re: below comment
I had a not-so-good experience with Smelley. Or rather, lack of experience. Patterson all the way... our area has had lots of positive change the last decade... don't try to fix what's not broken.
Rezoning
"Previous options proposed when setting the attendance zone for the new high school had involved rezoning some students from Clements to Dulles High." How would they do that, while the subdivisions just south of Brightwater cross Hwy 6 to go to Elkins? Dulles wants more students? Great! Have everyone north of Hwy 6 and west of FM 1092 go there! While they're at it, don't have exceptions to the rule of using FM 1092 as an east/west division line by making a few of the First Colony neighborhoods cross FM 1092 to attend the Quail Valley schools. That's why we sold our house and moved out of that area... the lower-ranking Quail Valley schools were not on par with what was nearby, and looking at a map, it would make more sense to be zoned to Lexington Creek / Dulles / Dulles just like everyone else on that side of FM 1092 and Hwy 6. Of course this was all suggested to FBISD, but to no avail.
It's crazy...
Fortbender, the BOT has rarely had the back-bone to stand-up and take on the challenges. They usually just do what the supt. tells them, which is not their role. Smelley's wife runs the ed. foundation and we've seen how the vendors (many of them members of the found) help the supts pick the board and how they use the e-mail lists.
What's really sad is the fact that the district is only acceptable while running two consecutive 10 and 20 million dollar budget deficits for the first time in the districts history. This is indicative of things to come after this supt. has been given almost 60K more than the last one.
transparencyingovt
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