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Hispanic community organization unhappy with proposed feeder changes
By Kim Nguyen, knguyen@acnpapers.com
The Plano Independent School District board of trustees faced numerous parent groups at its Tuesday work session, as parents turned out to unite against proposed changes to the district’s school feeder patterns.
The board met to review input from the Plano Independent School District’s Feeder School Alignment Committee, which hosted a public hearing in each of the district’s three clusters two weeks ago.
Though the board’s work session was closed to public comment, members of Plano’s Hispanic community attended to object to the Feeder Scenario E4, E5, E6 -- one of the most highly debated proposed patterns for realignment in the East Cluster. The work session was not a voting session for the board.
Armstrong and Bowman middle schools currently get their students from eight feeder elementary schools whose student populations, in many cases, are economically disadvantaged. Currently, when those students move on to Williams High School, the student mix changes because they are joined by students from more-affluent Murphy Middle School.
Feeder Scenario E4, E5, E6 calls for removing Murphy Middle School from the Williams High School feeder pattern and sending its students to the new McMillen High School in Murphy when it opens for the 2011-12 school year. That leaves Armstrong and Bowman as the only schools feeding into Williams High School. Students from the three middle schools will all eventually be together again at Plano East Senior High School.
“We attended the [work session] to determine whether or not we need to launch a full-scale effort to prevent the district from segregating Hispanic and low-performing, economically disadvantaged students,” said Carlos Quintanilla, president and founder of Accion America. “We are hoping it doesn’t have to take place and we hope the district sees that there are other realignment solutions.”
Implementing Feeder Scenario E4, E5, E6 would place all Title 1 economically disadvantaged students within a single school. That would minimize economic diversity, competitive education and send a message that “poor Hispanic students are not welcomed anywhere else,” Quintanilla said.
Should the trustees approve of the plan, Quintanilla said a possible lawsuit against the district would be filed.
“The plan creates two distinct classes of education, and it puts the Title 1 students at a bigger disadvantage,” he said. “If they adopt the plan, Plano ISD is segregating based on economic background. It’s unconstitutional, unacceptable and shouldn’t be done. Any form of segregation is unacceptable.”
District officials said they will not comment on the realignment process.
“Ninety-nine percent of parents will choose to send their children to a school with a competitive learning environment over a low-performing school,” Quintanilla said. “It’s a no-win situation if Plano ISD adopts the plan. We’re asking the committee to reevaluate the whole strategy to find a solution that does not include segregation.”
Residents in the far east Plano ISD boundaries have said the Title 1issue is not the problem, but rather having to bus students to Williams High School when McMillen High School will be significantly closer in proximity.
“The busing issue is a smokescreen,” Quintanilla said. “It’s not that poor parents can’t provide transportation, they can. They’re just not given the opportunity to represent themselves.”
Accion America is gathering support through a grassroots campaign to give all students the opportunity to learn in a competitive environment. The group sent out a call to action over the weekend to gather more support from Plano’s Hispanic and non-Hispanic community, Quintanilla said.
“I think that over time we’ll get a great response,” he said. “A lot of Hispanic parents haven’t been involved and have no clue what’s going on. This affects many non-Hispanic families as well, and I’m very happy to see that Anglo parents also see that it’s wrong.”
Quintanilla said the issue with feeder patterns comes as a surprise to Accion America and other Hispanic community organizations in Plano.
“Plano has always been a very responsive and friendly city for the Hispanic community,” he said. “Officials never took an adverse position against immigration and established a day labor program, so this school feeder issue really surprises us. I hope the district will see our concerns and try to find another solution.”
The Plano ISD Feeder School Alignment Committee is expected to recommend a draft of the feeder realignment pattern for each of the district’s three clusters at the Nov. 3 Plano ISD board of trustees meeting.
For information on the Feeder School Alignment Committee and to see various feeder scenarios for each of Plano ISD’s three clusters, visit http://www.pisd.edu/feeder.realignment.committee/FeederAlign.html. Please direct questions to askpisd@pisd.edu.
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