Source: Frisco ISDReedy High School zone causes most contention, discussion
The rezoning process for Frisco ISD's 2015–16 school year could extend past Dec. 8, when the district's board of trustees was originally expected to make a final decision.
At an Oct. 28 workshop session, the trustees examined 15 different versions of the new zone to accommodate Reedy High School. As a result, a survey was sent to Wakeland High School students and parents Nov. 3 to gauge interest in students possibly volunteering to transfer to RHS or another high school.
The board agreed to reassess the issue at its November meeting.
The proposed new zones were presented
on Oct. 13 and followed by an Oct. 28 workshop. FISD residents had their chance to speak publicly to the trustees about the new zones Nov. 10.
The district is rezoning to accommodate four new schools: Reedy High School, Trent Middle School, Pearson Elementary School and Norris Elementary School. The new schools affect the attendance zones for Frisco and Wakeland high schools; Stafford, Pioneer Heritage and Hunt middle schools and Ashley and Mooneyham elementary schools.
The district's demographic team is also proposing a change to the Robertson and Boals elementary attendance zones as well as Lone Star High School's.
Despite being forced to continuously adjust zones, the community, school board and administration remain committed to the small-school model, FISD Superintendent Jeremy Lyon said.
"We are committed to not moving forward with any recommendation—you will not hear a recommendation—at this point with these zones for creating any school that deviates from our small high school model, which means that no school will be zoned, no proposal will be zoned to have schools over 2,100 [students], which is the size of the school," Lyon told the board at the Oct. 13 meeting.
Lyon stressed that all district schools open with same commitment to quality and excellence—the same programming, material design, spaces and size.
"There are no haves and have nots as you see in so many other communities," Lyon said. "This is a conversation about haves and haves and that is something that helps us every single time we do this very painful, difficult task of rezoning. It's not about quality differences; it's about just the act of rezoning itself."
Lyon said nobody guessed the growth would get to the point that FISD would open four high schools in four years.
"So the adoption of the small-schools model coupled with this extraordinary fast growth there is not another community in this country that is opening four comprehensive high schools in four years," Lyon said. "We are already talking about high school 11, and we are already talking about high school 12, and that does not take us to build-out. So when we have this conversation about zoning, this is the complexity that we are talking about."
