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School to start earlier next year
By Chris Roark, roarkc@acnpapers.com
Some Lewisville ISD students will be getting up a little earlier next school year.
The LISD Board of Trustees voted 4-3 Monday to approve new start times for high school and elementary schools beginning this fall.
Board president Carol Kyer, as well as board members Amber Fulton, Tom Ferguson and Vernell Gregg, voted to approve the administration’s recommendation. Kathy Duke, Tommy Kim and Fred Placke voted against it.
LISD officials proposed the change to help save the district, which is facing an $18 million deficit next school year, at least $500,000 in transportation costs. With the new plan, bus routes will be streamlined as bus drivers will each drive three separate routes.
In addition to saving money, district officials said some of the advantages for the new times include allowing high school students to eat lunch earlier since some of them currently don’t get to lunch until 2 p.m. It would also allow them to leave for after-school extracurricular activities without missing as much class time.
“Most of the people I talk to favor the change,” Fulton said. “There are a lot of pluses to this, especially at the high school level. I would hate to see us forgo the savings.”
Ferguson agreed, saying this could be examined again.
“We can go back next year if this isn’t working,” Ferguson said. “But in the meantime, we’d be saving some money.”
Dr. Jerry Roy, LISD superintendent, said timing is critical in trimming the deficit.
“We’re beginning to deal with difficult times, and the future doesn’t look better,” Roy said.
Other board members were hesitant about going forward with the time change because of how it impacts high school students who already have to wake up early for morning extracurricular practice.
Placke and Kim said they wanted to get more information on this, such as how the middle school students would be impacted if high school start times were left the same but middle schools started earlier.
It’s expected that the savings would be the same as long as the plan to streamline the bus schedules wasn’t changed. But Roy cautioned about switching that plan Monday because of how late in the school year it is.
The board also voted to proceed with two rezoning requests. The Lewisville, Creekside and Southridge elementary school rezoning proposal was approved.
Aiming to reduce the number of students at Morningside Elementary School in The Colony, the rezoning will send 100 students who live in the general area east of Paige Road, north of Gates Drive and south of North Colony Boulevard to Peters Colony Elementary.
It will also send 130 students who live north of Painter Street and Baker Drive, west of the railroad tracks, and south of North Colony Boulevard to BB Owen Elementary.
But the board voted 6-1 not to rezone Briarhill Middle School in Highland Village. Gregg voted against the motion. Duke and other board members said the decrease in the number of students at Briarhill resulting from moving them to Downing Middle School in Flower Mound wasn’t worth splitting up the communities. The motion included an option for Briarhill students wishing to transfer to Downing to have the opportunity to do that but without transportation availability.
The board also approved a plan to demolish and reconstruct portions of Lewisville High School instead of going forward with the district’s original plan of just adding sprinkler systems to the campus.
The new proposal was made in part because the cost to just do the sprinkler systems increased from $12 million to $20 million after factoring in the cost of asbestos abatement. District officials then decided to propose spending $47 million to reconstruct parts of the school so that it would last longer instead of spending $20 million for the sprinklers, plus $438,000 per year to maintain the 42-year-old building. Officials said much of the money for the project would come from the district’s savings.
Before the vote, members of the audience urged the board to reconsider its plan of building the campus to house 11th- and 12th-graders only, and instead build it large enough to include 10th-graders, too.
District officials have said the plan is to make Killough LHS North a ninth- and 10th-grade campus to go along with a second ninth- and 10th-grade campus planned to be located on FM 3040.
“You have the money to allocate on Main Street (LHS),” said parent Missy Elias, suggesting the decision is based on economic status. “Give us the equal opportunity high school that all of the other high schools have in the district. Don’t drag Lewisville High School into a three-ring circus among three campuses.”
But Kyer said Monday’s vote was only about whether or not to rebuild LHS, not what size to build it. She said Monday’s vote was a construction issue and that the option of including 10th-graders at the LHS campus is an instructional issue, which was decided during the bond package discussions.
Three parents suggested the new ninth- and 10th-grade campus not be built and the district instead take the money that would have gone there and put it toward LHS.
“Use the $56 million bond money to tear down the original LHS structure and rebuild it on the same footprint, allowing for better space allocations and expanded hallways, the cafeteria and the gym,” said parent Brenda Latham. “Take the $40 million found in savings and apply it to a portion of the $18 million supposed deficit, hire more teachers and reward the teachers we already have in our district.”
Kyer said that’s not possible because the money being used on the new campus on FM 3040 is bond money approved in the 2008 bond election. She said legally, that can’t be used for operational projects, such as the LHS project.
“Besides, that would go against the plan we have of having smaller community schools,” Kyer said. “It’s crucial to get 10th-graders involved because studies show that traditionally if a student stays in school through the 10th grade, they’re more likely to finish school. So with this plan, it gives our ninth- and 10th-graders small learning communities.”
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