Hays CISD
Posted December 13, 2005, 11:30 p.m.
then approve districts |
The Hays Highway
BUDA — Deviating from a redistricting plan proposed by the school district's Growth Impact Committee, the Hays CISD Board of Trustees approved an adjusted version in the interests of moving fewer students Monday night.
The amended plan will leave students within Buda's city limits at Barton Middle School, in exchange for leaving many students in the Green Pastures area at Dahlstrom Middle School.
Parents from the Buda city limits were generally supportive of the original plan at a November public hearing. However, residents from Green Pastures and The Ridge, both east of IH-35, were upset that their children were ticketed to remain at Dahlstrom with Chapa Middle School going up with view of their homes. The Hays CISD administration responded by saying it would be counterproductive to move those students to Chapa because they will have to be moved yet again when another planned middle school goes up in east Kyle within a couple years.
Extending that logic, the board decided it made no sense to follow the committee's plan, which would have moved students living between Lilac Way, Green Pastures Drive and Mathias Way from Dahlstrom to Barton. So, trustees switched those eastside students back from Barton to Dahlstrom and switched students in Buda from Dahlstrom to Barton, retaining the status quo for those students.
"All the changes we made were in the interests of letting students stay in the schools they presently attend," Hays CISD Trustees President Chip DuPont said, adding that the committee's suggestions to the contrary were made in the respectable interests of creating socioeconomic balance and maintaining consistent feeder patterns between elementary and middle schools.
The board voted 6-1 in favor of the amendment, with only Buda trustee Henry Altmiller dissenting.
The final plan also solved concerns from the Spring Branch neighborhood in Kyle, where residents complained about the original plan's call to split the subdivision between the Hays and Lehman High School districts. The board decided instead to send all Spring Branch students to Kyle Elementary School, Wallace Middle School and Lehman High School. That amendment passed unanimously.
The board passed the final plan, which contained no other changes, by a 6-1 vote, with only Altmiller dissenting.
