Parents Fight Magnet School Cuts at DISD
By SCOTT FRIEDMAN
Updated 7:30 PM CST, Mon, May 11, 2009
Angry parents prepared to pack a school board meeting in Dallas Thursday night to protest plans to cut teachers at some of the city's top magnet schools.
Some parents of students who attend magnet schools want the district to fight for waivers, exempting the magnet schools from those funding rules. The district said its lawyers are looking at that possibility, but have not been able to find a way around the situation.
One magnet high school, Booker T. Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts, could lose more than a dozen teachers, according the district spokesman, Jon Dahlander.
Parents like Melody Townsel, whose daughter, Sadie, attends a magnet school, said she watched the teachers go to other schools without a fight.
"Rather than try to take apart a system that's worked well over last three decades I would prefer to see them focus on making all the schools raise their standards," Townsel said.
"I don't understand why they would want to take those schools apart, that doesn't make any sense to me," said Lea Ann Stundins, whose son Quinn attends Alex Spence Academy, one of the schools that could be affected by the cuts.
The school district said it may have no choice. District officials fear they could lose $100 million in federal aid if they don't cut the budgets at the city's magnet schools. Federal rules governing the money, known as Title I funds, require school districts to show that all schools are being funded equally. Because of that, district officials say, the magnet schools may have to give up some staff, and teachers would be re-assigned to other schools.
"We're stuck in a spot where we've got to do something," said Dahlander. "We're looking for any wiggle room that might be there, but at this point we're not seeing a whole lot."
First Published: May 11, 2009 5:54 PM CST
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