For the first time in nearly half a century, Tyler ISD is set to change its high school and middle school zoning boundaries. The school posted the new maps on their Facebook page last week.
The district also is making the biggest changes to the way it approaches middle school learning since the 1970s.
In February, the school board discussed proposed boundary changes that are years in the making, approving both middle school and high school zone changes, as well as reviewing a proposal for changes to elementary school zones.
HIGH SCHOOLS
The zoning boundaries for the high schools will drop from 18 streets dissecting the center boundary to just four, with most of the district divided along Texas Highway 31 West and West Front Street, until it reaches the railroad line which runs along Beckham Avenue, where the boundary will shift down to East Fifth Street to the eastern border of the district.
Superintendent Marty Crawford said the district is acting now because it needs to balance populations at the high schools before the new facilities are complete. Due to western trending population growths, if the district does not approve zoning changes, Robert. E Lee would drop to around 2,000 students and John Tyler would grow upward of 3,000 students within 10 years.
The move will allow the district to keep the student populations about even, while allowing room for growth at both. The new facilities, expected to be fully complete by 2021, each will have capacity for 2,750 students.
The district also has its Early College High School, RISE Academy and Career and Technology Center, which help manage student populations. The district is looking into a small number of students spending their entire day at the CTC, under its Tyler Tech program, but regular blocks of students will still move back and forth between the CTC and the high schools.
Crawford said the changes to high school zoning will not cause any dramatic demographic shifts and only about 100 to 150 high school families will be rezoned initially.
MIDDLE SCHOOLS
At the middle school level, the most significant changes to zoning will come with the closure of Dogan Middle School and the changes to the district's programing for those grades.
The population at Dogan has been shrinking for several years and the school has remained on the state's "Improvement Required" list for several years.
Board member Rev. Orenthia Mason asked for the district's commitment to keeping the name M.W. Dogan for whatever shape the campus takes in the future.
Longtime board member Andy Bergfeld said that in 1999, the state required the board to have a meeting at Dogan due to poor performance, and many of the issues have remained despite the best efforts of the staff. Bergfeld said he supports the proposal because if the board does not act, the school will see the same results next year.
The facility will likely reopen in the 2019-20 school year as a facility for the RISE Academy program.
Mason said Crawford was fulfilling the charge the board gave him when he was hired, which was to find innovative solutions to the problems the district was struggling with in 2013 with 11 schools on the "Improvement Required" list.
"This was not easy, we could have come to the conclusion of just closing a school ... ," Mason said. "We're just having to do what other school districts have had to do. We don't need the federal government or state of Texas coming in and closing down our schools. We are intelligent enough as a board to find new ways to use our facilities."
Board Vice President Wade Washmon said he also wanted to recognize the importance of these students moving from an aging, deteriorating school to the newest, state of the art facilities in the district.
Crawford said most of Dogan’s students will be shifted to Moore, but a handful will be in the zoning areas for Hogg and Boulter Middle Schools.
Carrie Berrera, a children’s minister for Church Under the Bridge, spoke to the board about her opposition to closing Dogan. She said many of the children she ministers go to Dogan.
Berrera was concerned about taking children from an economically disadvantaged area and asking parents to find ways to reach campuses that might be much further away.
“The community doesn’t necessarily want to go somewhere else. These are good kids, they’re coming from places people believe in them,” Berrera said. “I see kids at Church Under the Bridge that are so bright, they just need advocates."
Crawford said the campus will be empty next school year while the district removes its portable buildings and identifies critical repairs and renovation needs.
Hubbard’s attendance zone likely also will increase as some students are shifted from Moore's current zone.
“Hubbard will have an expansion, but nothing crazy like it had before Three Lakes and Moore (Middle Schools) opened,” Crawford said.
Board President Fritz Hager pointed to the academic outcomes already in place at Moore when discussing the issue.
"I firmly believe this is in the best interest of those kids," Hager said.
The board also approved its ambitious middle school programming redesign during the meeting, which has been nicknamed the Pathfinder Program.
The redesign will see Caldwell Elementary Arts Academy begin to transition to a K-8 arts magnet and Hogg will shift toward a leadership and public service focused academy. Moore will maintain its Math Science and Technology Magnet program as a school within a school, while remaining a comprehensive, attendance zoned campus.
Hogg still will be attendance zoned, while Caldwell will allow current students to be grandfathered in as it shifts to a full magnet program open to students across the district, beginning with sixth grade students next school year.
Crawford said transportation has to be accessible in order for choice programs like these to work.
“If you’re going to have some type of choice in the system, you’ve got to have transportation,” he said. “We can really lead the charge on what choice looks like.”
Crawford said the district’s transportation department is working on ideas such as drop-off zones where students can ride the bus from a campus near home to their magnet campus.
Changes to the middle school zones also would help ensure more students stay together from middle school to high school as the new boundaries more closely match the high school zoning boundaries. Hogg Middle school will be the only middle school in the district split between the high school zoning line.
In March, parents and students voiced concerns about what will happen at the two affected schools at Moore MST Magnet School. (Read more here.)
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
The district also took a first look at proposed changes to elementary school zones. The shifting population centers of the district has put strain on Jack Elementary School, the district's newest elementary campus. The district has proposed shifting boundaries to alleviate some of the growing pains the school is experiencing. The proposal would shift about 100 to 200 students from Jack to nearby Owens or Peete Elementary Schools.
The district also could use those schools to help offset rapid growth at Dixie Elementary School.
“The good thing is we’ve got great schools across the district,” Crawford said. “We’re going to be empathetic and sympathetic to families.”
Crawford said that 1 in 6 students in the district do not attend the school their family is zoned in because of in-district transfers, out-of-district transfers or transfers from low-performing schools.
By shifting populations from overcrowded schools to more sparsely populated facilities, the district also hopes to avoid having to come back to taxpayers for another bond package in the near future.
Crawford said the responsible move is adjusting zone boundaries, rather than asking for new elementary and middle schools when they already have room for the students.
"We've got a lot of work before us this summer, there's no doubt about it," he said.
Parents with questions or concerns can call the district's Constituent Services department at 903-262-3073.
The district will notify parents if their zone will be changed. Parents also can see where they are projected to be zoned for the 2018-19 school year at TylerISD.org under the transportation tab.
Here are all the current and new district maps:
