Allen ISD trustee resigns after board votes to redraw school boundaries
ALLEN, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) – A lot of unhappy Allen ISD parents were at Monday night's school board meeting.
Despite their best efforts to persuade trustees to vote no on a plan to redraw school boundaries – they voted yes.
And in a surprising twist at the end of the night, the school board member to vote no to the proposal resigned because of the decision.
"There were people saying that I am doing this to get votes from y'all.. no, I'm not hungry for votes. I'm not hungry for power. I just wanted to do the right thing for," said former Allen ISD trustee Vatsa Ramanathan.
A lot of parents say these changes are going to be difficult – they're worried about how their kids will take it and for some, the trip to school will be safety issue.
"We're going to speak the truth and hopefully we can persuade some board members," said Anderson Elementary School parent Michelle Boren.
Parents like Boren came with high hopes, hoping trustees would reconsider a plan to make attendance zone changes.
"We plan to call them out on several things in respect to the proposal," said Anderson Elementary School parent Jason Warschauer. "We found some mistakes in the math, some data that just doesn't add up."
District officials say schools on the city's west side are becoming overcrowded and there's declining enrollment at several eastern elementary schools, which is why they've been considering a boundary adjustment.
Anderson being repurposed as an early childhood campus – sending current students to Olson. Rountree being used for non-instructional use – sending students to Story.
"You're saying that the west side schools are overcrowded," Boren said. "You're only going to move 300 of those kids over to the east side. Yet you're going to move around 1,300 kids on the east side and you're going to close two schools."
Monday night, trustees said they took all this into consideration, ultimately deciding this was the best option. The plan goes into effect next school year.
