Some in neighborhood want to swap school districts

(4/05/07 - KTRK/SPRING, TX) (KTRK) -- A neighborhood successfully petitioning to switch school districts has never successfully been done in Texas before. That story did not change Thursday night as Spring ISD unanimously told the Northgate Forest Subdivision we don't want your children to leave our schools.

Tom Matthews gathered more than 150 signatures from his affluent neighbors to move Northgate Forest's youngest residents from Spring to Klein ISD. He cites declining academic performance and property values as a reason for the change. Not everyone agrees with his reasons.

"I took issue with him or with the petition in saying that the schools are underperforming substantially, they are not," Spring ISD parent Jill Smith told Eyewitness News.

"I think it would be a wrong message to send simply because you are geographically in a district, why would you want to change," asked Spring ISD resident Jeffrey Mitchell.

Administrators told the board that the petition does not meet all of the legal requirements. It's a complicated formula that says the ratio of tax dollars lost cannot outweigh the number of students in the neighborhood.

In a meeting Thursday night the issue came to a vote in an hour.

"I don't think that it is s a public policy position that we want to take as citizens of the State of Texas to abandon our children once we've got what we need out of the institutions," said Spring ISD Board President Mel Smith.

Matthews says his group will decide overnight if Northgate Forrest's fight will continue.

"Affluent people with kids do not move into Northgate because they are not going to put their kids into the Spring school district," Matthews said. "So it's a catch 22."

The issue is scheduled on a Klein ISD agenda April 10th. Matthews said his group will decide if they will move forward or pull it from that agenda.
(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

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