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Parents petition to stop plans for middle schools

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Opposing recommendations for Fort Settlement middle school are, from the left, Melanie Armel, Elena Farah, and Judy Zhao. (Submitted Photo)

They met during a community meeting in Elkins High School; three women among hundreds of Fort Bend ISD parents making their way to blank sheets of paper called “parking lot papers” to provide questions and suggestions to address capacity issues.

They didn’t like the idea that elementary school children were learning in portable classrooms. They didn’t like the overcrowding they saw in the middle school. So they attended meetings, they read, they researched, and they organized.

They saw the recommendations from the 30-member community volunteer group looking at the facilities master plan and they liked the idea of an addition being constructed at First Colony Middle School with enrollment balanced between First Colony Middle School (FCMS) and Fort Settlement Middle School (FSMS).

The 2018 steering committee voted May 1 to recommend an addition but that all changed May 7 when the discussion turned to construct an addition on Fort Settlement. On May 14, during an 8.5-hour meeting, the FBISD Board of Trustees switched gears and voted to build a 12-classroom addition onto Fort Settlement Middle School.

The mothers were frustrated and outraged. They created a Facebook page called “Safe, Smart and Sustainable Schools in Fort Bend ISD.”

They helped organize a change.org petition, gathering more than 1,000 signatures and sent an open letter to the board of trustees and Superintendent Charles Dupre asking them to reverse the decision about Fort Settlement Middle School.

“Why would you knowingly and purposely overcrowd a school, especially a middle school. The young are already feeling isolated, you are making it easier for them to fall through the cracks,” said parent Melanie Armel.

The parents spoke to the Fort Bend Star last week but add they represent many voices from communities who want the board to show leadership.

“We are working together with many concerned community members from Commonwealth, Avalon, Brazos Landing, Telfair and Colony Meadows,” said parent Judy Zhao. “I believe most of the board are doing the best for the kids, but that decision made at one in the morning when they were exhausted and sleepy, I’m asking them to revisit based on the data.”

Data shows that Fort Settlement Middle School is already at 110 percent capacity. That will increase with projected growth from Riverstone.

According to the data provided to the board, Fort Settlement will reach 1,537 students (110 percent capacity) in 2018-19, 1,601 students (114 percent capacity) in 2019-20, and 1,675 students (120 percent capacity) in 2020-21, and then will continue to increase for the next several years to 1,898 students in 2027-28.

“Why is Fort Settlement taking on an unnecessary burden from overcrowding, stressed out teachers and administrators. And kids with less access to counselors at a fragile time of development are falling through the cracks when there is already capacity available at First Colony two miles away,” asked parent Elena Farah.

According to state testing numbers, the top three middle schools are Fort Settlement Middle School; Sartartia, located in New Territory; and First Colony so there should be no reason to reject a middle school, say the parents.

Both FCMS and FSMS are located two miles apart. There is room inside First Colony Middle School but there are concerns about rezoning students who have already been moved because of Hurricane Harvey.

“They say they want community input. There is a difference between community input and community noise. You’re making decisions based on competing noise levels and most number of T-shirts. They have this steering committee working and they had a paid professional consultant and adding to Fort Settlement was not one of the recommendations,” said Zhao.

In light of the rash of school shootings across the nation, the district said it would do more. The governor recommended single entry buildings. 

The parents say the portables make their children sitting ducks. The issue is addressed in the petition.

“FBISD is spending millions of dollars updating schools with bulletproof security vestibules, yet the board essentially voted to intentionally, and indefinitely, house portable buildings at Fort Settlement. Portable buildings are not secure. Portable buildings are not bulletproof. Locking the door on a portable building is not even close to being as secure as inside a school building. Building a short, thin mesh wire fence is not even close to being as secure as inside a school building. There is a solution that would not require any portables, now and in the future, and would keep all the students safe – balance enrollment between First Colony and Fort Settlement. That is the only safe solution for our kids,” the petition states.

Farah said she voted yes for the 2014 bond.

“When the 2014 bond was passed, voters were told that more than $4 million would be allocated to renovations and upgrades/expansions of First Colony Middle School so that it could specifically accommodate the growth of part of Riverstone,” Farah said. “To the best of my understanding, nearly $1.5 million of this budget was subsequently reallocated to other needs and out of the remaining balance left for FCMS, only 13 percent has been spent according to the Watch Us Grow document presented to the Board on May 14). Why?”

During the May 14 meeting, trustee KP George cited the age of the school and noted that Riverstone families have already been rezoned once during Hurricane Harvey.

Farah and others challenged the age issue saying the district needs to maintain its older buildings.

“If the district continues to fail to maintain FCMS it will most certainly fall into disrepair even sooner than 10 years,” said Farah. “We, as voters, approved the money to invest in FCMS. Why hasn’t the school been repaired? Why the last minute 1 a.m. switcheroo from adding and expanding to FCMS to adding/expanding classrooms AND adding portables to FSMS?

“This decision would result in an FSMS that has nearly 2,000 students, some in portables, while FCMS would have under 1,000 over the same time period and will remain underutilized and underinvested in, This is a race to the bottom,” she said.

Farah and at least 1,000 voters said in their petition that they want a change and threatened to vote no on the new bond that the district is preparing.

“We, the undersigned, respectfully request the FBISD Board of Trustees rescinds the motion to construct an addition to Fort Settlement. The recommendation given by the FBISD administration and both the 2013 and 2018 steering committees should be upheld, which is to balance enrollment between Fort Settlement and First Colony Middle Schools. We are registered voters, with most of us residing in the most active voting district in Fort Bend County, and we do not support the decision to build an addition at Fort Settlement. Therefore, we will be forced to vote “no” for the upcoming FBISD bond proposal. Please reconsider the motion made on May 14, 2018, regarding building an addition onto Fort Settlement Middle School,” the petition says.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. We would like to thank the CME community for starting the petition and helping to get over 1000 in just over 2 days.

  2. I fully support these three caring ladies. The school board owes the taxpayers an explanation why they failed to observe the promise based on which taxpayers voted to approve the bond; why they adopted a plan so obviously and outrageously unreasonable; and why they acted against the advice by professionals paid with tax dollars. They must be held responsible.

    • The concept of not properly maintaining an academically successful and underutilized school (First Colony) and sending students living nearby to a more remote school (Fort settlement) resulting in long term portables (PODs) that are hard to secure, defies any common sense.
      The result is detrimental to both schools and communities!
      Common sense is to base decisions on proximity, campus utilization and invest in both schools.
      As an example the parts of Riverstone closer to First Colony should be zoned accordingly. Same goes for the parts closer to Fort Settlement.

  3. We are asking the FBISD BOT to revisit the issue based on few concerns: Safety of our children, Mental heath concerns in a over crowded middle school, Education quality for students…Especially why the unbalance when there is a choice? Why put kids in trailers when it is not necessary? Why over crowd one middle school while there is another one have more than 300 empty seats?
    The petition got more than 1000 signatures in just two days. we closed the petition because we don’t want this became a number fights. We just want to show the BOT our point respectfully. We hope the BOT will make the right decision for our children.

  4. Something in the article is not accurate. Riverstone was actually not rezoned by Harvey. Some of the kids there were rezoned before because Ann Sullivan elementary school was opened in Riverstone. Commonwealth elementary school had been closed enrollment for two years in the past because of the fast growing population in Riverstone. Since the utilization rate of commonwealth elementary reaches above 120% again in the coming fall , a new trailer is put in the middle of playground. Parents are very concerned about their kids’ safety when they have to study in the trailers. We as parents are begging the BOTs to make decision regarding FSMS cautiously this time. We don’t want the same CWE tragedy happen again in FSMS.

    • So they were rezoned at elementary level when Sullivan school opened and kids there were not rezoned when they started middle school. I was curious and was wondering why would they be rezoned during Harvey level where FSMS wasn’t flooded. Thanks for the clarification.

    • CWE tragedy will likely happen again in CWE (not only FSMS) if we don’t push BOTs to zone out the newly built houses in Avalon at Riverstone and Clement’s Crossing. Why is FBISD always being reactive instead of proactive? Why do they let the developers selling these new homes using the already overcrowded schools and make the new and current residents suffer?

      • There seems to be a weird game played by developers – and potentially the school district – on an ongoing basis:

        First developers build large new communities that are zoned to the most sought after schools in an area with complete disregard for school capacity – school district looking the other way?

        Then, once the homes are sold the school district suddenly ‘realizes’ the overcrowding situation and starts looking for options – including rezoning or school expansion – pitting old and new communities against each other in the process.

        Someone needs to shed the light on the reasons for this behavior: incompetence, collusion with developers for personal interests, political pressure…. and accountability has to follow!.

  5. Solution seems to be simple: Zone creekstone out of ASE and FSMS, zone Avalon at Riverstone to ASE and FSMS. This way it fits feeder pattern and the principal of having house close to school. Disclaimer: I don’t live in any of these two neighborhoods. I just don’t understand why logics are not followed in our ISD planning and decision making.

    • Julia L, you are a piece of work!! Creekstone village is oldest riverstone community zoned to FSMS since 2009, much before there was any development of avalon of riverstone or any other growing parts of Riverstone. The real deal here is that FBISD and Johnson Development didnt plan for a new middle school when Riverstone was going through rapid expansion and they continue to operate that way. We know there are cheap minded people like you trying to put one Riverstone community against another. I got news for you, we are not going to fall for your cheap online tricks.

      If you are real Julia L from commonwealth or any other neighboring area, i dare you to share your contact info and we can meet to have a meaningful civil discussion and debate. Anyone can site behind a computer and make this kind of silly recommendation.

    • If you do not live in either neighborhood, maybe you can try solving some other world problems. Since you obviously do not understand the needs and sentiment of our residents. National studies show that families with children buy homes based on school zoning. It is the responsibility of the ISD to stop playing favorites build the additions to FSMS that was unanimously voted on by BOT only few weeks ago. Our community is not the inconvenient step child that you can simply shove around every few years. Also this article is fraught with inaccuracies about school size. Increasing school size includes planning for additional resource scale up. That would have to be done in any they Riverstone kids are zoned to. So why not FSMS where Creekstone has been zoned to since its inception? In fact Riverstone as a whole has hardly been given the treatment other Master Planned Communities are being rightly catered to. So stop throwing ideas that help you maintain your “club feeling” about FSMS and don’t forget this is a public in which all of us are fully vested in.

    • With all due respect as a neighbour, you can keep your logic to yourself. We all are part of one Riverstone so keep your selfish and courpt mind and thoughts locked in your small head.

    • If you don’t live in those subdivision, you don’t know the issues the community -kids might be going through. How some one can say to disintegrate the community kids with whom the kids are living. Too much emotional disturbance for kids. This is one Riverstone. Any efforts to disintegrate community like this Riverstone condemn and would not succeed. If you are not from Riverstone community please kerp your self out of free advise to disintegrate Riverstone. With proper data analysis Riverstone community has presented “No Rezoning”.

    • Can you please clarify if FBISD decides to rezone your community, would it be OK with you? Saying “I don’t live in any neighborhood” and offering suggestions is basically instigating the already volatile situation.

  6. I just moved to this neighborhood and my son will go to Commomwealth Elementary this fall. We were shocked when we saw the portables during our school visit. We moved here because CWE is the best school at Sugar Land. However, putting our kids in portables is not what ISD should do. We have to care about the safety of our kids. I fully support the petition to rezone and balance between schools and stop overcrowding our schools. Let’s make a safe and better environment for our kids at school.

  7. There should be a two pronged strategy to solve the problem:
    1- Implement balanced zoning: for instance split Riverstone zoning according to proximity to First Colony and Fort Settlement middle schools.
    2- Enforce of cap limits at the school level: no to adding portables (PODs) that are impossible to secure …. rather start the expansion works and only move additional kids when permanent structures are ready to accommodate them. Also do not crowd existing classes so that the ratio of students to teachers results in suboptimal personalized attention and academic outcomes.

  8. Julia, it looks like you have vested interest to single out creekstone. Creekstone was zoned to FSMS since 2008 much before a single house was built in Avalon of Riverstone and other growth parts of Riverstone. The point is FBISD didn’t do proper due diligence and plan for Riverstone middle school. Why should creekstone, brookside or any other older parts of Riverstone pay price for FBISD poor planning. The only path forward is to have a new middle school built in Riverstone as a long term solution. It almost sounds like you are trying to rally one group of Riverstone residents against another. We are not going to fall for your cheap Trick. If you have guts and you are really Lisa G from commonwealth area, please post your information and we can meet to have a civil debate. Anybody can sit behind computer with fake online name to have cheap shot.

  10. This is hillarious that 3 individual oversmart call themselves community input and all other Community noise. That approach of these genious supersmart itself shows the way they take things. If already presented detail analysis with data facts and figure … they call NOISE, God bless them & for whose vested interested they are playing, asking board to show neglecting community strong voice with data analysis and facts and on fake name of leadership bully the small kids.