Thoughts on the FMISD: The Bonds That Divide

This will be about the two decisions I mentioned in my previous post regarding the school board election. 

Decision #1: The Hiring of Coach Dick Olin

Let me begin this with the admission that I have never met Dick Olin.  Despite the many things I have heard about him, I will assume that he is a nice guy, and so this will not be a personal attack on Coach Olin.  I will be speaking only on his record and his connections.

This brings to me my first point, his lackluster record.  Out of his last seven seasons at his previous high school, Coach Olin only had two winning seasons.  Two.  Winning.  Seasons.  That's it.  What he may have been lacking in winning seasons, he made up with friendships with the previous top two LISD administrators, Superintendent Jerry Roy and CFO Alan King.  If this was Dallas ISD and there had been a lackluster employee hired that made six figures, and if the only reason they were hired was because of their connections to the superintendent and CFO, it would be called corruption.  In LISD, it's called normal. (Just a side note, Alan King is now the CFO of Dallas ISD.  I'm sure he'll fit right in).  Did Mrs. Kyer and Mrs. Fulton, along with the rest of the school board, really think that a coach who had such a terrible record over the past decade could possibly create a successful program? I was asked while I was campaigning for the school board elections last year by the wife of a then-school board member why I thought Coach Olin wasn't a good coach.  I responded with simply, "Look at his record."  After two wonderful years of Dick Olin, Lewisville's High School football record is 5-15.  In two years, Olin has coached the Farmers to five wins.  All at the cost to the taxpayers of $108,000 a year.  Many people also complained about his advanced age and that he would retire in a few years.  Well, after two years, and Lewisville's football program becoming the laughing stock of the area,  I truly hope that comes true, not just for the football program now, but for future generations of Lewisville High School.  I also hope that when Coach Olin retires in the next couple of years that Lewisville High School will get a competent coach that they deserve and that is hired because of his merits, not because of who he knows.  Is Wade Phillips still looking for a job?    

Decision #2:  The Construction of Lewisville High School South

The school district doesn't want the two campuses to be referred to as North and South supposedly because of its gang connotations.  Well, I didn't want the South campus to be built, so I guess we're even.  

History lesson:  A long, long time ago, way back in the mid-2000's, there was a secondary school task force that was put together to create a long term plan for the five high schools in the district.  The school district made the wise decision to not include any Lewisville residents or any LHS teachers or administrators.  The results from this group suggested building 9th grade centers at 3 of the high schools, and drastically changing the LHS campus by building a 9th and 10th grade center in Southern Lewisville and converting the North campus into another 9th and 10th grade campus.  Another plan that came out of this task force was to create academies, and of course Lewisville HS would get the academy for students not going to college.  You see, according to the former school board, Lewisville students can't achieve success like students at other schools because they're poor and have skin that's a different color than theirs.  Where else would this academy be?  

Back to the South campus.  Lewisville parents and students came out in force saying they didn't want this plan.  Meeting after meeting for over three years, they refused to listen to us.  While they might have been all ears for for even the smallest complaint when school zones changed in Flower Mound and Highland Village, they shamefully ignored us.  Their reasons consistently changed onto why this campus was supposed to be built.  

Explanation #1: LHS Enrollment Figures.  They originally projected significantly higher enrollments for LHS that never panned out.  Shocking.

Explanation #2: Demographics.  I will never apologize that Lewisville HS is a diverse learning community.  It is unfortunate that some (including people who live in Lewisville) perceive it as a problem.

Explanation #3: Smaller Learning Communities.  With a large budget shortfall because of state funding, I'm going to guess that class sizes will only become bigger.  

All of this was going on while plans were being developed to demolish and rebuild the main campus of LHS.  They could have fixed problems #1 and #3 by building the school larger and incorporating smaller learning communities within the same building.  Unfortunately, the school board was too stubborn to do this, and this stubbornness will come at the cost of future success for generations of Fighting Farmers to come.

And the saddest part of this all is that the district administration and select members of the school board don't care about us, and they never will.

This campus has already divided the community, and the paint has yet to dry. 

This coach has driven a football program that once united a community into the ground.

And I just keep asking myself, is this really what the school board wanted?

-Jeremy

Thoughts on the FMISD: 2011 School Board Elections

A couple of weeks ago, I campaigned for the FMISD LISD school board elections at the Flower Mound polling site.  Even though I was away for most of the election season, I was able to stay informed through various blogs and news sources.  I knew who I thought would do the best for not only the Lewisville community, but for the entire school district.

I also knew that the incumbents, Carol Kyer and Amber Fulton, had to go.  Their actions over the past several years have shown me and many other residents of Lewisville that they really do not care about the majority of the students of Lewisville High School.  In their single-minded quest to raise TAKS scores in the Lewisville feeder pattern, they have made decisions that will further harm the majority of the students that are high performing and are involved in many different activities.  Now, you might be asking, what decisions have these been?  While there might by many different reasons,  I will narrow it down to two main issues that have come up over the past few years that show me that the makeup of the school board from a few years ago was not looking out for me or my former classmates.

Decision #1: The Hiring of Coach Dick Olin. 
Decision #2: The Construction of the New South Campus


I will go into more detail on this blog soon on my thoughts on these two issues, but in general what these two decision have in common is the fact that the Lewisville community came out and vehemently opposed them.  I was a student at Lewisville High School at the time when both of these decisions were made, and to be honest I don't remember a single student, teacher, or parent that was supportive of these decisions.  And for many, we were wondering why the school board would go against our wishes in these decisions.

According to them, Lewisville people don't know what is best for them, you see.  That job should be left for the people from nearby wealthier suburbs.  Anyone with half a brain would know that studies show that schools in poor urban areas do better with smaller learning communities.  There is no difference between South Oak Cliff High School and Lewisville High School, right?  Also, they knew that Lewisville residents always had a low voter turnout and that we would never be able to organize a successful campaign against the incumbents, and so they thought they didn't have to listen.  Thus, Lewisville residents weren't needed when making the decisions that would impact them.  These thoughts went on for far too long among the school board and many members of the district administration.  This arrogance that emanated from the school board, especially from Carol Kyer and Amber Fulton, resulted in decisions that will negatively impact the students of Lewisville High School as well as all residents of the Lewisville community for generations to come.

They refused to listen to our concerns that this coach would put our once-great football program into decline.
 
They refused to listen to our concerns that a three campus system would splinter a school built on unity.

Four new school board members later, I think they might have finally heard our message.

LISD now has a majority on the school board that wants what is best for every school, not just the school their kids go to.  I am thankful to now have Mike McDaniel join ranks with Brenda Latham, Jeff Knapp, and Julie Foughty because I know they are looking out for not just my community, but yours too.     

Arrogance, elitism, and stubbornness.  These were the ideals that represented the former school board members.  Just ask Tommy Kim, Fred Placke, Kathy Duke, and now Amber Fulton how those principles worked out for them.

-Jeremy

The No Spin Zone: Osama bin Laden's Death

From now on, I will entitle all posts dealing with politics/world affairs with Bill O'Reilly's mantra, The No Spin Zone.  I hope to follow in my idol's footsteps by editorializing in a manner that will be honest and educated even if that means being at times polarizing.  You won't always agree with me, and that's fine.  I'll live.

My first post in this area is about an event that rivals in importance any other event that has occurred during my lifetime.  It was a moment of celebration for millions of Americans and others around the world.  This event was the death of the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist, Osama bin Laden.  When the news first broke, I was shocked.  Even though I knew our troops are the best in the world, I thought because of the terrain of the Middle East as well as his sympathizers/supporters that were willing to hide him that he never would be found.  The irony, though, is that it wasn't the mountainous terrain or our enemies that kept us from him, but one of our allies, Pakistan.  But that really is a topic for a whole different post.

The news spread quickly.  From the thousands that gathered in D.C. and Ground Zero to the other guys in my dorm hallway, I witnessed many celebrations of this American victory.  They felt joy because they knew that America had triumphed over evil.  For the first time in their adult lifetimes, they were proud of their country... or maybe that was just Michelle Obama.

Over the next week, many debated over whether we should feel joy in the death of another human.  Many questioned what a Christian response should be to this situation.  Should we be upset that he was killed?  Or did Osama deserve his fate? I wrestled with these questions as I tried to form my own view of this event.

My opinion on this, though, has been shaped more through my father's one year deployment in 2004 during the Iraq war.  I'm aware, as we all have been made aware of, that there wasn't a connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.   But I think about the thousands of families that have been torn apart directly because of Osama's actions including the ongoing Afghanistan War, and I especially think of the families that were forever changed on the morning of September 11th.  I think of the thousands of lives lost because of this man.  I think of the empty chairs at the dinner tables across this country that will never be filled again.

Fortunately for my family, my father's departure was only temporary.  Many families, though, have not been so lucky.  These people will never be the same, and no military act will ever change that.

Although I do not celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden, it is for the families of his victims in the United States, the Middle East, and around the world that I am thankful that he is dead.

-Jeremy

Why "The Promised Land"

When I wrote my original Facebook status referring to Texas as "The Promised Land", I got the expected response.  All of my Texan friends liked it.  All of my Arkansas friends ridiculed it.  Myself and both groups of friends represented their stereotypes well: Texans obnoxiously bragging about how great Texas is, non-Texans getting jealous of us lucky few that get to live in Texas.  What most don't know, though, is that I had actually intended the status to be much longer, but I knew the greatness of Texas could not be communicated in a short Facebook status.  A blog post, and an entire blog for that matter, had to be created!  

Here's the story: I first thought of the analogy as I was stuck in traffic in Durant, Oklahoma for almost an hour during my drive home to Lewisville.  I thought to myself, 'God, this must be how Moses felt in the desert for those forty years.'  When that wonderful time came that I passed the 'Welcome To Texas' sign, I felt a sense of relief to finally be back in my home land, a feeling that I'm sure Moses must have felt when he finally arrived in Israel thousands of years ago.  Add to that, there's even a parallel between our stories in the similarity of names between the bodies of water separating our march towards our respective Promised Lands! While Moses may have had the power of God to separate the Red Sea, I harnessed the great power of TxDOT to get me across the Red River, all with similar results. Clearly, I didn't need a burning bush to tell where God was wanting me to go.

So, ya, that just happened.  Fortunately, not every post on this blog will be sacrilegious like this one.  Some will be my attempt at humor,  some will be serious, but most will be a combination of both as I blog about my thoughts on politics on both the national and local level as well as my thoughts on religion.  I hope you follow me on this blog because you all know I need constant praise.

-Jeremy