THE JOB FINDS

would contain the growth. They have, and are expected to, almost everywhere. But White Rock continued to exceed the demographer’s calculated predictions, and parents warned the district that a crisis was looming. In March 2016, the board formed the Lake Highlands Reflector Committee to address the growing problem.

Regeneration was no doubt the culprit for enrollment growth throughout Lake Highlands. White Rock Valley in particular, a neighborhood somewhat “hidden” behind Flag Pole Hill with vogue mid-century architecture, had the “it” factor that made it a desirable place to live.

The teardown trend rampant across Dallas also took hold in White Rock Valley. The 1,500- to 2,500-square-foot homes built in the neighborhood’s infancy began giving way to houses upward of 3,000 and 4,000 square feet. Price tags shot up, not just for the houses but for each square foot, making the White Rock Elementary area more expensive and exclusive than its Lake Highlands counterparts.

It didn’t hurt that White Rock was the only Lake Highlands elementary that had experienced significant demographic changes since the 2008 recession. The still unrealized Lake Highlands Town Center at Walnut Hill and Skillman broke ground in 2007, tearing down several low-income apartment complexes to make way for retail and residential construction.

In 2006, before the apartments disappeared from the landscape, White Rock had 585 students — 47 percent white, 30 percent black and 20 percent Hispanic, with 42 percent of students at an “economic disadvantage,” according to RISD records. Enrollment dipped when students from those apartments, zoned to White Rock, moved to other neighborhoods, but by 2010 the school had repopulated with 589 students. Four years later, however, the demographics were starkly different — 70 percent white, 11 percent black and 15 percent Hispanic, with only 19 percent of students economically disadvantaged.

By fall 2015, enrollment had grown to 877 — 75 percent white, 8 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic, with only 10 percent of students at an economic disadvantage.

This was the reality as teachers, principals, parents and community members from all of Lake Highlands’ schools were

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WhiteRockMortgageGuy.com NMLS 1403412 appointed to the Reflector Committee, whose charge was to settle on “a long-term solution to address enrollment growth in Lake Highlands.” Options included everything from adding on to existing campuses to a new elementary campus to new fifth- and sixth-grade campuses.

The conversation always included redrawing attendance boundaries but never as a solution. Lake Highlands was experiencing enough growth that simply redistributing students wouldn’t solve the long-term problem, committee members believed. White Rock Elementary’s overcrowded state similarly was a focus, but not the main focus.

No obvious direction emerged from the committee, and strong consensus was absent, but in the end, the two solutions members liked most were building a new elementary school or constructing a fifth- and sixth-grade campus adjacent to Forest Meadow and Lake Highlands Junior High.

Before these were recommended to the board, RISD purchased a 4.5-acre piece of land at Walnut Hill and White Rock Trail. Harkleroad told the com-

“They’re so passionate about their schools, and I want them to know there are more important things to be stressed about than going from one great elementary school to another ... it’s the parents that have a tough time, not the kids.” mittee at one of its final meetings, “How that property is utilized does not need to be decided now, but [a kindergarten through sixth-grade school] is an option. RISD has evaluated other sites in Lake Highlands and there are very few pieces of suitable land available.”

After RISD closed on the property, the board announced in June that it would open a new elementary on the site in fall 2018. Boundary changes were inevitable. The proposed school was situated within the attendance zone of White Rock Elementary, the school that was most in need of relief and no doubt would be most impacted by the boundary changes.

The board planned to present new boundaries in mid-September, but before it could, a group calling itself “We Have a Voice” formed to oppose the new homes sold for more than $600,000 within White Rock Elementary’s boundaries over the past year. homes sold for more than $600,000 within Merriman Park’s boundaries over the past year, 11 of them in the new Bordeaux development.

24 homes sold for more than $600,000 in all other Lake Highlands elementary zones combined.

$205.98 was the median sale price per square foot for White Rock Elementary homes.

$170.17 was the median sale price per square foot for homes within neighboring Northlake Elementary’s boundaries. Which means a $600,000 house zoned to White Rock Elementary is worth $495,000 if it’s zoned to Northlake. school. White Rock Elementary homes found a letter taped to their front doors with reasons for opposition, the first and foremost being:

*We asked a Lake Highlands residential real estate appraiser to evaluate home sales in the Lake Highlands, Merriman Park, Moss Haven, Northlake, Skyview, Stults Road, White Rock and Wallace elementary school zones. The results are from February 2016 through January 2017. Median sale prices were limited to homes built between 1900-1975 and ranging between 1,500-2,500 square feet, without a pool, in order to capture similar neighborhood housing stock.

“The attendance boundaries for elementary schools will be redrawn. How they are redrawn will be entirely up to the RISD board members.”

Though supporters also emerged in the form of a group calling itself “We Need a School,” opposition from the White Rock community continued to mount, and by November, the board had abandoned plans for the new school and hired a consulting firm, Stantec, to “work with RISD and the White Rock community to re-evaluate options to address WRE’s extensive enrollment growth,” Superintendent Jeannie Stone wrote in a letter to White Rock families.

This time around, the district surveyed