DISD CHEATING CUTS DEEP

HOW BOOKER T. REJECTIONS DAMAGED MORALE

THE PROFESSIONAL VOCALISTS from Verdigris choral ensemble weren’t sure what they would encounter at W.E. Greiner Exploratory Arts Academy when they signed on to give four weeks of private voice lessons last spring.

They expected to find talent, as Greiner is the only Dallas ISD fine arts magnet for sixth- seventh- and eighth-graders. They didn’t necessarily anticipate finding it “in spades,” as vocalist Erinn Sensinig notes, considering that most Greiner students “lack the financial resources that would allow for private vocal study and the standing private voice faculty that many other DFW choral programs benefit from having.”

“Once they realized other people were coming in and giving them attention, the sky was the limit with them,” says Verdigris artistic director Sam Brukhman.

Brukhman knows the reputation of DISD’s nationally renowned arts magnet high school, Booker T. Washington, and he asked choir director Bethany Ring how many of her talented students would be enrolled there next fall. Only one, Ring told him. Only two had even auditioned.

DISD began taking steps this fall to ensure that students being admitted to Booker T. actually live in the district, after the Advocate exposed the chronic problem of suburban students cheating their way in with false residency documents.

Seventeen students are walking the halls of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts this fall who weren’t among those who received a “golden ticket” last spring. A total of 30 freshmen, sophomores and juniors either didn’t show up when the school year began or withdrew in August, says Tiffany Huitt, executive director of Dallas ISD’s magnet schools. The vacancies were left in the wake of Huitt and the magnet department’s new efforts to enforce DISD board policy that requires magnet families to prove that they live within district boundaries. The perpetual problem, though, has created residual effects for in-district students.

Story by KERI MITCHELL