On Thursday night, the Dallas ISD board of trustees did not vote on proposals to convert Eduardo Mata into an opt-in Montessori school and allow Mount Auburn Elementary families, whose children move to Mata after third-grade, to attend a single school throughout elementary. Instead, trustees approved an amendment that gave district administrators the authority to reconfigure the two schools, implicitly approving the plans.
The result is that Mount Auburn will open next fall as a pre-kindergarten through fourth-grade school, and Mata will reopen as a pre-kindergarten through second-grade Montessori school, with priority given to students in the Woodrow Wilson High School feeder pattern. A final meeting for families interested in attending Mata next fall is scheduled for next Monday, April 28 at 9 a.m.
Six of the nine trustees voted in favor of the amendment put forward by Trustee Mike Morath. They also rejected a move by Trustee Bernadette Nutall to defer decisions on these schools and others until next fall, and let an attendance boundary committee weigh in.
Though the vote wasn’t on attendance boundaries, they did seep into the discussion. One reason for making Mata a Montessori school is to better utilize its more-than-half-empty campus and address overcrowding issues at other nearby elementary schools, such as Lakewood and Stonewall Jackson.
“We’ve changed many attendance boundaries because of overcrowded schools and underpopulated schools,” Nutall said. “I think if we changed attendance boundaries for Mata and students from Lakewood, all of our children benefit.”
Trustee Dan Micciche, who lives near White Rock Lake and represents the Bryan Adams High School feeder pattern, argued that making Mata a school of choice would entice families to move without forcing them “kicking and screaming.”
“When you’re talking about redrawing the boundaries of a Blue Ribbon school, the resistance is going to be very, very high,” Micciche said, referring to Lakewood and saying the same would be true for Hexter Elementary in his district. “In terms of trying to come up with a way of willingly and enthusiastically moving from one school to another school, this seems to me to be a reasonable way to do it.”
When Nutall took issue with this, telling Micciche that “a political landmine is an inappropriate reason to not even look at attendance boundaries,” he responded that “if we don’t have a better alternative, I’m willing to redraw that line, and it probably makes sense right along Gaston Avenue.” But he also argued that the Mata and Mount Auburn changes had been “vetted and recommended” by administrators and “the timeline for this makes sense.”
“The bottom line is, what is best for kids? Are we better off leaving everything the way it is right now, or are we better off moving forward with this change?”
Trustee Elizabeth Jones was among the three dissenting voters, saying the changes for both schools were “slammed together” and accusing administrators of trying to “backdoor” the changes to Mata without trustees’ consent.
“This administration has been out selling the Mata Montessori program,” Jones said. “This whole thing has been an absolute disgrace on how this board was briefed.”
Both Nutall and Jones described themselves as avid supporters of Montessori curriculum but argued that these types of changes at schools need to come from a comprehensive plan for all schools in the district. They found themselves in the minority, however, as Morath, Micciche and trustees Miguel Solis, Eric Cowan, Nancy Bingham and Lew Blackburn decided to leave Mata and Mount Auburn in administrators’ hands. Trustee Carla Ranger voted against doing so with Mount Auburn and abstained from the Mata vote.
Read more on this topic in our stories about the lead-up to Thursday night’s board vote, details about Mata’s Montessori program and changes for both Mata and Mount Auburn.
