AISD says its decision to close Porter is the result of demographics it can’t control. It can, however, control boundaries, and the way the lines fall suggests political pressure can also be a factor.
PORTER: When Porter ceases to be a neighborhood school, its attendance zone will be divided between three other schools, each of which faces its own boundary issues.
O. HENRY: Due to O. Henry’s convoluted boundaries, students from Oak Hill already have to drive beyond Porter to get to this Tarrytown school.
COVINGTON: Porter kids will take up room that could have held overflow kids from southwest schools like Small or Bailey, accelerating the timetable for a new southwest Middle School. Porter parents are still upset about having a neighborhood of Cunningham elementary kids transferred here in 1999.
BEDICHEK: New students from Porter mean Bedichek can’t absorb any more students to help relieve dramatically overcrowded Paredes Middle School. Instead, AISD will now redraw all the middle school boundaries in the southeast to try to accommodate students until AISD can pass a bond, possibly in 2007, to build a new southeast middle school.
This article appears in March 10 • 2006.