No doubt you're aware that some time after 5:30 today, the Dallas Independent School District Board will take up the issue of what to do with H. Grady Spruce High School, as the school on Old Seagoville Road is considered "academically unacceptable" and in desperate need of a shake-up. In tonight's five-page agenda item, district officials lay out in some detail what the district has in mind for Spruce -- a reorganization that would leave the school only with freshman and seniors, with the rest of the kids sent Lincoln and Madison High Schools. And incoming freshman will have three "career pathways" from which to choose: "Engineering and Information Technology," "Health and Human Services" and "Business and Financial Management."
Also on the crowded agenda: a "contingency plan" outlining what to do when Texas Education Agency Commissioner Robert Scott "orders the closure of one or more campuses" -- those campuses being Spruce and/or E.B. Comstock Middle School and/or W.W. Samuell High School, all "with the potential of becoming Academically Unacceptable" for the fourth year in a row. The buildings would have to be repurposed, but not the students (50 percent of whom would have to be moved elsewhere) or the faculty (75 percent of whom would be reassigned or "removed"). For those who can't attend the meeting, which will be loaded with protesters, Allen Gwinn has, as usual, promised to live blog over at Dallas.org. And isn't that audit due at 2? Update: No, wait -- here it is. --Robert Wilonsky
