Wheeler District

[onthestrip]

This is what's going to happen. I doubt they raised all that money and donated the land without a clear path to getting this done. I suspect their preference was to do it at the local level with local involvement, knowing that they could get it approved at the state level if necessary.

Wheelers goal was to bring a very nice amenity (school) but use public money. Yes they may have to front the money but lets not forget that the school is getting built with public tax dollars. Heck, almost everything but the actual homes are getting built with public money. They are getting up to $120 million in TIF. Why that high of an amount is anyones question, since they are building pricey and profitable homes in a very condensed fashion.

[BoulderSooner]

Wheelers goal was to bring a very nice amenity (school) but use public money. Yes they may have to front the money but lets not forget that the school is getting built with public tax dollars. Heck, almost everything but the actual homes are getting built with public money. They are getting up to $120 million in TIF. Why that high of an amount is anyones question, since they are building pricey and profitable homes in a very condensed fashion.

those tax dollars don't exist without the wheeler project ...

[onthestrip]

those tax dollars don't exist without the wheeler project ...

Mostly true, but thats never been my argument. My argument is the amount. What should have been less than $20 million is instead a $120 million TIF. Its like tax payers are paying for every sewer line, water line, and road in a private development. As well as the potential school.

[krisb]

Public schools (charter or not) should serve a cross-section of a geographical area and not cater to the residents of a single affluent subdivision. That's what this comes down to.

[dankrutka]

Public schools (charter or not) should serve a cross-section of a geographical area and not cater to the residents of a single affluent subdivision. That's what this comes down to.

+1000

[krisb]

this charter school would be far more diverse than Rex

How so? I am very familiar with the demographics of John Rex. Locating a charter school with an attendance zone in the downtown area is going to attract wealthier families, but it also includes families east of I-235 and children who live at the City Rescue Mission. Tier 2 families (which is the majority of the student population) come from across OKCPS. The thing that is most unprecedented about the Wheeler school is that it is coming from a single developer. Downtown Oklahoma City is made up of many stakeholders, property owners, residents, and employees representing a broad swatch of the city's population.

[PhiAlpha]

First, public schools aren’t “crappy,” but thanks for your thoughtful comment and insult to those of us who worked 10-12 hour days to educate kids and improve our communities for [checks my starting teacher pay] $29,000. Second, families literally flock to suburban *public schools*. The problem is that White Flight has resulted in a segregated school system and the courts quit requiring remedies. If families with means quit leaving then the schools would all be fine.

Facts suck but dispute that the perception that OKC public schools suck is why people with kids move to the suburbs. If they did stop moving, it would help, but that hasn’t happened (at least for families with kids in middle school or older). I have friends who slave away teaching in OKC public schools and freely admit that many of the kids are great, but teaching there sucks and they wouldn’t send their kids to the even their schools. Change is happening but it’s going to take awhile and frankly I wouldn’t want my kids going to NW Classen or Taft right now. I will reluctantly move to the suburbs and be part of the problem if those schools haven’t improved in the next 5-6 years or so.

[PhiAlpha]

Public schools (charter or not) should serve a cross-section of a geographical area and not cater to the residents of a single affluent subdivision. That's what this comes down to.

That I do agree with.

[chuck5815]

Public schools (charter or not) should serve a cross-section of a geographical area and not cater to the residents of a single affluent subdivision. That's what this comes down to.

Especially if you have the kind of scratch to take on a $400k+ mortgage. I'd like to think those folks could pay the tuition at Mt. St. Mary's.

[Lazio85]

Facts suck but dispute that the perception that OKC public schools suck is why people with kids move to the suburbs. If they did stop moving, it would help, but that hasn’t happened (at least for families with kids in middle school or older). I have friends who slave away teaching in OKC public schools and freely admit that many of the kids are great, but teaching there sucks and they wouldn’t send their kids to the even their schools. Change is happening but it’s going to take awhile and frankly I wouldn’t want my kids going to NW Classen or Taft right now. I will reluctantly move to the suburbs and be part of the problem if those schools haven’t improved in the next 5-6 years or so.

I thought this five years ago.

[MadMonk]

Made my first visit to the wheel this past weekend. It was a nice evening and our group thought it'd be fun to ride the wheel, but when we arrived we were told it was not operational. Quite the bummer. Got a few good pics though.

[TBD]

https://www.news9.com/story/40904447...esubmits-plans

[shawnw]

I saw on twitter that the school board voted 5-1-1 in favor

[DoctorTaco]

Can anyone post a map showing the admission boundaries as approved last night?

[thunderbird]

Facts suck but dispute that the perception that OKC public schools suck is why people with kids move to the suburbs. If they did stop moving, it would help, but that hasn’t happened (at least for families with kids in middle school or older). I have friends who slave away teaching in OKC public schools and freely admit that many of the kids are great, but teaching there sucks and they wouldn’t send their kids to the even their schools. Change is happening but it’s going to take awhile and frankly I wouldn’t want my kids going to NW Classen or Taft right now. I will reluctantly move to the suburbs and be part of the problem if those schools haven’t improved in the next 5-6 years or so.

I always thought people who sent their kids to private school or moved to Edmond or wherever were lame and the cause of OKCPS decline - Yesterday I had two kids start private school. The Pathway to greatness really screwed us up for this year, we would have had 3 kids at 3 schools all over town and we just couldn't find a way to make it work.

[thunderbird]

Can anyone post a map showing the admission boundaries as approved last night?

https://www.news9.com/story/40904447...esubmits-plans
This link shows the plan with map.

[Martin]

https://www.news9.com/story/40904447...esubmits-plans
This link shows the plan with map.

looks like the site ate the link... here's a fixed version:

https://www.news9.com/story/40904447...esubmits-plans

[soonermike81]

I always thought people who sent their kids to private school or moved to Edmond or wherever were lame and the cause of OKCPS decline - Yesterday I had two kids start private school. The Pathway to greatness really screwed us up for this year, we would have had 3 kids at 3 schools all over town and we just couldn't find a way to make it work.

And unfortunately, many parents with means are faced with a very tough situation when deciding to move out of OKCPS or to go private. We absolutely want what's best for our kids, and to me, that's the best education possible with as few distractions as possible. Things will hopefully slowly get better as more families migrate back to the core and give OKCPS a chance, but I don't necessarily want my kids to be guinea pigs in this hopeful transformation. One of the many reasons why we have our kids in private school.

[dankrutka]

I understand how challenging it is for parents. Since the courts quit requiring integration in the late 1980s/early 1990s, parents from the last generation re-segregated schools and that trend continues (schools in the U.S. have and likely will always be segregated unless the government requires integration... which it should). Urban school districts like OKCPS then face problems associated with high concentrations of poverty and segregation. Then comes along standardized accountability reform which pretty much guaranteed that schools with high poverty would score low even if their teachers and administrations did well... that's a demoralizing environment to work in and results in high turnover and constant reforms aimed at "fixing" socioeconomic and structural problems. There can be such frequent turnover and reform that it can be hard for parents to recommit to the district even if they want to. In short, we really need a movement of parents to recommit to urban school districts and integration. While I don't like that the Wheeler District gets their own school and things that other schools should already have, if (and this is a massive if) Latinx parents in the surrounding communities can have influence, the school maintains high Latinx enrollment, and parents with means recommit not only to their school but the district, then positive things could come from this school. I do love that it's a dual immersion bilingual school, which is one of my favorite school models.

[HOT ROD]

i wish there were a time constraint given for schools to have 'charter' status. Have a 10-year run or so then make them reapply or get absorbed into the public schools. That could be a boon since if the charter characteristics could be adopted to the general schools - the system gets better as a whole and not just select new/rich neighborhoods.

[Canoe]

i wish there were a time constraint given for schools to have 'charter' status. Have a 10-year run or so then make them reapply or get absorbed into the public schools. That could be a boon since if the charter characteristics could be adopted to the general schools - the system gets better as a whole and not just select new/rich neighborhoods.

You know what I agree with this idea. It would bring accountability. My only concern would be the school board getting mad at the charter school's administration and canceling the charter status and then the good teachers would leave and the children would suffer. If there was an independent board to review the charter school every 10 years, then that would be better.

[Pete]

[HangryHippo]

How does one drive through the area with the homes? The cones block one lane and it appears you drive into traffic on the other side...?

[Pete]

How does one drive through the area with the homes? The cones block one lane and it appears you drive into traffic on the other side...?

Which dead-ends. So, you have to drive into a gravel lot and turn around then go back in the wrong direction.

It's all just construction pains.

[chuck5815]

I thought that this was being sold to the Intelligentsia as a car free, no flex zone. I’m seeing way more cars parked out there than should be acceptable to the natives.