Dallas City Wire

In 2019 Keri Mitchell wrote an in-depth article for the Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate looking at an admission scandal at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts. This March the Dallas Morning News also tackled the topic in an opinion piece. But, the two pieces were very different.

Mitchell’s piece suggests that parents had lied about home addresses, persuaded people to put their names on utility bills in the Dallas area, and even rent an apartment in Dallas to meet the residency requirement to attend Booker T. Washington, a Dallas Independent School District school.

According to Mitchell’s piece, in spring 2018 half of the dancers admitted to Booker T. Washington presented transcripts for previous years from schools in the suburbs and not in the Dallas Independent School District. When they applied, however, the students’ application packages to the school included utility bills from Dallas.

The opinion piece in the Morning News urged people to stop using a website that points to youths getting into the school under false pretenses and asks for information about students who got into the school that way.

Media coverage has shifted to a supportive tone for the district, and its superintendent, Michael Hinojosa. Perhaps that is because the school district is pursuing a bond for $2.7 billion to $3.7 billion to go on the ballot for the November election.

The bond includes funding for social centers in four of the district’s high schools: Lincoln, Spruce, Roosevelt, and Pinkston. Those centers would be places where students could access WiFi, and enjoy meals, even health care services, to ensure that they could focus on their academics.

The website seeking dirt on the students attending Booker T. Washington is run by a Texas-based Crime Stoppers organization.

Parents told the district at a February meeting that students are on edge, afraid to go to school, according to a piece in the Dallas Morning News. Yet they also say the school district isn’t doing enough to support their students, although they’re happy to show the talents of the school’s enrollment when the district needs something.

“At Booker T., you bring out the dog-and-pony show when you need them,” said Jessica White, a parent whose children have attended the school. “You’re asking for money, you ask them to do stuff. But when we get in trouble for something that isn’t even true … it’s like crickets.”

The district told the Morning News that it is working with families and have a process to explore and investigate reported concerns over admissions. It said it has investigated about 40 tips, but no students have been removed from the school.

There are concerns about the bond, how the school district is proceeding, and for these social centers. The exact use for the centers has not been determined, such as whether politically oriented activities would occur there, or if it would be programming that was more broad based, like after-school activities.