Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District (WHISD) was a school district in southern Dallas County, Texas serving the cities of Wilmer and Hutchins, a portion of Dallas (the district was last headquartered at 3820 East Illinois Avenue in Dallas [1]), and a small portion of Lancaster. The district served urban, suburban, and rural areas.[2] Some unincorporated areas with Ferris addresses were served by WHISD.
The Dallas subdivision of College Terrace [1] is within the former WHISD boundaries.
Contents |
| Wilmer-Hutchins ISD Student enrollment by year [2] |
|||
| School Year | Total Students | ||
| 1988-89 | 3,870 | ||
| 1989-90 | 3,708 | ||
| 1990-91 | 3,792 | ||
| 1991-92 | 3,886 | ||
| 1992-93 | 3,967 | ||
| 1993-94 | 4,017 | ||
| 1994-95 | 4,007 | ||
| 1995-96 | 3,837 | ||
| 1996-97 | 3,381 | ||
| 1997-98 | 3,495 | ||
| 1998-99 | 3,651 | ||
| 1999-00 | 3,444 | ||
| 2000-01 | 3,283 | ||
| 2001-02 | 3,025 | ||
| 2002-03 | 2,902 | ||
| 2003-04 | 3,070 | ||
| 2004-05 | 2,916 | ||
Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District was established in 1927 as a consolidation of four smaller school districts [3] Wilmer-Hutchins High School was established in 1928.
Around 1939, Wilmer-Hutchins Colored High School burned down in a fire. After that occurred, children were bused to Dallas ISD schools such as Booker T. Washington High School and Lincoln High School.
In September 1954, more than 100 African-American students and parents went into Linfield Elementary School, then an all-White WHISD school. They were tired of the district's periodic closing of Melissa Pierce School, an all-Black school, so students would pick crops. The district turned the students away.[4]
In 1958, WHISD had 1,746 White students and 577 African-American students. The number of African-American students increased rapidly over the next decade as the United States government established housing policies that concentrated many African-American families in the northern part of the district. The district, still clinging to its policy of segregation, spent millions of dollars building new schools for black students - Alta Mesa Elementary School, Bishop Heights Elementary School, Milton K. Curry Junior High School and John F. Kennedy High School were all opened in the early 1960s. The more rural southern portion of the district remained predominantly white - Linfield, Wilmer and Hutchins Elementary Schools were reserved for white students, as was Wilmer-Hutchins Junior High and High School. In February 1970, WHISD was forced to implement desegregation busing.[4]
The mayor of Hutchins, Don Lucky, formed a group of followers and hijacked Hutchins Elementary School for a period. Two out of three White people in WHISD moved away from the district in the early 1970s.[4] WHISD became predominately economically poor and African-American; WHISD became controlled by African-Americans. In 1996 around 17,800 people lived within the district. U.S. Census figures stated that the area was about 70% African-American and mostly blue collar. One in five people lived in poverty. One in fifteen adults held one or more university degrees. Most residents were homeowners. The Dallas Observer described the district, which had "urban demographics" and a location "a few minutes from downtown Dallas," as having an "incongruous rural feel" with "pig farms sit cheek by jowl with burglar-barred houses in sprawling subdivisions built 25 or 30 years ago" within the Dallas portion of Wilmer-Hutchins ISD.[5]
In 1999 the school district had 3,651 students.[6] In April 2003 it had 3,060 students and had gained 35 students from the start of the year.[7] By 2004 it had about 2,900 students.[6] It was the only Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolex school district to have lost population between 1999 and 2004. Many WHISD parents left the district, putting their children in Dallas Independent School District schools or charter schools.[8]
Throughout its existence, the district was historically recognized as one of the poorest-performing school districts in Texas, in terms of both student test scores and managerial oversight. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) had, on several occasions, appointed monitors to oversee the district, with no long-term success. The district's buildings were in poor shape. Large trees grew out of the bleachers of the Wilmer-Hutchins ISD football field.[9] Wilmer-Hutchins High School failed fire inspections twice in a row.[10] This led to the decrease of the student body in the district. The district shrank by more than a third of its student size in the 2000s, and, by the 2000s, the district's boundaries had more charter school students than any other district in the state of Texas.
Around 1996, according to the district's accounts, 600 students in the WHISD attendance zone attended school in other school districts, such as Dallas ISD and Lancaster ISD, by using false addresses or addresses of relatives, since many of the families in the WHISD attendance zone did not make enough money to enroll their children in private school.[5] In 2004, the district closed Wilmer-Hutchins Performing Arts High School, A.L. Morney Learning Center, and Hutchins Academic Elementary School. The board also voted to eliminate the district's police department and fire the police chief, Cedric Davis.[8]
After a series of investigative stories in The Dallas Morning News found evidence of cheating on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in Wilmer-Hutchins, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) began an investigation into the findings. That investigation found sufficient evidence of educator-led cheating for TEA to retroactively declare the school district "academically unacceptable" (the lowest possible ranking). The retroactive ranking was the second consecutive "academically unacceptable" rating, which gave the TEA authority to close WHISD and transfer its students to another school district. After WHISD voters overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to increase the property tax rate (many citing the district's shoddy recordkeeping), the TEA elected not to attempt yet another monitoring effort, and instead ordered the district closed for the 2005-2006 school year. The Lancaster ISD was given first opportunity to absorb the district, but declined.[9] Instead, the Dallas Independent School District agreed to absorb WHISD.[11] The United States Department of Justice approved the closure on December 13, 2005.[12] The district held its final meeting on June 30, 2006.[13] Dallas ISD elected to close all of the Wilmer-Hutchins schools and sent students to existing Dallas schools. The entire senior class of Wilmer-Hutchins High School went on to South Oak Cliff High School. Other students were divided into several different schools.[14] Marlon Brooks, the principal of Wilmer-Hutchins High School as of 2011, said that some students had commutes of over one hour.[15] Some students were over 12 miles (19 km) away from their zoned schools.[16]
The Dallas Observer, an alternative newsweekly, argues that DISD agreed to absorb the district because of the significant tax revenue to be gained from the recently-completed US$70 million Union Pacific Dallas Intermodal Terminal, which is located partly in the city of Wilmer and partly in the city of Hutchins, but wholly within the WHISD district boundaries.[9][17]
After the closure of WHISD property values in the district increased.[18]
In January 2007, Dallas ISD removed 5,000 boxes with more than one half million personal records and placed them in the DISD administration building. The district also removed the trophies, banners, and plaques from the WHISD campuses.
As a result of the merger, Dallas ISD will hold the titles to the former WHISD campus facilities. For the 2008 bond proposal DISD plans to demolish the former Kennedy-Curry Middle School campus and renovate the Wilmer-Hutchins High School campus. In addition DISD plans to build a new elementary school campus within the former WHISD territory.[19]
In 2011 DISD re-opened Kennedy Curry and Wilmer-Hutchins High School and opened Wilmer-Hutchins Elementary School in the Wilmer-Hutchins area. The district had renovated Kennedy-Curry and expanded it by almost 60,000 square feet (5,600 m2). Funds from the 2008 $1.35 billion bond were used to overhaul the schools.[20]
Faye Gafford started a group aiming to re-establish Wilmer-Hutchins ISD. Some WHISD residents missed the small-town country feel of WHISD schools and schools close to their houses. Some residents feel that the next preferable option is to have DISD open schools in the former WHISD territory.[21]
Gafford stated that "There have been predominantly White schools in this area whose students have done far worse on test scores than our children have. They are allowed to continue with their neighborhood school. Why is that?" Gafford did not state which schools performed worse than WHISD schools.[22]
The district headquarters were located in Dallas, in a former elementary school. Thomas Koroesec of the Dallas Observer said that the building, which does not have windows, "at times resembles an education ministry in some Third World country."[24]
![[4]](http://web.archive.org/web/20030812070521/http://wilmerhutchins.ednet10.net/campuses/kcms/img0.gif){kind=link}