By Spencer Michlin, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – I live directly across the street from the new Irma Rangel girls' magnet school. From my second floor office I've watched for the last six months as a rotating army of workers transformed, better yet, restored the former Stephen Jay Hay School, finishing just in time for Monday's start of school. Each day, the parking lot, streets and sometimes the schoolyard would fill up with white DISD trucks. For months, despite all the noise and activity, there seemed to be little change to the decrepit building that, for the past 20 years has served as a sort of catchall for the district, a place where administrators with temporary projects had offices, where G.E.D. tests were administered and where, on appropriate Tuesdays and Saturdays, we voted.
About a month ago, having made the necessary structural changes, they began to work on the exterior - scraping, painting, re-glazing, renewing. The landscaping began a few weeks ago, and now the old school stands proud again, looking like schools used to look, the way they ought to look - classic schoolhouse style, all reddish-brown brick with white trim like Archie's Riverdale High, Rydell High in "Grease," or, closer to home and to reality, Woodrow Wilson and Highland Park High Schools.
All of this came about in large measure through the efforts of Dallas philanthropists Lee and Sally Posey, who led the efforts to create an all-girls school within DISD and who have established a foundation to support it. Running the foundation as executive director is noted educator Liza Lee, former Hockaday headmistress. Over the years, the Poseys have privately sent more than 90 economically disadvantaged girls to college, and Ms Lee is a national leader in all-girls' education. Their joint goal is to see that every Rangel graduate is prepared for college and able to go. According to Mr. Posey, "Our commitment is that every girl who graduates and is accepted to college will have the financial support she needs."
Thanks to their extraordinary generosity, to the willingness of DISD to try something new and to the bond issue voted by our citizens in 2002, the parade of workers last week began to give way to teachers in shorts and jeans carrying briefcases and boxes into the building. Next, the newly blacktopped parking lot filled with cars filled with excited kids and their parents come to tour their beautiful new facility. My wife Bobbi and I, having watched the transformation, have met Vivian Taylor, the charming and able principal, we've taken the tour and have volunteered to help out. We feel so proud of this new addition to our neighborhood - not just of the building, but of the vigorous new life it is bringing to our quiet Oak Lawn neighborhood.
And Monday morning, this new life showed up in force, an ethnic rainbow of 126 twelve and thirteen-year old girls come to put their brand new school to work. There they were in their in their still-creased uniforms, red and black skirts with white tops, shaking hands with teachers who formed an impromptu receiving line, fidgeting as they posed for pictures and videos imposed on them by proud parents and finally heading inside to let the daily business of school begin.
They make a beautiful sight, and the entire community should be grateful to DISD and to the Poseys and Ms Lee for making it a reality. Especially those of us who are lucky enough to count the school and all who enter it as welcome new neighbors.
Spencer Michlin is a writer from Dallas.