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Nederland is open, Barrow Resigns


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Since they hired TD, there's no doubt they'll go with his opinion.  With that being said, I don't believe, my opinion, that the individual mentioned would have been on his radar.  Now, I'm not saying he didn't apply.  We'll have to get the application list to see.   

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A non sequitur: 

When I left SETX in the 80s it seemed like lots of PNG folks were moving to Nederland. When I returned in the 2000s it seemed like folks were moving from Nederland to PNG.  The two towns are like an amalgamated area, except for the school districts, and especially athletics. 

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11 minutes ago, 1970 said:

A non sequitur: 

When I left SETX in the 80s it seemed like lots of PNG folks were moving to Nederland. When I returned in the 2000s it seemed like folks were moving from Nederland to PNG.  The two towns are like an amalgamated area, except for the school districts, and especially athletics. 

A good friend of mine from law school is a Nederland grad and still practices in Austin. Grabbed a beer with him a few weeks back. He told me just about everyone he knows from his high school graduating class who’s still in the area and has kids is trying to find a house in PN-GISD right now. Top reasons are the current success of PN-G’s extracurricular programs and the condition of NISD schools, the new high school aside.

Meanwhile, the only person I know from my high school days who’s sending her kids to Nederland has a beef with a retired PN-GISD administrator (petty reasons, not real ones) that she’s still not over.

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7 hours ago, NHSBulldogFan said:

PN-G has two towns to pull from Nederland just 1 

School district boundaries don’t follow city limits. NISD has all of Nederland plus healthy portions of Port Neches and Port Arthur and all of Central Gardens and Beauxart Gardens. PN-GISD loses roughly a quarter of Port Neches to NISD and a fifth of Groves to PAISD, though it picks up two neighborhoods in Port Arthur.

It’s more like both districts have a town and a half; the number of residents and households the two districts have is almost always roughly even. When I was in school (PN-G c/o 2011), Nederland had about a hundred more students than PN-G.

The fact that PN-G is ~15% larger than Nederland now is significant. That’s the largest enrollment disparity between the two schools in at least 30 years, maybe longer. What you’re seeing is PN-GISD’s aggressive approach to replacing schools since 2008 paying dividends. Young families took notice.

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8 hours ago, Bulldogpower said:

The enrollment shocked me. I always thought Ned had more kids than PNG but the numbers are massively different. Nederland better get them new schools going and the programs back in shape. 

I tried to tell people years ago. 🤷🏾‍♂️

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I understand everyone likes to talk of the difference of the approach of the school districts between NISD and PNGISD. Yes, there are definitely differences between them, but I think the elephant in the room is that there is a significant difference in the revenue brought into each school district. Despite the feeling that NISD is equal on everything with their neighbors across the tracks, the reality is NISD is not a “wealthy” school district. Everyone likes to complain that NISD does a horrible job of doing this and doing that, but in a sense they do amazingly well with what resources they have. Could they do better? Yes. Could they be more creative? Yes. But, it’s not as easy as being about mismanagement of the district or poor decisions. And, apparently the people constantly criticizing NISD have caviar dreams on a McD’s budget. NISD does not have the industries that PNGISD has. Its major revenue is on the home properties, and last I checked they are pretty landlocked. Look at a majority of the large successful programs in the state with state of the art facilities who are “wealthy”, and yes, they usually have good programs. However, the game is still played on a field whether the stadium is $100 million or $100,000. What is lacking in NISD currently is the mentality and attitude of a champion. Nederland was down for many years prior to Coach Neuman. What he brought was an attitude and a belief that they were at a championship level and winners. There were many years that Nederland was lacking in talent and still won, beating much more talented teams from PNG. Currently, the mental game is being lost every game because the attitude isn’t there. Yes there needs to be a focus on getting back to the basics of football. Discipline. Skill development. And attitude. But, good grief Charlie Brown, how about people just embrace where NISD is as a district with limited resources and be supportive of the children in the district. I’m sure all the “experts” on this board will pile on and go off on how they have held tickets for x number of years and they have 10 million bulldog shirts. At the end of the day, it’s 15,16,17, year old young men playing football. The Negative Nellys are quite ridiculous. Let’s just see what happens and be supportive and have a little faith instead of just constantly complaining how NISD can’t be trusted and they will screw this up and yada yada. PNGISD made a great hire based on recommendations by TD. And good for them. It turned out well for them. Why don’t we just see what Monday brings and quit complaining? Apologies for the rant. But, there needs to be some reality on here.

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1 hour ago, PN-G bamatex said:

School district boundaries don’t follow city limits. NISD has all of Nederland plus healthy portions of Port Neches and Port Arthur and all of Central Gardens and Beauxart Gardens. PN-GISD loses roughly a quarter of Port Neches to NISD and a fifth of Groves to PAISD, though it picks up two neighborhoods in Port Arthur.

It’s more like both districts have a town and a half; the number of residents and households the two districts have is almost always roughly even. When I was in school (PN-G c/o 2011), Nederland had about a hundred more students than PN-G.

The fact that PN-G is ~15% larger than Nederland now is significant. That’s the largest enrollment disparity between the two schools in at least 30 years, maybe longer. What you’re seeing is PN-GISD’s aggressive approach to replacing schools since 2008 paying dividends. Young families took notice.

Exactly right. PN Elementary, Ridgewood Elem, Woodcrest, Van Buren Elem, Old Groves Elem, all torn down now. Brand new or almost new elementary and middle schools in both Groves and PN. And when a couple of the new buildings weren't quite ready for the first day of school last fall, the sh*t hit the fan, if I recall right. 

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8 minutes ago, 1970 said:

Exactly right. PN Elementary, Ridgewood Elem, Woodcrest, Van Buren Elem, Old Groves Elem, all torn down now. Brand new or almost new elementary and middle schools in both Groves and PN. And when a couple of the new buildings weren't quite ready for the first day of school last fall, the sh*t hit the fan, if I recall right. 

It did, and I get it, but I have to stick up for the school district there. Post-COVID, large scale construction projects are still a nightmare. The district did the best it could in a worst case scenario.

I recently left a state institution of higher education with eleven existing campuses across the state and two more on the drawing board. Back in 2021, I helped get them $208.5 Million from the Legislature for major construction projects at seven of those campuses. By the time all the fundraising was done, and after a little more coaxing from the state, that was nearly $400 Million total. I had occasion to drive by one of those campuses last week. The ceremonial groundbreaking for its project was last August. It’s February, and they still haven’t even leveled the site for the foundation of the facility. I was flabbergasted.

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25 minutes ago, El Grande Ned said:

I understand everyone likes to talk of the difference of the approach of the school districts between NISD and PNGISD. Yes, there are definitely differences between them, but I think the elephant in the room is that there is a significant difference in the revenue brought into each school district. Despite the feeling that NISD is equal on everything with their neighbors across the tracks, the reality is NISD is not a “wealthy” school district. Everyone likes to complain that NISD does a horrible job of doing this and doing that, but in a sense they do amazingly well with what resources they have. Could they do better? Yes. Could they be more creative? Yes. But, it’s not as easy as being about mismanagement of the district or poor decisions. And, apparently the people constantly criticizing NISD have caviar dreams on a McD’s budget. NISD does not have the industries that PNGISD has. Its major revenue is on the home properties, and last I checked they are pretty landlocked. Look at a majority of the large successful programs in the state with state of the art facilities who are “wealthy”, and yes, they usually have good programs. However, the game is still played on a field whether the stadium is $100 million or $100,000. What is lacking in NISD currently is the mentality and attitude of a champion. Nederland was down for many years prior to Coach Neuman. What he brought was an attitude and a belief that they were at a championship level and winners. There were many years that Nederland was lacking in talent and still won, beating much more talented teams from PNG. Currently, the mental game is being lost every game because the attitude isn’t there. Yes there needs to be a focus on getting back to the basics of football. Discipline. Skill development. And attitude. But, good grief Charlie Brown, how about people just embrace where NISD is as a district with limited resources and be supportive of the children in the district. I’m sure all the “experts” on this board will pile on and go off on how they have held tickets for x number of years and they have 10 million bulldog shirts. At the end of the day, it’s 15,16,17, year old young men playing football. The Negative Nellys are quite ridiculous. Let’s just see what happens and be supportive and have a little faith instead of just constantly complaining how NISD can’t be trusted and they will screw this up and yada yada. PNGISD made a great hire based on recommendations by TD. And good for them. It turned out well for them. Why don’t we just see what Monday brings and quit complaining? Apologies for the rant. But, there needs to be some reality on here.

The bonds are the big issue.  Yes PNG has more money, but they also spend it wisely and the community is behind them.  
 

Nederland is spending $32 mil more than PNG on the last bond.  PNG got rid of 2 schools (which cut overhead) and built 4 brand new state of the art schools.  
 

Nederland wouldn’t get rid of 100 yr old “historic” buildings because someone’s great grandma went to school there.  Instead they piece milled 4 old schools together and it looks awful.  They did get a new HS and 3 connex boxes for a press box though for $32 mil over what PNG paid.  

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1 minute ago, PhatMack19 said:

The bonds are the big issue.  Yes PNG has more money, but they also spend it wisely and the community is behind them.  
 

Nederland is spending $32 mil more than PNG on the last bond.  PNG got rid of 2 schools (which cut overhead) and built 4 brand new state of the art schools.  
 

Nederland wouldn’t get rid of 100 yr old “historic” buildings because someone’s great grandma went to school there.  Instead they piece milled 4 old schools together and it looks awful.  They did get a new HS and 3 connex boxes for a press box though for $32 mil over what PNG paid.  

PN-G has more refinery's thus more money. 

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Not to add fuel to a growing fire or anything, but I would just like to point out that PN-G's higher level of property wealth per capita versus Nederland, owing to the former's more industrial tax base, also means PN-GISD loses substantially more state funding than NISD to recapture, better known as "Robin Hood." When all is said and done, the net per capita funding disparity is not as significant as one might think, and nowhere near as significant as it was before the Robin Hood plan was put into effect a little over 30 years ago.

It is also worth noting that Maintenance & Operations funding (i.e., money for day-to-day operations) and Interest & Sinking funding (i.e., money to pay off bonds) are two separate streams of tax revenue for school districts that are assessed as separate line items on your property tax bill. To PhatMack's point, the latter is totally dependent on the structure and amount of the bond proposed by the school district, subject to rate caps and other mandates imposed by the state. I doubt there's much, if any, difference in the overall cost to the individual homeowners in PN-GISD and NISD over the lives of their respective bonds after inflation is controlled for, or at least little difference attributable to anything other than differences in the total, inflation-adjusted costs of the bonds.

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27 minutes ago, PhatMack19 said:

The bonds are the big issue.  Yes PNG has more money, but they also spend it wisely and the community is behind them.  
 

Nederland is spending $32 mil more than PNG on the last bond.  PNG got rid of 2 schools (which cut overhead) and built 4 brand new state of the art schools.  
 

Nederland wouldn’t get rid of 100 yr old “historic” buildings because someone’s great grandma went to school there.  Instead they piece milled 4 old schools together and it looks awful.  They did get a new HS and 3 connex boxes for a press box though for $32 mil over what PNG paid.  

The emboldened line is an underrated point. I know I'm the PN-G homer here, but I've spent the last seven years dealing with school districts across the state. I am objectively impressed at the strides PN-GISD has made in terms of financial management over the last ten years. They have been far more prudent than a lot of other Texas school districts I can think of (and I'm not necessarily referring to Nederland, to be clear).

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Is there still the “Robin Hood” loophole that the district can use funds that would have gone into that system and instead put into the Interest and Sinking Fund? I know it was a tactic used by “wealthy” school districts to avoid losing the money and keeping it in their schools. And I don’t think there were many specifics on what that entailed.

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3 hours ago, PN-G bamatex said:

School district boundaries don’t follow city limits. NISD has all of Nederland plus healthy portions of Port Neches and Port Arthur and all of Central Gardens and Beauxart Gardens. PN-GISD loses roughly a quarter of Port Neches to NISD and a fifth of Groves to PAISD, though it picks up two neighborhoods in Port Arthur.

It’s more like both districts have a town and a half; the number of residents and households the two districts have is almost always roughly even. When I was in school (PN-G c/o 2011), Nederland had about a hundred more students than PN-G.

The fact that PN-G is ~15% larger than Nederland now is significant. That’s the largest enrollment disparity between the two schools in at least 30 years, maybe longer. What you’re seeing is PN-GISD’s aggressive approach to replacing schools since 2008 paying dividends. Young families took notice.

And when we finally passed a bond we built a new high school that is sinking into the ground and according to the rumor and innuendo won't be ready for 2024-2025 school year either 

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