Monday, September 3, 2012

Texas High School Football Stadium cost $60 million

Over the weekend I went into a sports-induced coma that was the result of this being the first weekend of College Football. In the midst of said coma, I read a story from ESPN about a school district in Allen County, Texas where the school district built a football stadium that cost $60 million.


ESPN: Allen High School facility cost $60 million

The sports-first mentality in this country is driving me insane. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy most sports as much as the next person, but to spend $60 million dollars on a football stadium, and then say, "Our intention is not to recoup the money it cost to build the stadium," is outlandish.

I want to walk into the classrooms in that district and see:

  1. What are the textbooks in their math classes like.
  2. How up-to-date are their Science labs.
  3. In what condition are the instruments in their Band Room in.
  4. What kind of supplies does the art teacher have to their disposal.
  5. Does the librarian have all the materials that a student or teacher could ever want or need.
  6. How well funded are the after school programs?

If all of these are up to par, then and only then could you even begin to think about spending $60 million dollars on a high school football stadium.

4 comments:

  1. To address your questions, my son is a senior at Allen HS and we moved here when he started 6th grade to escape an underfunded poor Arizona school system. He is taking AP Calculus C this year and has two sets of brand new books, one for the classroom and one for home. The science labs are state of the art. We have the nations largest HS marching band with over 800 students (Google Allen Escadrille sometime) and the same bond that build the stadium built a new band hall and 1500 seat performing arts center plus more. I could go on but in late 2008 and early 2009 we passed $338 million in bonds of which $60M went to the stadium, the remaining $270M went to the school.

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  2. And here are some links to what the same bond that built the stadium produced.

    http://www.wfaa.com/news/education/Allen-schools-built-impressive-arts-center-when-three-Collin-cities-could-not-147994475.html

    http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2011/oct/03/student-run-restaurant-open-allen-high-school/

    And finally here is a link to our academic planning guide, it is amazing what the kids have to pick from, http://www.allenisd.org/cms/lib/TX01001197/Centricity/Domain/1656/AHS%202012-13_wCover_for%20web.pdf

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  3. Thank you! I am glad to hear that the wealth is being spreaded. I still don't understand why a facility of such magnitude was needed and how they can say their intention was never to recoup the money spent.

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  4. I agree that it is fully debatable as to the wisdom of spending $60M on the stadium, but almost all the press and ensuing comments and blogs don't debate that, rather they question our priorities and infer our academic resources are substandard. They are not. As far as recouping the money spent on a stadium of any size, I don't think that is ever the intent, however this one will generate a lot of revenue beyond the operation costs and that goes straight into the general fund for other uses. We already have the Texas vs The National college all star game next Feb, other big events are coming.

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