Texans have to be insanely stupid to even attempt a project like this. It is a criminal waste of tax p[ay money that should be going for education. No wonder we get so much completely stupid outcomes from Texas. Disgusting.

our local high school here in Georgia. Amazing to a migrant from California to the Deep South bible belt, anyway.

It seems, given the fear many have of the secularizing effects of "too much" education (Satan at work), a passion for football replaces high ideals for educational attainment and acquisition of knowledge and understanding. Pathetic. Of course, to be fair most here pursue high ideals through religion, or at least imagine they do.

Isn't that democracy? Of, for, and by and all that.

This isn't a direct democracy, it's a republic. And in a republic elected officials have the responsibility -- some would say the duty -- to tell the difference between what is right and what is popular.

Football brings in a lot of money and provides social entertainment. If you don't like it, don't go.

Don't want tax dollars getting spent to facilitate a stupid sport which has been proven to cause brain injuries in most of the players.

See how that feels?

Why not tone it down?

But u have to admit that a 70$ million HS football stadium is STUPID AS PHUCK! And so Texas-like...

And less than 2 years after opening it was closed down as structurally unsound... Not that it has anything to with. this latest act of insanity...

It's pretty phuckin' STUPID, tho!

How's that $70m made up ?

$30m for you
$30m for me
and we'll give the job the Arkansas man ....

at least one hopes that the construction of this will create some jobs. I think it's more than a bit pricey for a HS football stadium, but I doubt if my opinion counts much to those making the decisions on this facility.

it is a bit of a milestone..

Or a computer engineering lab?
Or a library?
Or a performance hall PLUS provide instruments for a complete orchestra?

But no, this $$ was spent on a sport that sends young men hurtling at each other, resulting in injuries and possible lifetime damage, in homage to a sport that none of them will play after the age of forty.

Local middle schools got new band halls and another school got a new auditorium. And whether any of us like it or not, it was voted on by the public. They choose to go to these high school games by the thousands. A nearby school averages better than 16,000 per game. For frame of reference, the Dallas Mavericks averaged 20,000 per game.

Also of note, the new stadium will be used by 3 McKinney high schools, not just for football, but also soccer and lacrosse and other events.

Each student in the district gets a Macbook as freshmen.

The situation isn't nearly so black and white as one high school spent $70 million on a football stadium. That's the headline, but if you delve deeper, you can find that there's more too it than that.

That fire was burning red hot before you showed up with those complicated facts and stuff.

It is over the top for any high school athletic facility regardless of how many schools and sports use it.

High School football does not need that type of facility, they don't need big charter type buses to take the team, band and cheerleaders to away games. They don't need 10 coaches.

When our schools are not EDUCATING our kids in science, math, history and english it is time to cut the cord on athletics.

I am not anti athletics, I LOVE high school football and college football it has just gone beyond the pale in terms of spending and interest.

However, I did a little research into the school district. They are not lacking in any offerings to the students. From math and science, to arts and languages, they have an impressive offering. I wish my high school offered half of what these student have at their disposal. The campus itself is beautiful, and a bit inspiring if you're a fan of architecture. This particular district cannot be accused to not educating kids in sciences, math, history, arts, etc... So I see no harm in a beautiful stadium.

Rich districts can afford this, poor districts have books that are falling apart. Funding education through the property tax is wrong. If we do it that way all of the property taxes should go to a main fund and the money distributed on a per student basis. That way you don't have the rich districts and the poor ones, all of our kids have the same opportunities.

Sorry, I'm glad it is a "beautiful stadium on a camps that is beautiful" I just feel it is still over the top.

The Haves have and the Have Nots do not. We all benefit from well educated children and I've always wished we would get away from property taxes being the main funding avenue.

As for these stadiums, and it's not just Texas or the south, one person's treasure is another's garbage and the voters did approve the bonds. Also, as was pointed out up thread, less than a third of the money approved will go towards this and will be enjoyed by tens of thousands, including students that aren't athletes such as band members and students that are fans of the various sports teams.

Still, I'd like to see a more equitable sharing of funds so that less wealthy districts could also have nice things.

They tried to hide that 90 percent of it was going to athletics by starting the explanation by talking about improving the computer labs. It felt weird voting against it but I did.

They are certainly free to spend their tax dollars any way they want but that doesn't mean people can't point out the stupidity in doing so.

For the cost of one macbook they could get ten chromebooks that would do 90% of anything a student needs to do. And would work flawlessly with google apps for education that is free for schools and eliminates the need for expensive IT infrastructure.


Hey look they spent more money foolishly is not a great argument.

The district paid $744 each for the Macbooks.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/mckinney/headlines/20140609-officials-unfurl-plans-to-give-laptops-to-all-mckinney-isd-high-schoolers.ece

You can get 5 solid chromebooks retail. And if you are willing to shop a little you can do even better.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834265795

Macs are horrible in school environments unless the whole school is mac based and even then the advantages google classroom or even office 365 bring to the table far outweigh any positives the macs may bring. The cost savings in IT infrastructure alone with google classroom and chromebooks completely destroy any comparison between them. That is why Chromebook usage is growing so quickly while mac solutions and even windows solutions are dwindling.

I know colleges do, but...

I'm not sure about McKinney, but other area high schools on par with them routinely draw about 15-20K people per game with tickets that sell for about $10 ea.

They also serve multiple high schools for both varsity and junior varsity football alone, along with other sporting events which are held there. So eventually these stadiums pay for themselves.

The stadium is 12,000 seats, so selling 15,000 tickets will be a challenge. Not counting all the comps. So maybe $100k per game. That should just about pay the electric bill. If the people there want to be foolish, they have that right, but let's not try to generalize that football is a path to riches.

Bigger everything in Texas, including dumbshits.

We all know that football is more important than anything else.

still use floppy disks, I suppose...

There's much more to this story than just the stadium - the bonds covered a wide variety of projects.

Of course, it's not as click-baity and doesn't have the same likelihood of outrage-generation if all of the information is provided.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/mckinney/headlines/20140609-officials-unfurl-plans-to-give-laptops-to-all-mckinney-isd-high-schoolers.ece

Which I discussed above.

I am glad they are getting something into the students hands but is not a wise use of their money to have macbooks as that choice.

They are certainly entitled to spend their money any way they want. Personally I would rather see the money spent wisely to extend the effectiveness of every dollar. They are by no means doing that.

There are certainly uses you can come up with that macbooks would be the perfect tool for but in general it is a huge waste of resources.

This is a typical boondoggle if you ask me they go to the public and float a vote on a bond promising great changes and even delivering on some but in the process squander a lot of that money.

Great that they used the money to provide macbooks but what happens in 4 years when those macbooks die? They will have to float another bond to replace them.

The money they spent on those macbooks equals nearly a third of their annual school budget. That is short sighted stupidity imho.

for history term projects.

now they need to build a chapel so they have some place to pray, to win a game.

slavery, that creationism is a viable "scientific" theory, and that we were allied with Germany against Russia in WWII. Pathetic.

and an awesomely stocked library? I think the glorification of sports has contributed significantly to the dumbing down of America.

Elementary School Library


Middle School Library

Which is due for a bit of a remodel. A draft of some changes.


High School Library - http://mckinneyhighschoollibrary.weebly.com/ with plenty of pictures of the library.

All three high schools have multiple arts programs from music, dance, drama, visual, etc...

The computer lab looks ok to me.
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I could not find pictures of their science labs that they use for their 13 science offerings across biology, chemistry and physics. So they may be absolute disasters.

Texas has some of the best public schools in the country, thanks in part to a lot of lottery and oil/gas money.

Of course, it's easier to just assume that the only focus is football.

Thanks for getting me back on track.

P.S. Does this mean I get to Texas bash too? We have not had a good Texas or Southern State bashing in a while. Us northerners love it.

I am not at all surprised.

"They'll finish it it for $3.5 mil, I bet, and less if we don't pay them for protracted periods, and we negotiate a new lower final payment. "
--- McKinney (R) taxpayers

Seems like they have money to burn, and could do okay on their own.

They make money off of the tickets not to mention the concessions....BIG MONEY there!

I grew up in Texas. I remember our football program funded just about everything else. People don't understand how big a deal hs football is in texas. It is a religion. Having said that, inflation is ridiculous these days so I don't know what a moderately cost stadium would cost versus an elaborate one. Aren't the profession ones 200million? Trying to get perspective on this. I guess what I am saying is they are not building a stadium for 5,000 people. They are looking to seat 30,000-40,000 (figure in population increases). How much would a stadium to seat that many people cost?

To spend $70 million on a stadium which seats 12,000 doesn't seem unreasonable to me. A stadium needs to be engineered and constructed with concrete and steel to seat that many people. An off the shelf aluminum bleacher system would probably be limited to 15 or 20 rows and a couple of thousand people.

I think people outside of Tx, are thinking 5,000-10,000 people. On a good day. But in TX we're talking 25,000-40,000 people. You would have to have a different type of structure altogether and it sounds expensive to build.

Before people go off on this, I think they need to realize this meets the needs of THIS community. And if their education is well funded, and it sounds like it if students are getting macbooks, then building this stadium shouldn't be a problem.