1.2%: the utilization rate of the Robinson Fine Arts Center by Plano ISD students in the first school year it has been opened.
- 3,525 hours: the number of total operating hours for the Robinson Fine Arts Center during the 2023-2024 school year.
- 43 hours: the number of hours of Plano ISD students’ performances that are booked at the Robinson Fine Arts Center according to its calendar.
- 2.5 hours: the number of hours of Plano ISD community events that are booked at the Robinson Fine Arts Center according to its calendar.
- 7 hours: the number of hours of functions unrelated to Plano ISD that are booked at the Robinson Fine Arts Center according to its calendar.
That is a massively underutilized taxpayer funded facility.
A little refresher for everyone…
On May 7, 2016, Plano ISD put a $481M bond proposal to the community for a vote. Included in that bond was a $63,555,000 Performing Arts Center, which accounted for 20% of the total bond.
Ahead of the vote for the bond, the District had several community meetings to convince stakeholders that this new Performing Arts Center was direly needed.
Some of the District’s talking points included:
- Fine Arts Programs on the campuses are having to hold their performances in crammed cafeteria-auditoriums not sized adequately to accommodate not just the number of students performing but the audience in attendance
- Some Fine Arts Programs are spending additional funds (mostly from parents of the performers) to rent out facilities such as local churches that could accommodate everyone
- Musical performances are being done in gyms with terrible acoustics
- Plano ISD doesn’t have a Performing Arts Center like Allen ISD, where Plano ISD students frequently go to compete because Plano ISD doesn’t have a facility that UIL will sanction
- Significantly smaller districts have Performing Arts Centers while Plano ISD students “rent space and play on gym floors” (Dr. Binggeli at Plano Chamber of Commerce Town Hall)
- A Performing Arts Center will bring in additional revenue for Plano ISD through facility rentals
The Fine Arts Center officially opened on May 18, 2023, 6 days before the 2022-2023 school year ended. We would expect that to mean that this school year, the District is making good on its pledges to its stakeholders for the Fine Arts Center. And yet, as the evidence also shows, that is not even remotely the case.
Clockwise from top-left: (1&2) Plano East Winter Concert at Prestonwood Baptist Church in December 2023, (3) Rice Middle School Winter Concert at Custer Road United Methodist Church in December 2023, and (4) Robinson Middle School continues to hold concerts at its campus though the stage will not fit all the performers as seen in this image from the Fall Concert in October 2023.
This utilization data and evidence doesn’t even take into account:
- the design and construction defects;
- the costly, ongoing legal battles and lawsuits that started even before the Fine Arts Center was opened to the public as reported by the Dallas Morning News in its article “Plano ISD arts facility construction is a mess. We should have seen this coming.”;
- the jury trial currently set for August 2024 in the lawsuit McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. brought against Plano ISD concerning this Fine Arts Center; and
- the claim that the Fine Arts Center was merely a vanity project as it provided a venue to have a feature or space permanently named for Plano notoriety.
Bottom line: Voters were deceived into allowing Plano ISD to take on more debt for a $63.6M facility plagued by defects and legal proceedings that is being utilized 1.2% for the students it was claimed to have been built for.
Remember this Plano ISD voters the next time this school district comes to you for a bond approval.
* How did we arrive at these numbers? Not counting federal holidays, the Robinson Fine Arts Center has 282 operating days from the start to the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Based on its published standard operating hours and the latest time that events have been concluded at the facility, we arrived at 12.5 operating hours a day though likely this is an underestimation as the school day begins earlier than what was accounted. Below are images of the calendar at the time this article was published.
Educate Plano 