Talk:Winfield, Texas

Merger with Winfield Independent School District

After viewing the stub article size of Winfield Independent School District, the fact that the school district is now closed (meaning that expanding the article is unlikely as the subject matter no longer exists), and the fact that much of the information under Winfield, Texas § Education is already identical, I believe that it would be uncontroversial to any user as discussed here -> Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers § How to propose a merger. I will be conducting this merger. This section meant to serve as a rationalization of this move and a way to notify myself if there is controversy to this merger. ThatSuperNerd (talk) 03:33, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@ThatSuperNerd: I am now contesting the merger: school districts are administratively separate from the cities: school districts include not only the cities themselves but unincorporated areas (rural) which are not a part of the city itself. Also keep in mind that there is archival material existing in libraries talking about the district management (changes in superintendents). WhisperToMe (talk) 22:46, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

And from the map we see the district not only served Winfield but also the municipality of Millers Cove and swathes of unincorporated rural areas. I think it's inappropriate to redirect the page on a school district that served a vast area to a city Wikipedia article as if the district belonged to the city government. Winfield Independent School District is a separate government agency and US school districts typically have separate articles as per Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Common_outcomes#School_districts which states ""Populated, legally-recognized places" include school districts, which conveys near-inherent notability to school districts per Wikipedia:Notability (geography)." I would like to de-merge the article. WhisperToMe (talk) 00:00, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

@ThatSuperNerd: FYI I notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools and Wikipedia:WikiProject Texas WhisperToMe (talk) 00:02, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Based on the "independent" structure of school systems in Texas, I believe I agree with WhisperToMe. If the article for Winfield ISD needs to be merged/re-directed, it's more appropriate to merge Winfield Independent School District with Mount Pleasant Independent School District than with a city article. (Then the education section of the articles for affected cities could be updated, as needed.) It does look like there are other, un-merged articles for former districts [1], but I don't have a strong opinion yet on whether such articles should exist. --Hebisddave (talk) 14:39, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

@Hebisddave: In some cases I've written lengthy articles on them like Wilmer Hutchins ISD or North Forest ISD. Indeed some former districts have been covered to death on reliable sources available online due to them being poorly run. For ones that haven't been quite so notorious, in the past I started an article on them if they had an internet presence of some kind (post-1996) and/or if I find published reliable sources on ERIC or court documents talking about the district as it existed (for those before 1996), an example being Wabbaseka Tucker School District. For districts that were around before 1996 one can do research at newspapers.com and/or in their respective county libraries. There are districts where, instead of just being merged, they are dissolved and broken into pieces to be given to other districts: these ones don't have obvious candidates for merging (especially so in places where districts cross county lines). WhisperToMe (talk) 19:21, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

@ThatSuperNerd: Since the discussion hasnt had any new updates, do you mind if I re-separate the district article and see if I can find more sources from other time periods to bulk it up? WhisperToMe (talk) 05:37, 16 April 2021 (UTC)