Lynn Walsh

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

HISD elementary school for kids with disciplinary problems spends as much to educate each child as it would cost to pay 3 years’ tuition at Harvard Medical School, records show
Monday, Nov 22, 2010, 09:50AM CST
By Lynn Walsh

A tiny Houston elementary school for kids with severe disciplinary problems spends as much to educate each child as it would cost to pay three years’ tuition at Harvard Medical School, Houston Independent School District data shows.

North Alternative Elementary School is housed in the old Chatham Elementary campus in the Trinity/Houston Gardens neighborhood northeast of the 610 Loop. The school’s website describes it as a K-6 program that may, in “special situations,” take in 7th and 8th graders, though HISD’s main website says it is K-5.

It is expected to spend, on average, $147,403 educating each student this year — making it the most expensive school in HISD, based on per-student funding. The school has just four students this year, HISD data shows.

The per-child cost at North Alternative is seven times that of the H.P. Carter Career Center, which HISD trustees voted earlier this month to re-purpose because of declining enrollment and cost of the school. The career center was expected to spend an average of $20,356 on each of its 132 students this year.

North Alternative’s website says it educates students from across HISD’s north region who have committed the most serious disciplinary infractions, violating rules in levels four and five of the HISD student code of conduct. Those can include include assaulting a teacher or bringing guns, knives or drugs to school, committing a felony on campus, or sexual misconduct.

“We have a mandate to focus on student behavior,” its website says. “We do this using positive behavior modification, counseling, diagnostic services, and by fostering a sense of community within the school. We have full programs in both Special Education and Bilingual Education as well as General Education.”

The official school affirmation begins with “Today begins the rest of my life,” and includes the phrase “If I do something wrong, I will accept responsibility for my actions.”

Students at North Alternative are required to wear uniforms, and the school provides all of their school supplies. They are not allowed to bring backpacks, iPods or media players to school and are not allowed to have more than $5 with them.

North Alternative had 10 staff members last year, according to an HISD salary database, who were paid a total of more than $468,000. They include a three-person special education staff and a bilingual teacher, according to the school Web site.

Alternative schools must often provide their students with the services of counselors, psychologists and other staff with special skills or training, which drives up those schools’ per-student expenses. Of the five HISD schools expected to spend the most per child this year, four of them are alternative or nontraditional programs of some kind, including North Alternative, Harper Alternative, the HCC Life Skills program and the Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program.

North Alternative Principal Michael Bledsoe, who previously was principal at E.O. Smith Education Center, declined to speak with Texas Watchdog. An HISD spokesman said he could not find “anyone who is willing to do an interview” regarding the costs associated with alternative education.

Contact Lynn Walsh at (713) 228-2850 by email at Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org or on Twitter @LWalsh.