Lynn Walsh

The Houston school system will spend more than $10 million this year providing extra support and resources for schools with low enrollment — funding that has come under recent scrutiny by administrators and trustees, leading to discussions of possible closures and consolidations.

No final decisions have been made about the future of these schools, and HISD trustees will have the final say, according to HISD Superintendent Terry Grier.

It “very well could mean closing schools, but that’s a board decision,” Grier said in December. “We want to talk to the board about options and see what they have to say.”

Nearly 90 schools in the in the Houston Independent School District receive a “small school subsidy,” a chunk of money HISD gives to schools with few students so those campuses can provide the same resources as larger schools.

In December, HISD released a list of 66 “small schools” that it considers under-enrolled. The list of 66 included nine high schools that serve less than 1,250 students (including Houston’s two oldest high schools for African-Americans, Yates and Wheatley), 15 middle schools with less than 750 students, 15 elementaries with less than 500 students and seven multilevel schools (including K-7 and K-8 facilities) serving less than 750 students.

View Houston’s ‘small schools’ in a larger map

The schools on the list of 66 serve less students than what HISD and some district trustees say is needed to run a school economically.

A majority of the 66 schools also receive the small school subsidy, which is one of four pots of individual school funding the district is looking at closely as HISD braces itself for cuts of up to $348 million from the state.

Texas Watchdog has created an interactive map that shows which schools are on the list of 66 and which schools receive the “small school subsidy” but are not on the list of 66.

The schools with red icons on the map are on HISD’s list of 66. The schools with yellow icons are expected to receive a small school subsidy from the district this year, according to HISD documents, but are not included in the list of 66.

The map also includes enrollment figures, state performance ratings, demographic breakdowns and “small school subsidy” funding amounts.

As Texas Watchdog previously reported, the discussion of whether to keep the small schools open isn’t just about money. It’s also about Houston’s complex racial politics and changing demographics.

Close to half of the schools receiving additional funding because of low enrollment numbers have student bodies in which three kids out of four are black, or three kids out of four are Hispanic, HISD records show. A dozen of the schools are at least 90% black or at least 90% Hispanic. At one school, Sherman Elementary in the city’s Fifth Ward, 99% of the student body is Hispanic.

A school must fall below certain enrollment numbers to qualify for the “small school subsidy.” For an elementary school in HISD it is 500 or fewer, for a middle school it is 750 and for a high school it is 1,000 or fewer.

The map includes “small school subsidy” amounts for schools in October and December based on enrollment figures at those times. The final school enrollment numbers used to determine each campus’ funding were not complete for the 2010-11 school year until mid-November, HISD Chief Financial Officer Melinda Garrett said.

Due to enrollment changes, some campuses, like Kelso Elementary near Sunnyside in Houston, received small school funding in October but not in December, and others, like Briscoe Elementary in the Lawndale/Wayside area of Houston, which are now receiving small school funding but were not in October.

Pay-for-performance teacher bonus programs in the New York City schools did not increase student achievement and may have decreased it at larger schools, Harvard economist and Houston school system Apollo 20 advisor Roland Fryer says.

The Houston Independent School District spent more than $42 million this year on performance bonuses, which school leaders say is a key part of having an effective teacher in every classroom.

Fryer serves as the leader of the HISD partnership with Harvard University’s Education Innovation Laboratory, known as EdLabs, which has been working closely and making recommendations for HISD’s school turnaround program, Apollo 20.

“I find no evidence that teacher incentives increase student performance, attendance, or graduation, nor do I find any evidence that the incentives change student or teacher behavior,” Fryer says in a paper published online this month. “If anything, teacher incentives may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools.”

The report is described on its title page as a “working paper,” a term often used to describe the preliminary version of a study that has not yet been formally published.

HISD says its bonuses are not meant to make teachers work harder. The goal, spokesman Jason Spencer said, “is to award and retain top teachers who are already in the district and to attract more great teachers into HISD.”

In an e-mail to Texas Watchdog, Spencer said the district has “strong data” that shows ASPIRE is working in HISD:

The percentage of students scoring at the highest level, “commended,” on the state achievement test known as TAKS “has increased significantly” in HISD.
More people are applying for vacant HISD teaching jobs than they were five years ago. The district received 69 applications for every position in 2006 and 169 in 2009.
HISD has increased its teacher retention rate by three percent.
In the new study, Fryer focuses on the $75 million in bonuses given out to more than 20,000 New York City teachers between 2007 and 2010.

The New York study offered to give bonuses of $3,000 per teacher to every school that met its target report card scores and bonuses of $1,500 per teacher to every school that met more than 75% of its target scores. (On average, Fryer wrote, that equated to a bonus of about $180,000 to schools that aced the report cards and $90,000 to the other group.)

The schools themselves — chosen from some of New York’s lowest performers — were then allowed to decide how to spend or dole out their bonus money. Many chose to hand out bonuses of about $3,000 to most of their teachers, the study found.

“Providing incentives to teachers based on (a) school’s performance on metrics involving student achievement, improvement, and the learning environment did not increase student achievement in any statistically meaningful way,” Fryer says in the report. “If anything, student achievement declined.”

Incentive programs have, however, worked in school systems in other nations, Fryer wrote. As for why they didn’t work in New York, his theories included the possibility that the bonuses — about $3,000 per teacher — were too small to matter.

Or, he said, it could be that the individuals schools’ habit of doling the bonuses out equally to most of their teachers, instead of giving the most money to the highest performers, lessened the incentive.

(By comparison, the HISD teacher who won this year’s largest bonus, a teacher at Lyons Elementary, received $11,000, while the average award to HISD teachers was more than $3,000, the Chronicle reported.)

Also, Fryer said the criteria on which the bonuses were based — the report cards — were similar to the criteria by which the schools were already being judged for benchmarks such as “adequate yearly progress.”

Several states including Colorado, Florida, Michigan and Texas have implemented statewide student-achievement incentive programs for districts and schools.

Sixteen thousand five hundred HISD employees received bonuses this year — that’s 92% of the district’s bonus-eligible employees. The average teacher received $3,614,and the bonuses went to 99% percent of HISD teachers instructing students in core subjects like math, science and reading.

Over the next five years, HISD is slated to receive $31.5 million from the U.S. Department of Education to support the district’s initiative to have an effective teacher in every classroom. Sixteen million dollars of that is expected to go the ASPIRE bonus program, HISD says.

The grant is part of the Department of Education’s Teacher Incentive Fund, through which more than 60 educational organizations in 27 states are set to receive $1.2 billion over the next five years.

HISD says Apollo 20 is “based on key tenets developed by Dr. Fryer and EdLabs,” which include having effective principals and teachers, tutoring and longer school days. Grier has estimated that the partnership with EdLabs will cost HISD about $150,000, but both Grier and Fryer have said that Fryer is not charging for his consulting services.

Earlier this year, Grier told the Houston Chronicle that the bonus program may be in need of some changes:

“We’ve got to take a hard look at that program, and we’ve got to be willing to change it,” Grier said. “When you have 92 percent of your employees receiving a bonus, you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Is it really a bonus program, or is it a program where you’re spreading out $42 million?’”
HISD trustees last week approved cutting funding next year for the ASPIRE program by more than $4 million. The cut will eliminate the attendance bonus and restrict the campus-based incentives to schools that receive the top two state rankings of “exemplary” or “recognized.”

The head of the Houston school system warned district employees of more layoffs and funding cuts minutes after district trustees approved budget cuts Thursday.

Next school year, Houston Independent School District schools will receive $275 less per student from the district. The reduction, approved by HISD trustees during its March board meeting, brings the district more than $58 million closer to closing a projected $171 million budget gap, HISD says.

“In the coming weeks, HISD principals will be deciding how their campuses will make do with less,” HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said in a letter to district staff. “They will be scrutinizing extracurricular programs, supply and equipment needs, and staffing levels. By April 18, they must notify teachers whose jobs can no longer be funded.”

The anticipated layoffs at individual schools are possible even after the cuts approved by trustees Thursday. HISD will spend $2.4 million less funding small schools and another $4.6 million less in unique school funding.

“These are sad times for every member of Team HISD,” Grier said in the letter. More than 700 HISD employees gave early notice of their plans for retirement after this school year, Grier said — more than 500 of them teachers.

HISD offered these employees incentives ranging from $500 to $2,500 if they notified the district of their plans to retire before March 1. The cash incentives increased for employees the longer they had been with the district.

Trustees also approved a timeline and process around the possible closure or consolidation of four HISD elementary schools: Love, Grimes, McDade and Rhoads. Closing all four would save the district close to $1.7 million, HISD said.

The district has proposed more ways of cutting the anticipated budget gap, some of which include a more uniform transportation schedule for all HISD campuses and cuts to police staffing at some schools.

The head of the Houston school system wants to put on hold the proposed overhaul of the district’s magnet programs, saying approving next year’s budget needs to be top priority.

The recommendations to eliminate more than 25 magnet programs in the Houston Independent School District will not be discussed by district trustees this month, and, according to HISD, discussion on the recommendations may not come up again until September of this year.

“Our collective energies must be focused on preserving our schools and standing together to protect the future of our children,” HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said in a letter Monday. “The passion, energy, and enthusiasm we have witnessed around the magnet program review must be channeled toward the greater challenges that confront us in these uncertain economic times.”

Proposed changes to the magnet programs, including which programs could be eliminated, were presented to the public Thursday during a special HISD trustee meeting. Hundreds of parents and community members shared their concerns and opinions on magnet programs and budget issues that night in a meeting that lasted close to six hours.

HISD’s recommendations come after the district hired an outside group, Magnet Schools of America, to do an audit of the district’s 113 magnets. The final report from MSA recommended eliminating around half of the magnets programs across the district, a move that would save HISD nearly $8 million.

This year HISD is expected to spend $17 million funding magnet programs. Right now funding for schools is given in lump sum payments and ranges greatly by school and program. In its recommendations, HISD proposed a different funding plan that would provide money to schools based on theme and grade level. The money would be given to schools on a per-student basis instead of a lump sum.

But the proposed revamp of the magnet programs is only being temporarily shelved, Grier said in his letter Monday — it’s not going away.

“Make no mistake about it: There are problems with the current magnet program,” he wrote. “Right or wrong, too many parents perceive inequities in the current system. They do not understand how some students gain acceptance to the perceived elite programs, while others do not. Some magnet programs get much more money than others, and for no justifiable reason that applies today. Some magnet programs continue to receive extra funding despite a lengthy record of weak academic performance and having no magnetic attraction beyond their neighborhood.”

With HISD putting the adoption of the magnet regulations on hold, Texas Watchdog asked whether the funding levels for each magnet program would stay the same for the 2011-12 school year.

In his letter, Grier said he would recommend that “all current magnet programs continue to receive funding and transportation next year.”

“It would be wrong to assume all magnets will get the same amount of funding next year that they got this year,” HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said in an e-mail earlier Monday. “Nothing is immune from budget cuts. Ultimately, funding decisions rest with the board.”

HISD trustees meet Monday evening to discuss agenda items to be considered at the March board meeting on Thursday. As of press time, the online agenda did not include any magnet-related items.

On the agenda is a proposal to gain community feedback about the possibility of closing four elementary schools: Love, McDade, Grimes and Rhoads. HISD trustees are also expected to approve a budget outline for how much money individual campuses will receive next year per student.

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You can follow the news LIVE on Twitter by following @texaswatchdog. We will be live-tweeting from the meeting beginning at 4 p.m. Monday. You can also search for “#HISD” on Twitter to get the latest Houston school system news.

Four schools, transportation, police and more are on the chopping block in the Houston school system’s plan to close next year’s anticipated budget gap of $171 million.

The Houston Independent School District is also considering increasing its property tax rate. The proposal would increase the current rate — $1.15 per $100 of assessed value — anywhere from one to four cents, said Melinda Garrett, the district’s top financial officer.

The goal is to prevent deeper cuts in per-student spending, Garrett said. To do this, HISD is proposing a variety of cuts across the district, including eliminating around 300 central office positions, of which 95 are currently vacant, Garrett said.

HISD trustees received an update on the budget at a special board meeting Thursday. Hundreds of parents and community members turned out to hear it.

In the proposal, HISD would save $2.6 million by closing four “small” schools — all elementaries: Love, McDade, Grimes and Rhoads. None of the schools has more than 400 students, HISD said.

All four schools receive additional funding through the “small school subsidy” from HISD because they have low enrollment. HISD is considering cutting $2.3 million from the small school subsidy budget next year as part of the budget recommendations.

All four schools were also on the district’s list of 66 “small schools” that meet low enrollment thresholds and were at the center of the district’s “right-sizing” discussion, which HISD said in December could ultimately mean closing or consolidating schools.

All of the schools — except for Love, in the Houston Heights neighborhood — are outside the 610 Loop. McDade is in northeast Houston, and Grimes and Rhoads are in South Houston, near the neighborhoods of Sunnyside and South Acres.

View HISD schools recommended for closure, March 2011 in a larger map

“These are the smallest schools in the district,” HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said. “We have lots of small schools here in HISD but these are the four with the lowest enrollment.”

In December, HISD trustee Larry Marshall — in an interview with Texas Watchdog — used Rhoads as an example of what would happen if the campus, a small school in his district, were to close. He predicted nearby Law and Woodson elementaries “could easily absorb” the Rhoads students.

Rhoads receives more than $212,000 in small school funding, while Grimes, Love and McDade each will receive between $95,000 and $223,000 this year.

Property taxes

For a home worth $195,680 — the median home value in Houston — a one-cent increase would add $14.11 to the yearly tax bill. A four-cent increase would add $56.62, according to HISD.

On top of considering raising property taxes, Garrett also suggests reducing the district’s special tax break, known as the optional homestead exemption, from 20 percent to 15 percent. Increasing the tax rate by four cents and decreasing the homestead exemption by five percent would cost the average homeowner an average of $173, HISD said in a press release.

If trustees approve both proposals, Garrett said the district could raise nearly $64 million for the 2011-12 budget. The proposals would not affect those 65 and older.

Transportation

In order to save $1 million, HISD is proposing a new transportation schedule that would create uniform start and end times for schools across the district.

Right now, HISD says it has 19 different school start times and 21 school end times. Creating uniform start and end times would lead to fewer transportation routes for buses, saving money in the long run, the district says.

Under the proposal, elementary schools would start at 7:30 or 8:30 am and end at 2:45 or 3:45 p.m., resulting in a seven-hour, fifteen-minute instructional day. For some schools, the change will mean more instruction time, and for some others, less instructional time. The move would shift start and end times at some HISD schools by as much as an hour and half earlier or later. (View the proposed changes per elementary school here.)

For middle and high schools, the proposed changes would allow for seven and half hours of instructional time. All high schools would start at 7:45 a.m. and end at 3:15 p.m. All middle schools would start at 8:45 a.m. and end at 4:14 pm. (View the proposed changes for middle schools here and high schools here.)

While the savings is great, HISD trustee Harvin Moore said he is leery of making changes without talking extensively with principals first.

“I am concerned about the end times being too late,” Moore said. “In high school and even middle school, there are after-school activities, and we need to allow time for that. In a de-centralized system, like HISD, I am reluctant to tell a principal when the school day should start and end.”

HISD said it has discussed the plan with principals. The final decision on start and end times would be approved by district trustees.

Police staffing

The number of security guards and police officers at campuses across HISD could decline if the most recent budget proposal presented is approved.

HISD is proposing eliminating more than 20 police officers from HISD campuses next year, for a total savings of $270,756. The proposal would eliminate 24 officers and add eight security guard positions to some of those campuses.

The recommendations for the cuts were made based data related to the number of gangs in schools, crime statistics, disciplinary actions and more, HISD says.

The funding would also come entirely from the HISD Police Department budget instead of both the police department budget and school budget, which is how the district currently does it. (For details on changes per campus click here.)

On top of all of those cuts, HISD is considering eliminating a scholarship and college-prep program called Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams). Many parents and community members stood up in support of GRAD Thursday night, sharing stories about how the program, which aims to serve economically disadvantaged students, made it possible for them to go to college and graduate.

Grier said the program “has done great things for HISD,” and students’ performance in the program has nothing to do with why it is being cut.

While GRAD has helped many students, Grier’s chief of staff Michele Pola said, it is not needed anymore. “We are doing the same things now at campuses on our own that they (GRAD) are doing,” she said.

Last year, Texas Watchdog reported that former HISD administrator Ann Stiles had been working full-time for HISD’s Project GRAD program. She earned more than $67,000 a year from HISD while also serving as the executive director for the nonprofit, earning an additional $120,201 from the nonprofit in 2008, according to IRS documents. The total paycheck for the two jobs comes to more than $187,000 annually.

For more details on all of the proposed cuts, click here.

HISD is expected to hear another budget update Monday. HISD trustees are also expected to learn more then about the proposed school closings and magnet funding policy. The items discussed Monday are expected to be considered for approval March 10.

***

The Houston school system could eliminate 25 magnet programs and create 13 new ones under the much-anticipated magnet revamp recommendations presented late Thursday night.

The changes have been proposed after more than 25 community meetings, a $269,000 audit by Magnet Schools of America and much controversy.

Among the changes, the recommendations call for the Houston Independent School District to fund magnet programs based on how many students they serve. Right now, HISD magnets are funded with lump-sum payments ranging from sightly more than $5,000 to $473,000 — payments made without regard to the number of students in the magnet program. HISD is expected to spend $17 million on its 113 magnet programs this year.

Of the 25 HISD magnets recommended for removal there are nine elementary schools and eight each of middle and high schools. Three of the schools received the state’s highest accountability rating of “exemplary” last year, and three received the state’s lowest rating of “academically unacceptable.” Twelve are rated as “academically acceptable” by the Texas Education Agency and seven are considered “recognized,” according to HISD.

Burbank, Cook, Elrod, Herrera, Law, Patterson, Valley West, Wainwright and West University elementaries are all on the removal list. HISD middle schools on the list are Attucks, Deady, Dowling, Fleming, Henry, Ryan, Key and Welch. Austin, Chavez, Davis, Lee, Madison, Sharpstown, Wheatley and Worthing high schools are also on the list.

If approved, those schools’ magnet programs would be phased out beginning next school year. That means receiving only 40% of the magnet funding they receive this year. At 40% funding levels for the 2011-12 school year, some schools would still receive $100,000 or more ($109,392 at West University Elementary and $108,397 at Elrod Elementary School); for others it means just a few thousand dollars ($6,000 at Herrera Elementary and $7,500 at Cook Elementary).

Under the proposal, funding for magnets would be allocated based on theme and grade level of the school and would range from an additional $100 to $675 per student. (See the chart below for more funding details.) (Note: Career academy funding could change depending on which community college HISD partners with. The academies are also part of the 13 proposed new magnet programs.)

The new proposal also details how much funding a school would get for additional staff, on top of the per-student dollars it receives. Montessori magnets, school-wide magnets and dedicated magnets will receive additional funding for teachers, but school-within-a-school programs, early colleges and career academies would not.

Overall, the proposal means more funding for some schools and less for others. To see all the details about individual school funding, magnet themes and more, click here.

The 13 proposed new programs would be at four elementaries (Gordon, Kashmere, Northline and Paige), one pre-kindergarten magnet at Briarmeadow, three 6-12 grade level schools (an all-boys school, an all-girls school and one at Sharpstown International School) and five high schools (Challenge Early College, East Early College, Eastwood Academy, North Houston Early College and Houston Academy of International Studies).

All of the proposed 13 are scheduled to begin next school year except for the proposed Mandarin language program at Gordon, the proposed Spanish language magnets at Kashmere Gardens and Briarmeadow and the Vanguard program proposed at Paige.

Last year HISD spent close to $5,000 to send district Superintendent Terry Grier, former Chief Academic Officer Chuck Morris, trustee Harvin Moore and a few others to San Diego to look at magnet programs in the San Diego Unified School District, where Grier used to be in charge. They looked at several magnet schools there, including a Mandarin Chinese program.

The magnet recommendations from HISD will have to be approved by trustees before anything else moves forward. The district plans on having an agenda item ready to be reviewed Monday, with hopes of a vote on the new policy and magnet program changes at the March board meeting next Thursday.

A framework for the possible revamp of Houston’s magnet schools is slated to be released to school principals Wednesday morning and to the general public on Thursday, a top Houston school administrator said.

The proposed magnet regulations won’t name specific schools but will include funding formulas for the district’s 100-plus magnets, said Michele Pola, chief of staff to Houston Independent School District Superintendent Terry Grier.

“People want the plan,” Pola said. “We have laid out the framework of what we think and will present it Thursday night. It will be the policy that the board will be looking at, not adopting. The policy will go up online at that time as well.”
The new magnet regulations have the potential to be highly controversial for the school system, as many anxious parents fear their child’s magnet program — or future magnet program — may be shut down or lose some of its funding as part of the revamp. Even without individual schools’ names, parents will likely parse the Thursday release for predictions of the future of their magnet program.

HISD hired an outside non-profit, Magnet Schools of America, to do a review last year of the district’s magnet programs. The group recommended eliminating almost half of them.

The school system is spending close to $17 million this school year on its magnets.

Less than a week ago, HISD administrators presented broad recommendations for what magnet programs in HISD may look like in the future. The proposed recommendations include creating a centralized lottery admission for students, accountability standards for magnet programs and equalized funding for programs based on categories like theme and type.

At that time, HISD trustees said they wanted more information.

And after hearing Tuesday from two consultants about how a centralized lottery system in Wake County, N.C., works, parents were the ones asking for more.
“I know Grier has mentioned that there are 40 schools that will either be seeing cuts or program expansions,” HISD parent Mary Nesbitt said during the Tuesday parent meeting. “When are we going to see the list of schools that will be impacted by board policy, and when are we going to see all the details?”

The framework will be given to the districts’ principals’ ad hoc committee Wednesday at will be made public during Thursday night’s trustees’ meeting, Pola said, at which time it will also be published on the HISD Website and circulated in a press release.

“I know there have been questions about, ‘So, when do we put this out?’” Pola said. “There’s always that piece of letting the board have it first, making it public or giving it to our principals. Right now we have a framework, and we are presenting that tomorrow to all of our principals.”

The funding formulas will be based on comparisons from across the country and were compiled by HISD administrators. Pola said the district did look at individual school budgets while preparing the recommendations to see what money has been spent on in the past.

Trustees are slated to discuss Thursday the 2011-12 district budget and the school closure policy.

A magnet policy proposal will be on the agenda for the trustees to consider for approval at the March 10 board meeting, Pola said.

***

Special education students in the Houston public schools lack access to appropriate technology and spend less time in “mainstream” classrooms with non-special ed students than do their peers elsewhere in Texas, an outside review has found.

The review also found that black and Hispanic students are disproportionately categorized as being mentally retarded or having learning or emotional disturbances.

More than 16,000 students in the Houston Independent School District receive service from special education programs. In October 2010, HISD asked Tom Hehir, a Harvard University professor and former director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, to conduct an independent review of special ed in the district.

In general, the report said Hehir found “many aspects” of special ed in HISD to be “commendable,” but also pointed out some flaws.

For instance, the report says HISD special education students are not given access to appropriate technology. One special education official said in the report that special ed programs “received the ‘hand-me-down’ computers from general education when new computers were ordered.” Other HISD staff based at school campuses said the district is “not up-to-date on current assistive technologies, such as those afforded by the iPad.”

The lack of technology can hurt special ed students’ academic achievement, the report said.

Only two and half percent of HISD students with disabilities receive assistive technology like text-to-speech or speech-to-text communication devices and closed captioning, the report says. Almost half of those receiving AT have hearing problems, and only five percent of autistic students receive help from AT.

Hehir’s consulting firm completed a review of special education programs three years ago for the San Diego Unified School District, where HISD Superintendent Terry Grier formerly worked. That report found that black students were three times as likely as white students to be labeled as emotionally disturbed.

The HISD report also found that around half of special education students in district spend at least 80 percent of their day in a mainstream classroom setting — a figure lower than the state average of 66 percent. Special education students who spend more of their day in a mainstream classroom setting tend to score higher on national tests, the report said.

“While it is not necessarily illegal or inappropriate to serve students with disabilities outside of the general setting, the majority of students with disabilities can and should be served in mainstream settings,” it says. Some campuses work hard to move special education students into mainstream classroom environments, but most campuses in HISD “do not appear to be taking steps to appropriately integrate students with disabilities into mainstream settings,” according to the report.

The head of HISD’s special education department, Sowmya Kumar, said in a press release Monday she was “pleased” with the report. “The report will guide our work to create a culture of high expectations, to improve the quality of instruction, and to produce better outcomes for students with disabilities. I believe we are well-positioned to forge ahead.”

Other findings in the report: (View the full report here)

African-American students in HISD are four times more likely than non-African-Americans to be categorized as being mentally retarded or having emotional disturbances.
Overall, Hispanic students are under-represented in special education categories in HISD but are more likely to be categorized as special ed in schools with lower Hispanic populations. The over-placement is linked to the general educational programs, specifically weak instructional programs in subjects like reading and language, especially for those who speak English as a second language. School discipline and behavior policies also could be to blame, the report says.
HISD school staff found the needed special ed paperwork confusing and were not sure where or who to talk to for clarification.
Parents of HISD students with disabilities did not feel they could access the choice system and specifically felt unwelcome at district charter schools. “Charter schools in HISD tend to have lower proportions of special education students than non-charter schools in the district,” the audit says.
The recommendations and findings in the audit will be presented to HISD trustees this week. The district has scheduled a public meeting from 3-4 p.m. Friday, March 4, at the Hattie Mae White Building, 4400 W. 18th St. in Houston.

***

Recommendations from the Houston school system’s leadership about revamping its magnet program include only broad suggestions so far, leading to criticism from some trustees about the lack of concreteness.

The broad suggestions include a centralized application process for students, a more equitable funding strategy and a need to develop criteria for measuring success at the 113 magnet programs across the Houston Independent School District.

Schools chief Terry Grier said the administration has more detailed recommendations ready, but they were not shared with trustees or the public Thursday.

The recommendations come after HISD hired an outside national education group, Magnet Schools of America, to conduct an audit of its $17 million-a-year magnet program. The audit recommended removing the magnet designation and magnet funding from more than half of HISD’s magnet programs — a move that would save the district close to $8 million.

Details on how HISD is going to implement the proposed recommendations and what it means for specific magnet programs were vague and left district trustees wanting more.

“I feel like these are pretty broad and not very specific,” HISD trustee Anna Eastman said. “I know there’s some kind of intangible language around the centralized system, but it is not really labeled or explained better.”

HISD Chief of Staff Michele Pola said the recommendations were left broad on purpose. “We want to gain feedback, comments and see what’s missing,” Pola said. “We want to know what people would like to see as we move forward and craft a policy,” Pola said.

However, Grier told trustees that the administration already has drawn up more detailed funding recommendations, though he did not make them public Thursday.

Those “recommendations aren’t final,” media spokesman Jason Spencer said in an e-mail Thursday. “They are working drafts.”

Texas Watchdog has filed an open records request seeking access to the more detailed recommendations.

To gain more feedback, Pola said, HISD is considering a live call-in period for parents and community members in the next week, with a deadline of presenting final recommendations to trustees on March 10.

Trustees Eastman and Harvin Moore said they would like to see the deadline for final recommendations pushed back to April or May.

“I think we need it to be much more narrowed down and specific,” Eastman said, bringing up the recommendation to create a centralized selection system. “Does that mean a centralized lottery system for every single schools? Does that mean we have a centralized, site-based lottery and a centralized acceptance system? As a parent and a trustee, I would want more details before making any decisions.”

Moore agreed.

“People care about the funding,” Moore said. “If we are going to take away just magnet funding from a school that receives both magnet and vanguard funding, we need to make sure it is going to work…There are a lot more pieces to this, and cutting one funding source without looking at the others is not the answer.”

Vanguard funding in HISD is given to certain schools with extensive gifted education programs.

Moore also brought up the small school subsidy, which the district gives to individual campuses that meet low-enrollment thresholds. This year, HISD is expected to spend more than $10 million providing extra funding to small schools.

In a budget presentation also given to HISD trustees Thursday, the district’s chief financial officer, Melinda Garrett, proposed solutions for closing an anticipated general fund budget gap of $171 million, with savings of more than $5 million for cuts to small schools, including $2.6 million in “small school closures.”

In December, HISD released a list of 66 “small schools” that are at the center of a bigger discussion about “right-sizing,” which could eventually mean school closures or consolidations.

The trustees did not address Thursday which schools are part of the proposed “small school” cuts, but Grier did say the district has the recommendations ready. Texas Watchdog asked for a copy of the more detailed recommendations, but was told to submit a formal request for those under the state public information laws.

Other proposed cuts to close the budget gap include $20.8 million from the central support services, including eliminating positions in technology, academic services, construction and facilities and more, and $22.5 million in district-wide services including student travel and alternative education programs like Community Education Partners, or CEP.

All of the proposed cuts are recommendations and would need approval by HISD trustees.

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Students at one alternative school in Houston may be moving to the newly vacant H.P. Carter campus next year under a proposal being considered by trustees this week.

The Houston Independent School District proposal outlines a plan to move high school students at the Contemporary Learning Center to the Carter campus in Houston’s historic Fifth Ward beginning next school year.

CLC, located near Midtown, currently serves middle and high school students, but under the proposal the middle school program would be discontinued. The school would be known as “Contemporary Learning Center at H.P. Carter.”

HISD trustees approved a re-purposing plan for H.P. Carter in late 2010 after the school came under scrutiny by HISD Superintendent Terry Grier for the high costs and makeup of its small student body, which was primarily pregnant girls — something that Grier pointed out is illegal.

As HISD Trustee Carol Mims Galloway told Texas Watchdog in an interview last month, the new high school at the Carter campus will include some type of college partnership program when CLC students move to the facility for the 2011-12 school year.

The proposed re-purposing plan of CLC also means transforming its current site at 1906 Cleburne into the new home of the all-female college preparatory academy that trustees approved in November.

According to HISD’s website, the CLC campus was founded in 1973 and began as a pilot program to serve students who were not as successful learning in traditional educational environments. In recent years the school has begun to incorporate an accelerated learning program where, according to HISD, “students can advance two grade levels in one school year.”

CLC and HISD plan on holding a public meeting sometime between Feb. 12 and March 4 to get feedback and comments from parents and community members about the proposed re-purposing. According to the proposal, trustees “will be asked to consider the information gathered at the public meeting before voting on the relocation and re-purposing of CLC.”

The vote HISD trustees are expected to take Thursday at its February board meeting involves the process and timeline involved in re-purposing CLC — the actual approval of moving the school is expected to come later after trustees hear from parents and the community.

Texas Watchdog plans to cover the meeting live on Twitter to update you on the CLC re-purposing and other HISD proposals. Follow @TexasWatchdog and #HISD for the latest information and to join in on the conversation.