Tag: Investigations
Familiar faces at the center of Houston ISD’s funding decisions
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2011, under Investigations, What's New
An investigation for Texas Watchdog:
Familiar faces at the center of Houston ISD’s funding decisions
Monday, Mar 21, 2011, 09:11AM CST
By Lynn Walsh
Houston school system leaders have said they want to bring outside perspectives to a committee that advises the district on the $1.6 billion annual budget.
They also said they wanted to revamp a second committee that directs a troubled construction program funded with $800 million in bond money to ensure the committee is transparent and free of conflicts of interest.
But a look at who’s on those committees doesn’t turn up many new faces.
The budget advisory committee is packed with school system staffers, not outsiders — nearly four members of out of every five are HISD employees. Meanwhile, the bulk of the members of the committee overseeing the bond program are the same people who were on the committee before the revamp — though they’ve now been certified as conflict-free.
And for the three vacant posts on the bond committee, a third of the applications Texas Watchdog reviewed came from people who already have a direct tie to the school system, such as being a district employee or former employee, serving on another HISD committee or listing an HISD official as a reference.
“All public schools are not treated equally in Houston,” said Richard Spence, a health care consultant who has applied for one of the three vacant seats. He says he doesn’t have any connections to the school system beyond being a Lee High School alumnus. “It shouldn’t matter whether you have political clout or not. These should all be very transparent decisions.”
HISD says it is allowing anyone to apply to be on the bond committee, and all applications will be reviewed for possible conflicts of interest. The district also said the two committees and their makeup are not related because they serve different purposes.
“There’s a big difference between an oversight committee’s mission and the mission of an advisory committee,” HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said in an e-mail. “It’s important to have employees (principals, teachers, etc.) on the budget committee because they have valuable insight into how money is spent at the campus level.”
Overseeing the construction projects is the Bond Oversight Committee, so named because the construction work is funded through $800 million in bonds.
School officials have been trying to revamp the committee after a 2010 report said the construction program suffered from communication problems, lacked planning and was missing budget reports.
Also last year, it was revealed that some of the proposed appointees to the committee had potential conflicts of interest, a controversy that came to light in part when the Houston Chronicle reported that school system trustee Diana Dávila had tried to get her husband named to the committee. Dávila wound up stepping down from the school board soon after.
Since then, HISD Chief Operating Officer Leo Bobadilla has worked to rid the committee of conflicts, requiring all the existing committee members to reapply for their positions. (Two chose not to reapply.) They’re also being required to verify to the district that they have read the committee rules, which include new language forbidding conflicts of interest, and to affirm that they are conflict-free, Spencer said.
At the same time, the school board also restructured the makeup of the committee to make it less insidery in the future.
For years, the committee had guaranteed seats for representatives of specific business groups including the Houston Citizens Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Houston Partnership. But the school district — partly in a move to bring in people without potential conflicts — did away with the guaranteed seats this school year, except for the provision that at least one member must have experience in engineering or building design.
However, even though the guaranteed seats are no more, most of the people who were in those guaranteed seats have reapplied for their posts. They include the man who has chaired the committee since 1998, retired Halliburton executive Bernard Pieper, who was originally appointed to the committee by the Associated General Contractors; Carroll Robinson, appointed by the Citizens Chamber; and Chris Hudson, the appointee of the American Institute of Architects.
So far, 22 applications for the three available seats on the Bond Oversight Committee have been received by HISD, of which 18 were reviewed by Texas Watchdog. (Four other people have applied since Texas Watchdog reviewed those records.) The 18 applicants included:
Four current HISD employees, including three teachers and an information technology staffer, as well as a retired HISD maintainence supervisor;
A green energy consultant who listed service in the PTO at T.H. Rogers Middle School, and a general contractor who said he had served in the Booker T. Washington High alumni association;
A lawyer who listed the principal of Lovett Elementary School among his references;
Robert L. Ford, a prominent scientist at Texas Southern University who already serves on the improvement committee for HISD’s Thompson Elementary School;
A Dallas-area man who is a member of the school board in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school system, and who offered to lend HISD his expertise;
An attorney specializing in construction litigation; a paralegal; a business manager for the local ironworkers’ union; an executive with an information technology company; a retired federal worker; and an executive with a Baytown-based construction firm.
Technology worker Nicolas Alvarado was among the current HISD employees who applied.
Alvarado told Texas Watchdog he thinks he “could bring something of a reality check to the committee and ask hard questions.” He recalled working at Debakey High School when it underwent renovations a couple of years ago: “The decisions they made seemed really flawed at the time, and the oversight of the contractor seemed insufficient. It took too long, it cost more money to get things started, and I was like, ‘Who is watching these bozos?’”
Unfortunately for him, the new committee rules put in place last year specifically ban current HISD employees from serving on the committee, along with district vendors, contractors and consultants. (Spencer reaffirmed that Alvarado would not be allowed to serve because of the rules.)
References listed by the applicants include current and former HISD employees and administrators, HISD trustee Paula Harris, former HISD Superintendent Abe Saavedra, one of Gov. Rick Perry’s staffers, Houston City Councilwoman Wanda Adams and Harris County Justice of the Peace Zinetta Burney.
But not all the applicants listed an HISD connection.
“I have watched HISD go through ebbs and flows of common sense when it comes to using finances that they are provided,” said Spence, the former director of strategic planning for the University of Texas in Houston, who listed Perry staffer Terry Zrubek as a reference but no one in HISD. “The HISD brand is broken, and I want to see it improve.”
Despite the three vacancies, the committee is continuing to meet as scheduled. HISD does not have a date for when the positions will be filled, and there’s no cutoff date for applications, but the district has started meeting with some applicants, Spencer said.
Meanwhile, the Budget Advisory Committee is meeting twice monthly to provide “input and feedback” on financial matters at a time that funding cuts from the state could be as much as $348 million per year.
When Grier created the committee this school year, he told the press he wanted “outside perspectives” on it, saying he wanted to include business leaders and maybe even a student.
More than 75% of the 32 committee members are HISD employees, including 10 principals and two teachers. Only 7 of the 32 are HISD parents or members of the public at large — and of those seven, six already serve on another HISD committee, while the seventh is head of the group Parents for Public Schools of Houston.
Seven of 32 is “at least a somewhat significant representation” of the general public, Spencer said.
Harris, HISD’s newly named school board president, said she wasn’t bothered by the ratio. “If it’s 100 percent or 80 percent representation, it doesn’t matter,” she said, adding that the community meetings the district has held around the city on budget issues have been more important.
There’s also no student on the committee after all. Spencer said Grier’s chief of staff, Michele Pola, who is on the budget advisory committee, told him that “the meeting schedule didn’t seem conducive to a student’s schedule.” The committee has sometimes met on weekday mornings, when classes are in session. Instead, “there has been some thought given to a student focus group to give input on budget decisions.”
The committee is meeting twice a month now, according to HISD, and some issues discussed include ways the district can spend professional development money wisely, the role the district plays in engaging parents and HISD employee pay, according to minutes from the meetings (which can be found here).
But the advisory committee’s role is merely to make recommendations. It has no legal authority to make cuts or changes to the budget — only the elected trustees can do that.
HISD administrators on the advisory committee include Pola, chief human resources officer Ann Best, chief communications officer Aggie Alvez and chief financial officer Melinda Garrett. All of the administrators, 13 in total, also serve on a smaller, more elite panel called the Superintendent’s Budget Committee that is comprised entirely of HISD staff. (A list of members of the Budget Advisory Committee is here.)
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Contact Lynn Walsh at lynn@texaswatchdog.org or 713-228-2850 or on Twitter at @lwalsh.
arents fear magnet revamp will be used to fill seats in Houston ISD’s ‘small schools’
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2011, under Investigations, What's New
An investigation for Texas Watchdog:
Parents fear magnet revamp will be used to fill seats in Houston ISD’s ‘small schools’
Wednesday, Mar 02, 2011, 03:27PM CST
By Lynn Walsh
The Houston school district says it won’t use a proposed centralized lottery admission process for magnet programs as a way to force kids into schools with too few students — but some parents say they’re still worried that will happen.
As the review of the Houston Independent School District’s 113 magnet programs continues, parent leaders from across the district gathered Tuesday to hear how one North Carolina school district uses a lottery system.
Houston school officials say a centralized lottery would provide an equal opportunity for all students. They say a lottery would be much more fair than the system the district uses now, in which students apply to individual schools — some of which, data show, accept all their applicants, while some others are more selective.
But the potential revamp of HISD’s magnet program is coming at a time when the school system is also considering the future of dozens of schools it says have too few students to be run economically. The debate over “right-sizing” could lead to some of the “small schools” — some of which also have magnet programs — being closed or consolidated.
To show the overlap between the two issues — magnet programs and small schools — Texas Watchdog has created a map that shows all the HISD schools in the two discussions. Red balloons show the magnet programs that outside consultants have recommended for closure, while green balloons show which magnets are recommended to be left open. The map also uses red squares to show the 66 small schools that could be closed or consolidated, and green squares show which schools receive extra funding for being “small” but which are not on HISD’s list of 66. (Story continues below map)
Less than 15 small schools have magnet programs that have been recommended for closure. More than 40 magnet programs at non-small schools have been recommended to be done away with.
The magnet programs in the Wake County, N.C., schools have always used a centralized lottery process, consultant Ramey Beavers told the parent group Tuesday, and re-populating under-enrolled schools is one of the main reasons the North Carolina district started magnet programs.
Rhonda Jones and some other HISD parents at the meeting Tuesday are afraid HISD is trying to do the same thing.
If Jones’ son doesn’t get picked in the lottery, “we are forcing this gifted child to re-populate this under-populated building,” Jones said. “This is what the lottery and magnets were used for in Wake County, and if that is what we are doing here, then we need to say that. If we are not, then we do not need to use a centralized lottery. I do not live by a reputable school, and this would directly affect me and my gifted child.”
HISD says that is not the case.
“We want to provide every child with equal access to great schools,” said Lupita Hinojosa, the head of the district’s magnet programs. “We can do that through a centralized lottery that is shaped by what we want and value in HISD.”
One of the major concerns the school district heard in a recent outside review of its magnet programs “was that not all students have equal access to the best schools in this district,” Hinojosa said, and a lottery would provide equal access.
But some parents said it would be unfair for the decision of whether their child gets into a magnet program to be left up to a drawing done by a computer and not by a person.
“The issue of cheating and gaming the system is a management problem that isn’t solved through a lottery system,” said HISD parent Mary Nesbit, parent of a Kolter Elementary student. “It seems to me that cheating and gaming the system is the issue, and I think (Superintendent Terry) Grier can address that.”
A centralized lottery “will reduce my gifted child’s choice to a computer,” Jones said. Her son attends Oak Forest Elementary in northwest Houston. “That is not acceptable for my child.”
HISD brought in Ramey and another consultant with experience with Wake County’s magnet programs, Caroline Masengill, for the Tuesday discussion.
Masengill is also a former president of and consultant for the nonprofit Magnet Schools of America, the same group that conducted HISD’s magnet review. The school system has paid her more than $13,000 since February 2010, according to the district’s online check register.
HISD Chief of Staff Michele Pola said Masengill’s consulting work was related to the federal magnet grant the district won this school year. Pola said she was not aware that Masengill was a consultant for MSA, and said her work for the group has nothing to do with being hired as a consultant for the meeting.
“Caroline has been across the country working with magnets,” Pola said. “They were available, and she has extensive experience.”
HISD trustees are expected to see a more detailed proposal of the magnet recommendations during a Thursday night board meeting. Trustees will also hear updates on the 2011-12 district budget and the school closure policy.
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Contact Lynn Walsh at 713-228-2850 or lynn@texaswatchdog.org or Twitter at @LWalsh.
Houston ISD urged to cut ties with local tech firm connected to figure from e-Rate vendor scandal
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2011, under Investigations, What's New
An investigation for Texas Watchdog:
Houston ISD urged to cut ties with local tech firm connected to figure from e-Rate vendor scandal
Tuesday, Feb 08, 2011, 01:57PM CST
By Lynn Walsh
CORRECTION: The original version of this story incorrectly reported that the Houston Independent School District had cut ties with the firm Priority Technology Services. The firm was disqualified from bidding on one transaction last year. The district’s inspector general has recommended the district not do business in the future with Priority, but the firm remains eligible to do business with HISD. Texas Watchdog regrets the error. A corrected and revised version of the story appears below.
The inspector general for Houston’s public school system has recommended the district cut ties with a local computer equipment firm because of its previous connection to a former school official involved the district’s e-Rate tech vendor scandal, records show.
The Houston Independent School District bought $30,000 in equipment from Priority Technology Services without knowing it was once partly owned by William “Bill” Edwards, who resigned in 2005 as HISD’s assistant superintendent for technology.
The district started doing business with Priority in 2008. When HISD found out about Edwards’ links to the firm last year, the school district disqualified it from one potential job it was bidding on, even though Edwards was no longer connected to the company. However, the company remains eligible to do business with the school district in the future, an HISD spokesman said.
The school system’s inspector general, Robert E. Moore, wrote that HISD “should consider denying business opportunities” to Priority and one other firm “as a precautionary safeguard,” even though Edwards is no longer involved in the firm and HISD’s purchases from Priority weren’t done through e-Rate, the school district said.
Edwards was listed on state paperwork as recently as 2009 as a director of the firm. HISD officials determined he had once owned 33% of the company, but sold his ownership stake in 2007.
He was one of three former HISD employees who were accused of accepting gifts, some of them lavish, from vendors who sought to outfit the Houston schools with computers and networking equipment through a federal program called e-Rate. Edwards could not be reached for comment for this story.
The cozy relationship between e-Rate vendors and the three HISD officials prompted the federal government to freeze $105 million of the district’s e-Rate funding for five years. It also cost the district an additional $1 million in direct costs. A similar controversy in Dallas, involving some of the same vendors, sent one Dallas ISD administrator and a vendor to federal prison.
Since then, HISD has launched an aggressive effort to steer clear of e-Rate problems, including refusing to do business with some of the companies and people who were involved.
Richard Patton, who serves as HISD’s internal watchdog for the e-Rate program, said in a written statement to Texas Watchdog that he didn’t think Priority tried to hide Edwards’ connection to the firm. But he also said Edwards’ name did not appear on a list of key Priority employees that HISD reviewed, prompting him to call the company’s president to ask about Edwards.
The president, Matthew Colletti, “stated that Edwards was no longer associated with Priority and I obtained evidence to support that,” Patton said.
Colletti showed Patton a stock sale agreement and an endorsed check showing Colletti had bought out Edwards’ ownership portion in November 2007, the same year the company was formed and the year before it began doing business with HISD. The school district “was not aware of such until well after the bids were evaluated,” Patton said.
Records from the state Secretary of State’s office list Edwards and Colletti as an “officer, director or member” of the firm as recently as March 2009. However, Edwards’ name does not appear on the same form dated February 2010, which identifies Colletti as the president.
According to Priority’s website, Colletti himself is a former employee of two other tech vendors accused of lavishing gifts on HISD employees in the e-Rate debacle, Analytical Computer Services and Acclaim Professional Services. Colletti did not return a phone message or an e-mail seeking comment. Calls to two other Priority employees identified on the company’s Web site were also not returned.
HISD figured out Priority’s connection with Edwards sometime last year, when the school district’s inspector general saw it mentioned on Priority’s Web site, Patton said, and mentioned it in an internal quarterly report last September.
With offices on the Katy Freeway, Priority “provides quality technology to K-12 school districts,” according to its site. As of last week, the site pointed out that Colletti had done business with both the Houston and Dallas school districts.
HISD bought $31,000 in “small computerized instructional devices” from Priority, records say, such as Hitachi projectors and “interwrite” pads — electronic tablets that allow instructors to interact with a projected computer screen the way a teacher of 20 years ago might have displayed algebraic formulas with an overhead projector. The devices were bought through a Texas Association of School Boards purchasing cooperative.
Internal reports indicate that HISD maintains a “watch list” regarding e-Rate business, and that Priority is, or has been, on that list.
“I am using all available resources to identify potential pitfalls for the District,” Patton said of the watch list. “Companies land on the watch list based on the information I uncover through research.”
An annual report HISD is required to file regarding e-Rate also mentions the difficulty the district has maintaining current vendor employee lists, a problem that would make it harder for the school system to steer clear of hiring firms that employ those involved in the e-Rate brouhaha.
Despite that challenge, Edwards isn’t the only e-Rate player HISD has sniffed out recently.
The district’s inspector general has also recommended that the district decline to do business in the future with a local construction firm, General WorXs, because of its connection to Scott Blankenship, a former manager at Analytical Computer Services.
Blankenship works for General WorXs as a project manager, and the company is partly-owned by his wife, according to HISD documents.
Analytical earned more than $68.4 million through HISD’s E-Rate program in 2000-06. The company is also at the center of another federal lawsuit relating to E-Rate services at both HISD and Dallas ISD.
General WorXs has unsuccessfully bid on work through an HISD program that hires contractors to perform repairs and small construction projects, referred to as “job order contracts.” But the company’s bid didn’t win.
Blankenship could not be reached for comment. A message left at the office phone number in an online phone directory was not returned. Additional calls to potential numbers for Blankenship, gleaned through a commercial database service and public records obtained from HISD, went to disconnected phone numbers.
The recent e-Rate report says outside auditors Deloitte and Touche found that procedures in HISD’s E-Rate program “provide that the competitive bidding process for E-Rate goods and services is ‘fair and open’ as required by and consistent with all E-Rate Program Rules.” There were also no e-Rate-related complaints this year to HISD’s whistleblower hotline or the district inspector general, the report says.
Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
Former principal of Houston ISD’s Yates High, Ronald Mumphery, will not face criminal charges: HISD
by Lynn Walsh on Jan.14, 2011, under Investigations, What's New
An investigation for Texas Watchdog:
Former principal of Houston ISD’s Yates High, Ronald Mumphery, will not face criminal charges: HISD
Monday, Jan 10, 2011, 02:32PM CST
By Lynn WalshThe former principal of one of the city’s major high schools will not face criminal charges over allegations that he harassed female employees and once stuck his tongue into the ear of a school cheerleader during an alleged sexual advance, the Houston school district said.
Ronald Mumphery, the former head of Yates High School, will not be prosecuted after the Houston Independent School District’s own police department “found there was not sufficient evidence to support any criminal charges,” HISD spokesman Norm Uhl said.
Uhl said no report has been created on HISD Police’s findings in the case, though one may be written later.
In an e-mailed response to other questions posed by Texas Watchdog, Uhl suggested the news organization file a public information request.
Among the remaining questions is whether HISD police consulted with the Harris County district attorney’s office about Mumphrey.
By policy, DA Pat Lykos’ office does not discuss whether it is investigating a case or whether a case has been forwarded to it for potential prosecution. “We do not confirm or deny whether we are investigating a case until a case gets filed,” Terese Buess, with the DA’s office, said Monday.
A 30-year veteran of the district, Mumphery was reassigned by the district in late September. At that time, HISD said Mumphery had been accused of unspecified “professional misconduct,” without elaborating. He filed paperwork with the school system a few days later to retire.
The allegations against Mumphery date back to the early 1980’s and include allegations of staff members exchanging sexual favors for preferential treatment and overtime pay from the principal and allegations that Mumphery grabbed and sexually touched a 17-year-old cheerleader and student back in 1984.
The sexual harassment allegations were outlined in an HISD investigation report and include multiple witnesses and alleged victims’ testimonies.
There was no answer at Mumphrey’s home telephone listing earlier today.
Mumphery had previously served as principal at Houston’s Cullen Middle School and an assistant principal at Jones High. He earned more than $109,000 during the 2009-10 school year, according to an HISD salary database.
The allegations against Mumphery came to light, records show, after Houston school Superintendent Terry Grier received an anonymous letter in mid-September.
HISD began to investigate, reaching out to numerous former students and employees, including a current HISD employee who said she was accosted by Mumphrey when she was a student of his 16 years ago.
The woman told investigators she was a cheerleader at Yates at the time, and the report says Mumphrey was a teacher and coach there.
According to the report:
In an interview with the school district, the former cheerleader detailed the incident that occurred back in 1984: “She alleged that as soon as she came in the room he started talking sexually to her. She said she was shocked and about to leave when he grabbed her arm, pulled her to him and stuck his tongue in her ear.”
The former cheerleader said she immediately ran out of his office to the principal at the time. According to the report, Mumphery allegedly ran after the young woman, telling her to stop, but she kept running. (To read the full report and details about the other allegations. click here.)
Have questions about the Mumphery investigation or other HISD issues? Texas Watchdog wants to hear from you. Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
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Audit report recommends axing nearly half of Houston ISD’s magnet schools
by Lynn Walsh on Jan.14, 2011, under Investigations, What's New
A story produced for Texas Watchdog:
Audit report recommends axing nearly half of Houston ISD’s magnet schools
Friday, Jan 07, 2011, 04:56PM CST
By Lynn WalshAlmost half of the Houston public schools’ 113 magnet programs have been recommended for the chopping block by an outside group brought in by the school district.
The final report from Magnet Schools of America highlights 55 magnet programs the third-party national education group believes the Houston Independent School District should eliminate — a move that would save the district nearly $8 million in magnet funding. HISD spends $17 million a year on magnet programs.
“This is just a springboard,” HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said Friday. “Trustees and staff have to look at where we are, be honest and analyze that what we are doing is best for all kids in the district. There will be some tweaks to this. These are all just recommendations.”
MSA recommended eliminating magnet programs that do not meet its requirements for a magnet program, schools having limited building capacity and schools that are part of the district’s school turn-around program, Apollo 20.
HISD trustees will ultimately have the final say on what changes, if any, happen with HISD’s magnet program.
MSA recommends that changes start in the 2011-12 school year — during that year, HISD school buses would continue to ferry students back and forth to the magnet programs recommended for elimination, and those schools would continue to receive 40% of their total magnet funding that year. But when that school year ends, all funding to those programs would cease, according to MSA’s recommendations.
(View all of the documents associated with the MSA review here. Texas Watchdog has also created a database with funding information, MSA recommendations and state accountability ratings here.)
Criticism over the amount of money HISD spends on magnet programs — some of which are at failing schools — coupled with the overall effectiveness of the programs and the funding discrepancies between the programs prompted the MSA review process, which began in October.
“We have magnets that were never authorized to be magnets,” Grier said Friday. “I believe to be a magnet school, you ought to be an exemplary school.”
Houston ISD 2011 magnet school audit documentstexaswatchdog*
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HISD MSA magnet review Individual School Summaries From: texaswatchdog Reads: 104
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Outside Consultants Suggest Plan for HISD Magnet Schools From: texaswatchdog Reads: 112
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Houston ISD 2011 magnet audit – current proposed magnet schools 2011 From: texaswatchdog Reads: 65
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Houston ISD 2011 magnet school audit — attachment Phase I/Phase II/Interim From: texaswatchdog Reads: 46
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Houston ISD magnet school audit final report Jan. 6, 2011 From: texaswatchdog Reads: 56
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Houston ISD 2011 magnet school audit Magnet Demographics Charts From: texaswatchdog Reads: 48
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Houston ISD 2011 magnet school audit magnet letter- parents From: texaswatchdog Reads: 35
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Houston ISD 2011 magnet school audit principal’s meeting briefing From: texaswatchdog Reads: 46
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HISD 2011 Magnet School Audit School Feedback Form From: texaswatchdog Reads: 26+ Add your documents to this collection
Create and share your own collection on ScribdGrier also said that some of the schools are spending magnet money on non-magnet expenses like school nurses. When asked how this could have happened, Grier said he wants to focus on the future.
“We need to develop a better accountability system, and we will do that,” Grier said. “MSA recommends a magnet review every five years. Frankly, I think it should be every three years.”
This MSA review cost the district $269,000, the school district said.
Grier said some principals have said the information and data used by MSA was inaccurate. While he does not suspect widespread data problems, Grier said there could be some.
“Help us correct it,” Grier said. “Let us know so we can fix it.” Most of the errors, he said, were due to incomplete data and data-entry flaws.
According to HISD, 42,000 students are enrolled in magnet programs this year. HISD says it plans on holding community forums in different areas of the city to obtain feedback from parents and community members.
HISD trustees are also set to discuss the magnet review at a board workshop Monday. Follow @TexasWatchdog on Twitter for live updates during the meeting or search for #HISD.
Is your child’s magnet school one of the 55 on the list recommended for closure in the new magnet audit? Texas Watchdog wants to hear from you. Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or @LWalsh on Twitter.
Boxes of Houston ISD records yield additional details about gifts, freebies in E-Rate controversy
by Lynn Walsh on Jan.14, 2011, under Investigations, What's New
A investigation for Texas Watchdog:
Boxes of Houston ISD records yield additional details about gifts, freebies in E-Rate controversy
Monday, Jan 03, 2011, 03:04PM CST
By Lynn WalshTop technology employees at the Houston school system were privy to friendly lunch invitations, happy hour parties, sporting event tickets and after-hours smoking meet-ups courtesy of vendors doing $75 million in business with the school district, documents show.
A happy hour at Dave and Busters, a baseball game invitation, a secret gift to one employee and requests for trinkets are the latest examples to be revealed of the gift-giving culture between Houston Independent School District employees and vendors through the federal E-Rate program, which funds computers in schools.
The gifts — which began as early as 2005 and were provided as late as 2008 — cost the school system $105 million in federal funding, plus an additional $1 million in direct costs.
Some of the E-Rate swag available to HISD workers, including offers of personal loans and trips to Las Vegas, had already been made public. However, Texas Watchdog turned up these additional details by using state public information laws to gain access to boxes and boxes of e-mail correspondence between HISD employees and E-Rate vendors and documentation associated with the investigation into the gift-giving.
The more than 25 boxes of documents show friendly and sometime flirtatious e-mails between HISD employees and E-Rate vendors, countless invitations to sporting events, lunches and happy hours and careful and precise control over communication with federal E-Rate officials.
The investigation did not yield criminal charges for anyone involved in HISD but did in the Dallas Independent School District. A DISD official is now in a federal prison in Fort Worth, and the former owner of one of the vendor firms is being held at a federal facility in Bastrop.
Three companies were at the center of the federal investigation involving HISD: Analytical Computer Services, Micro Systems Enterprises and Acclaim Professional Services. From 2000 to 2006, ACS earned more than $68.4 million through E-Rate, and Micro Systems received more than $9.8 million from 2000 to 2003, documents show.
Allegations of accepting gifts, sporting tickets and lunches were included in the Sept. 3, 2008, memo from Bracewell & Giuliani lawyers to officials with the Federal Communications Commission. Texas Watchdog’s most recent review of documents found e-mail correspondence related to some of the gifts described in the memo, including:
* Fanny packs: HISD employee Lori Cummings sends an e-mail to both Laura Palmer, an HISD assistant superintendent of technology, and Scott Blankenship of Micro Systems, asking when more free fanny packs will be available. “Scott, when can we expect 100 of the above? Laura spoke with you last week regarding this. We to stuff items into them …”
* Rockets suite tickets: Among the thousands of pages of documents made public to Texas Watchdog was a copy of the $300 check then-HISD Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra wrote to ACS owner Frank Trifilio to reimburse the firm for tickets to a Houston Rockets playoff game. Along with the check was Saavedra’s letter to Trifilio, saying: “Thank you for your hospitality during the recent Rockets playoff games. As you know, I cannot accept gifts from vendors. I am reimbursing $300 for the three playoff games that my guest and I attended in your suite. If this does not adequately reimburse the value of the tickets, please let me know so I can ensure full reimbursement.”
* Free cellphones: E-mail correspondence included a list of Nextel phone numbers and the corresponding HISD employee using those phones. The Bracewell & Giuiliani memo had said E-Rate vendors had provided HISD employees with free Nextel phones to use.
* Trinkets: In an e-mail, Palmer asks about “trinkets” from Micro Systems: “I need some trinkets…do you have left from the stuff Lori gave you?” HISD employee Andrea Teasley replies, ”just the drink holders from MSE. I ran out of my little gifts…”Along with Palmer, William Edwards, then HISD’s assistant superintendent for technology, and Steve Kim, then HISD’s head of computer networking, were accused of accepting gifts from E-Rate vendors, documents show. None of the three currently work for the school system.
Close-up of box
Invitations to lunch and social events from the E-Rate vendors were common, the documents show. An e-mail from Palmer to fellow HISD technology employees thanks them for attending a party at Collina’s restaurant.
On another occasion, Heather Konlande, an employee at ACS, emailed Kim, Edwards and other HISD employees, inviting them to an “HISD appreciation Happy Hour at Dave and Busters.” The goal of the social hour, according to the e-mails, was “to have fun as well as have casual discussion on how we at ACS can improve and ultimately make your jobs easier by providing even more services.”
Kim was invited to a baseball game via e-mail by Allan Folz of ACS but turned it down, saying, “On any other day I would have jumped at the opportunity. However, I have plans tonight that I cannot break. Please let me know if this happens again.”
Another e-mail shows Kim agreeing to a lunch invitation from a Hewlett-Packard representative, the turning the invitation down saying, because it is “RFP season…” The representative responds by inviting Kim to drinks after a Rockets game: “Boo. OK, how about drinks after the Rockets game tomorrow?” Kim does not respond.
In November, HP was forced to pay more than $16 million to the federal government and people in Houston and Dallas in the aftermath of allegations of fraud in a federal program supplying computers to the Houston and Dallas school districts.
In another e-mail from May 2002, Mark Jones from Micro Systems invites Kim to smoke with him at the Downing Street Pub, a haven for Scotch and cigar lovers on Kirby. Jones writes:
Just an FYI that I’ll be at Downing Street tonight from around 6:30-10:00ish. I didn’t bring anything to smoke so I will be getting some local stuff. Let me know if you’re coming and I’ll pick out something nice for you to smoke.”
According to the documents, other instances of lunch invitations and gifts include:
* Discussion about a “secret gift” given to Kim by Frankie Wong, the owner of one of the E-Rate vendors being investigated. Wong is currently in federal prison.
* In one e-mail, Blankenship, of Micro Systems, offers to repair a broken HISD computer for free. Palmer refuses the offer, saying, “regarding your question to request a gratuitous repair; I do not plan to set such a precedent. The vendor won the bid due to low and fair pricing. I have no reason to take advantage of this.”
* In another e-mail, Palmer declines a congratulatory gift from a vendor associated with Classroom Connect.
* Wong asks Kim to have lunch with vendors from NetBotz in another e-mail.
* An invitation from Wong to Kim, Edwards and Lehman to attend a Micro Systems happy hour.Several e-mails showed trouble with communication between HP, ACS and Micro Systems. E-mail correspondence shows HISD employees had a hard time getting in touch with Trifilio and Wong when a service problem came up.
While the amount of money the companies collected piled up, the relationships between the companies and HISD employees became more friendly. HISD documents show:
* Friendly e-mailing back and forth between Karyn Dubose of Micro Systems and Steve Kim. In an e-mail Dubose said, “hee hee! This is from yesterday morning! You are working way too late! I believe he left you a message.
Karyn.” Kim responds in an e-mail, “interesting. I didn’t get it until 12:38 am. I’m going to blame your mail server = ).”
* A vendor requests an HISD e-mail address and access to other accounts that would have provided the vendor access to student data. Palmer submits the request through e-mail to Kim who said, “I will leave this one to your decision, however, I do have some very strong objections to this.” It is unclear whether the person ever received the access requested.
* Friendly e-mail correspondence between Wong, Blankenship and Kim, including some inside jokes.
* In December 2001, Wong asks Kim if he would serve as a reference in Wong’s bid to do business with the Clark County, Nev., school system in Las Vegas.QUESTIONS ABOUT ID CODES
In an interview several months ago, Trifilio said his firm was wrongly connected to Micro Systems because some of HISD’s E-Rate paperwork used the same identification code for both ACS and Micro Systems.
The 25-plus boxes of documents Texas Watchdog reviewed strengthens his argument.
E-mails suggest HISD employees were unclear as to whether ACS and Micro Systems had separate E-Rate codes.
In a 2005 e-mail, HISD procurement specialist Ken Phillips asks: “So, is ACS named on the E-Rate extension request and we are only required to have extensions with that company or is it ACS and MSE?” The response from project manager Jacqueline Martin: “It is ACS only.”
Almost a year later the issue comes up again — this time, about whether or not multiple vendors can use the same ID number. The conversation is stopped by Palmer who writes, ”please set up a meeting. This is not an e-mail topic.”
“We were the scapegoat” in the controversy because of confusion over vendor identification numbers, Trifilio told Texas Watchdog. Micro Systems and Acclaim took on some of the contracted work because the district believed the volume was too much for one company to handle, Trifilio said.
E-Rate obtains the ID numbers from the Universal Service Administrative Co., which administers E-Rate under the direction of the FCC, said Richard Patton, HISD’s internal E-Rate watchdog. Patton said he was not aware of any problems with the vendor ID numbers like what Trifilio described.
Confusion over how to process E-Rate vendors and trouble communicating with them was not all the HISD documents show. Other e-mail correspondence shows Palmer trying to control what was shared with E-Rate auditors. In an June 2005 e-mail, Palmer chose a shorter response, instead of a longer one with more details, to be sent to E-Rate auditors who had posed questions to the district:
“I would [send] the short one because it does not cause someone (like an E-rate auditor) to it a second thought. Sometimes you just do not want to draw attention…I think my language, below, is all we need to satisfy the E-rate administration. If they saw a lot of additional language, it may obscure the issue….”
The e-mail is in response to an E-Rate official asking HISD’s legal department for contracts associated with ACS in June 2005.
Do you have more information about what’s going on in HISD? Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
Photos by Lynn Walsh/Texas Watchdog staff.
Five years after scandal prompted funding freeze, E-Rate money returns to Houston ISD
by Lynn Walsh on Dec.27, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
A story written for Texas Watchdog:
Five years after scandal prompted funding freeze, E-Rate money returns to Houston ISD
Tuesday, Dec 07, 2010, 04:46PM CST
By Lynn WalshFor the first time since news broke of employees accepting gifts, meals and cash from vendors, the Houston public school system is once again receiving money from the federal computers-in-schools program at the center of the controversy.
The Houston Independent School District is set to receive $1.3 million from the E-Rate program for basic technology maintenance at more than 200 of the district’s roughly 300 schools.
“This is just the tip of iceberg,” said Richard Patton, the HISD official tasked with making sure vendors and school system employees keep on E-Rate’s straight and narrow. “It’s a really good sign.”
The school system, the nation’s seventh-largest, applied for almost $70 million in E-Rate funding earlier this year. E-Rate is brings cut-rate telecommunications services to public schools, nonprofit private schools and libraries.
HISD employees were accused of accepting meals, sporting tickets and cash from E-Rate vendors — a violation of the tenets of the federally funded program.
Those cozy relationships with E-Rate vendors cost HISD $105 million in federal funding. HISD was required to hire Patton, pay an $850,000 settlement and agree to strengthen its district ethics and disclosure policies. It also saw its E-Rate funding frozen in 2006, a freeze that has apparently now thawed.
The money can cover maintenance of power suppliers, servers and switches, Patton said. “We were approved at the 90 percent level, which means the district pays 10 percent of the cost” and the federal program picks up the rest, he said.
The contractor approved to receive all of the money from the projects is Netsync Network Solutions, a Houston-based IT company.
Netsync is the same company HISD trustees recently hired to upgrade the district’s computer system. HISD has given more than $17.9 million to Netsync this year, according to the school system’s online check registry.
The computer upgrade and increased security is expected to cost the district up to $15 million and was triggered by a hacker accessing personal information of HISD employees and students in October. HISD did not put the Netsync security contract up for competitive bids due to time constraints and vulnerability of the current system, HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said.
Have questions or comments on HISD’s E-Rate program? Texas Watchdog wants to hear from you. Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@Texaswatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
Houston ISD to rely on lotteries to pick students for 5 magnet schools
by Lynn Walsh on Dec.27, 2010, under What's New
A story written for Texas Watchdog:
Houston ISD to rely on lotteries to pick students for 5 magnet schools
Wednesday, Dec 01, 2010, 01:48PM CST
By Lynn WalshStudents wanting to attend one of the five federally funded magnet programs in the Houston Independent School District may have to leave their fate to the luck of a lottery, according to the school district’s application for grant funding.
According to the application, HISD is expected to spend $14.1 million creating and revising five magnet programs in the district in a program it is calling the “New Horizons Project” — and the district plans to implement a lottery to admit students to the programs.
“Our lottery to select students is race neutral…,” HISD told the U.S. Department of Education in an application it submitted under the Magnet Schools Assistance Program to the U.S. Department of Education earlier this year.
HISD was awarded a three-year grant under the federal magnet program and is expected to receive $11.4 million help create or transform magnet programs at Jones High School, Fondren Middle and Whidby, Garden Oaks and Dodson elementary schools.
According to the grant application, “magnet programs having more qualified applicants than space will use a lottery…”
HISD Superintendent Terry Grier has said lottery-style admission for magnet programs is a possibility and it has been discussed by HISD trustees and administrators at various meetings, but it had never been confirmed officially.
The grant application continues:
“Admissions to one of the magnet schools under the Magnet Schools Assistance Program project will be made available to all students annually; no academic criteria, entrance examinations or performance auditions will be used to select students. In order to be considered for admission, each prospective student will complete and turn in an application by the deadline.”
Students who apply and currently attend, currently live in the attendance area of the school or have siblings that are enrolled at one of the five schools will be given priority, according to HISD.
But, according to the grant application, if the school receives more applications than it has open spots for, a lottery will be used. The criteria in lottery will include “grade level, geographic area and building capacity of other schools.”
For several months an outside education group, Magnet Schools of America, has been reviewing the 100-plus magnet programs in HISD that are expected to cost the district $16.9 million this year.
During the evaluation, parents have been concerned about the changes that may come to programs across the district including the possibility of funding changes, cancelled programs and even the possibility of a lottery admission system.
A preliminary report from MSA said HISD’s magnet programs suffer from funding discrepancies, a lack of standard guidelines and requirements for programs and no district-wide answer to what being a “successful” magnet means, among other things. The final report from MSA is due Wednesday, Dec. 1.
(To view the data associated with all of the magnet programs in HISD, click here.)
According to the federal grant application HISD submitted:
* More than 426 staff members and 3,783 students will be affected by the third year, costing a total of $14,163,058 — more than $3,700 a student.
* HISD is expected to spend $2,167,564 of local funds on the New Horizons Project.
The program director for the New Horizons Project is Noelia G. Garza, currently the assistant superintendent of special populations, where she currently oversees magnet grants and International Baccalaureate programs.
New magnet programs will be created at Garden Oaks and Jones. Garden Oaks will feature a Montessori and environmental sciences magnet and a leadership and science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, magnet will be at Jones. The Dodson Montessori program, the Whidby leadership and health sciences and the Fondren leadership and IB magnet programs will all be revised under the three-year federal grant.
Jones and Fondren are also a part of HISD’s academic turnaround program, Apollo 20, that aims to create academic success at the struggling schools through longer class days, a longer school year and tutoring. According to the grant application, Garza is expected to dedicate 15% of her time to those five magnet programs.
In the grant application, HISD says “each (magnet) program is held to a rigorous set of standards and has a unique and focused curriculum.”
Do you agree? Texas Watchdog wants to hear from you. Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
Torte reform needed at HISD? Taxpayers pick up tab for Houston schools chief Terry Grier’s sweet trip back to San Diego
by Lynn Walsh on Dec.27, 2010, under What's New
A story written for Texas Watchdog:
Torte reform needed at HISD? Taxpayers pick up tab for Houston schools chief Terry Grier’s sweet trip back to San Diego
Wednesday, Nov 24, 2010, 02:09PM CST
By Lynn WalshTop administrators in the Houston school district spent thousands staying at a hoteland dining at upscale steakhouses and fancy dessert cafes while visiting schools in a district where they used to lead.
In early October, Houston Independent School District Superintendent Terry Grier and soon-to-retire Chief Academic Officer Chuck Morris took a three day trip to San Diego, Calif., to visit magnet programs in the San Diego Unified School District — a district where Grier and Morris previously served.
Grier came to HISD in 2009 after leaving his post as superintendent in San Diego. Morris followed Grier to HISD in November 2009, after serving as Grier’s deputy superintendent in San Diego and Grier’s chief of staff in the Guilford County, N.C., schools, according to HISD. Morris is set to retire next month, after about a year serving the Houston district.
“It was his role in supporting the board members’ request,” Grier’s chief of staff, Michele Pola, said. “He was asked to by the board members to show them great examples of best practices of specialized programs.”
According to Morris, the trip was taken after board member Harvin Moore “got back from China and was interested in the Chinese (educational) program and asked about going.” Once traveling, Morris said he and Grier “went in different directions, visiting schools.”
Moore, along with Lupita Hinojosa, head of magnet schools for the Houston district, andTracey Lewis, principal at Jones High School, also went on the Oct. 7-9, 2010, trip that involved visits to successful magnet programs in the San Diego district, including a visit to an elementary-level Mandarin Chinese program at Barnard Elementary and High Tech High and Crown Point Junior Music Academy, Morris said.
Moore said, he received an invitation to check out the Chinese program from the principal at Barnard and when he mentioned the trip to the Superintendent, Grier suggested he also check out some of the other schools in the San Diego district.
“I did start some of the programs so it was helpful for me to be there,” Grier said. “Not just anyone can walk into High Tech High. I am friends with the principal there and that is why we got to see it, quite frankly.”
Grier spent close to $200 on meals in two days, according to reimbursement records.On Oct. 7, Grier spent $108.97 on dinner and desserts. At a trip to Extraordinary Desserts on Fifth Avenue in San Diego, Grier bought a berry torte, flourless chocolate cake, two coffees and a Chai tea latte, according to reimbursement records.
“That dinner was not just for me,” Grier said. “It was also for Lupita and Tracey.” According to reimbursement records, Hinojosa did not seek re-payment for dinner on Oct. 7, and Lewis sought re-payment of $2.14 that night for “dinner.” The next night, Grier spent $58 on barbecued salmon, salad and green beans at an upscale steakhouse and wine bar, Flemings.
Morris said his wife accompanied him on the trip and, according to HISD records,Grier’s wife, Nancy, tagged along for the trip, too.
HISD picked up the tab for Terry Grier’s plane ticket, but not his wife’s. Two plane tickets to San Diego for Terry and Nancy Grier were purchased on the superintendent’s personal American Express card for $807.80, and he received a direct deposit from HISD for $403.90 for his ticket.
“Let me be real, real, real, real clear,” Grier said, “the school district did not pay for anything related to my wife’s expenses.” Grier said he made sure to designate an expense made for his wife so the district did not pay for it.
A three-night, $469.95 reservation at the Sheraton Hotel and Marina on Harbor Island Drive in San Diego was made for Nancy Grier for Oct. 7-10, and Terry Grier was reimbursed by HISD for two of the nights, costing the district $357.30 for a hotel room and parking. Terry Grier was also reimbursed for a rental car in which Nancy K. Grier is listed as the driver.
Asked why the reservations were made in Nancy Grier’s name, Grier said, “quite frankly, she did it that way on priceline.com. She has done it before. We don’t use a travel agent, and there is nothing inappropriate with her doing it.”
Hinojosa spent more than $1,500 on her flight to San Diego — more than triple the amount spent by Moore, Morris and Grier.
Moore, Grier and Morris all booked their flights about a month in advance of the trip.Hinojosa waited until about two weeks before, and Lewis, who spent $751.60, booked hers just five days before the trip. Calls to Lewis and Hinojosa were not returned as of press time.
An earlier investigation by Texas Watchdog found that last-minute plane ticket purchases is a common practice in HISD that costs taxpayers thousands of dollars each year. The HISD travel policy says all employees are encouraged to purchase tickets for flights 30 days in advance and “…The amount paid for airline fares cannot exceed the rate the District would pay for twenty-one (21) day advance fare unless the travel is for essential business travel as defined under the travel policy.”
Overall, Grier said he enjoyed the trip.
(ADDENDUM, added Wednesday afternoon: For those of you who were wondering, the total amount spent by HISD on the trip was $4,975.13, including $1,018.15 just spent on Grier.)
What do you think about Grier’s trip to San Diego? Texas Watchdog wants to hear from you. Contact Lynn Walsh at Lynn@Texaswatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
Race, history factor into debate over costs to operate Houston Independent School District’s ‘small schools’
by Lynn Walsh on Dec.27, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
An investigation produced for Texas Watchdog:
Race, history factor into debate over costs to operate Houston Independent School District’s ‘small schools’
Wednesday, Dec 15, 2010, 11:58AM CST
By Lynn WalshHouston’s public schools will spend more than $10 million this year helping schools with the fewest students try to provide the same resources as bigger schools, such as foreign language offerings and music classes.
Many of the 60-plus “small schools” are located just a few blocks from one another. Some serve just 100 to 250 students — far less than what the Houston Independent School District and some members of its school board say is needed to run a school economically.
The cash-strapped school district will soon debate whether to close or consolidate some of the small schools. The school board will take up the issue this week.
But 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.
Nearly half of the schools getting extra funding this year for their small size 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.
And supporters of small schools want to keep it that way: Small schools reflective of the racial makeup of their surrounding neighborhoods.
Take Gordon Elementary in Bellaire. It has less than 400 students this year, four out of five of whom are Hispanic, HISD says. It is expected to receive more than $163,000 in additional funding this school year because of its small size, HISD records show.
Grimes Elementary in Sunnyside has less than 350 students this year, nine of out 10 of whom are black. Named for Buchanan H. Grimes, whom HISD’s website says “rose from the position of janitor to that of teacher and then principal in the Houston Public Schools,” the school will receive more than $190,000 from HISD’s “small school subsidy” this year.
Less than two miles from Grimes, Alcott Elementary is expected to serve 450 students this year. More than 70% of the students at Alcott last year were black, according to HISD. The school is slated to get $55,000 in small school funding this year.
The debate over the small schools may come down to whether they’re important to the fabric of Houston’s patchwork quilt of racially diverse neighborhoods, or whether they cost too much to operate.
“We cannot afford luxuries anymore,” school board member Larry Marshall said. “We need to compress and consolidate. It is going to be tough, and a lot of people choose not to run for boards of education because this is one of the most difficult decisions in education to make.”
For school board member Carol Mims Galloway, the small schools are not a luxury. More than a quarter of them are in her district.
HISD small schools by trustee Pie chart“These communities have so much history,” she said. “It is important to keep these students and schools there, because they live in those communities and should go to school in those communities.”
HISD defines a “small school” at the elementary level as having 500 students or less. For middle schools, the cutoff is 750, and for high schools, 1,000 or below. (For a complete look at schools receiving small school funding, click here.)
By comparison, the largest school in HISD, Bellaire High, has 3,300 students this year.
PRODUCT OF A PREVIOUS ERA
The small schools have roots in the time when HISD schools were racially segregated — and in the school system’s efforts to integrate.
“That was the way it was back then — we knew our place,” said Galloway, who is African-American and a graduate of the Fifth Ward’s Wheatley High School. “We had to live on the other side of the street, we had our own schools, we had African-American police that could only ticket African-Americans.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in 1954, the same year Alcott Elementary was built, was supposed to end segregation in schools across the country. But it didn’t in many places, including Houston.
“HISD did not approve a desegregation plan until 1969,” said Marshall, who is also African-American. “We waited more than ten years.”
To help with desegregation, HISD created some of the nation’s first magnet programs to attract students to schools outside their neighborhoods. According to Marshall, the district also built new schools in predominantly black neighborhoods.
“These communities are some of the lowest, economically disadvantaged communities in our city,” Galloway said. “They are also some of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. They have a lot of history.”
Many of those schools are now considered small schools, including Durham Elementary in the Oak Forest/Garden Oaks neighborhood northwest of the 610 loop; Elrod Elementary in Fondren Southwest; and Gregory-Lincoln Elementary, just west of downtown.
Houston has changed since they were built. As in many American cities, urban dwellers fled for the suburbs, following the rivers of concrete in Houston’s expressways, nearly emptying some of the city’s most historic minority neighborhoods.
“Now, the population has dwindled,” Marshall said, “and there are not enough families or children in the areas to maintain a school.”
Meanwhile, the racial makeup of the city and the school system changed, too. Nearly two-thirds of HISD’s students are now Hispanic. One student in four is black; less than one student in 10 is white.
The racial makeup of the neighborhoods around the small schools has changed, too. While Gregory-Lincoln’s student body was 61% black last year, Elrod and Durham’s students are now mostly Hispanic.
COSTS OF OPERATION
For HISD, the price tag to supplement the budgets of the small schools this year will be $10,067,352 — a little more than $2 million for high schools, $2.8 for middle schools and more than $5 million for elementary and early child education campuses.
“The schools have to pay for all of the same services, from utility costs to teachers, yet they do not have always have the funds to do it because of low enrollment,” Melinda Garrett, the school district’s chief financial officer, said earlier this year. The small school subsidy, she said, “acts as a supplement.”
Fewer students means less money overall for a campus. The main chunk of money most schools get from HISD is based on a dollar amount per student, so a school with fewer students gets less per-student funding.
The individual schools have broad discretion in how they can spend their small-school funding, HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said, naming teachers, supplies and band equipment as just three examples.
Small school subsidies vary from $301,000 at Williams Middle, on the north side of town, to just around $2,000 for Kelso Elementary on the south side, which the state has rated academically unacceptable.
It’s unclear when HISD began doling out the extra money to the small schools. Garrett said Tuesday that the subsidy has come and gone a few times over the years.
Seventy-nine HISD campuses are getting extra money this school year for being small, according to data provided to Texas Watchdog by the school district earlier this year. However, HISD officials this week counted just 66 schools still under the enrollment cutoff points to qualify as “small schools,” Grier and Spencer said.
At a meeting with the local press Tuesday, Grier didn’t answer a question from a Houston Press reporter for the names or locations of the 66 schools. Spencer later told Texas Watchdog that some of the 79 schools may have seen their enrollment grow this year enough to disqualify them as “small,” leaving just 66 on the current list.
With anticipated multi-million dollar budget cuts from the state next year, HISD trustees are looking to cut wherever they can. Both the small school subsidy and magnet funding are on the chopping block.
The school board has already voted this year to “repurpose” one school, H.P. Carter Career Center northeast of downtown, because of low enrollment — 132 students — and high per-student costs — more than $20,000 per child.
“The bottom line is that it is cheaper to operate larger schools,” Marshall said. “… You can have a program and a successful school that has the academic rigor it needs when you have the appropriate number of students.”
But many of the small schools are academically rigorous, if the Texas Education Agency’s ratings are to be believed. Forty percent of the 79 schools getting small-school funds were rated “exemplary” by the TEA for this year, a Texas Watchdog analysis found, and another 27% were “recognized.”
CLOSURES MAY BE COMING
“Right-sizing,” as the school system calls it, could mean closures and consolidations for the small campuses.
It “very well could mean closing schools, but that’s a board decision,” Grier said Tuesday. “We want to talk to the board about options and see what they have to say.”
Marshall gave Texas Watchdog an example of one small school in his district, Rhoads Elementary in the South Acres/Crestmont Park neighborhood, which receives more than $212,000 in small school funding.
“The community there is aging, and you no longer have a population of people where there are children attending school,” Marshall said.
“There are only 300 students at Rhoads. Both Law and Woodson (elementaries) could easily absorb the additional students,” Marshall said. Law is less than a mile from Rhoads, while Woodson is even closer, only a half-mile away.
“Once the kids are moved, you move all of the funding to the other schools as well. It creates more educational opportunities for everyone,” he said.
When closing a school, there’s a lot to be considered, Grier said.
“Where would you put those students?” he said. “Is there another school nearby where you could put those students? Then you get into, how do you get them there? Are you now going to charge (for) transportation? Are transportation costs going to offset potential savings? Those are the kinds of analysis we will have to do.”
NEIGHBORHOODS MAY STAGE A COMEBACK
Small schools are positive for a neighborhood, Galloway countered.
“Being poor serviced schools,” she said. “I think (small schools are) a good thing because it helps the community and keeps the community.”
She says she’s also looking to the future.
“Enrollment is going to go up in these neighborhoods in a few years,” Galloway said. “If we consolidate now, then we will have to come up and restructure again. I think, during this economic time, we are facing hardships, but new revitalization projects are coming to these neighborhoods.”
Galloway is referring specifically to the City of Houston’s Project Hope, a plan to reinvest in some of Houston’s historic neighborhoods by providing housing to low-income citizens.
“I represent the oldest African-American neighborhoods in Houston,” Galloway said when asked why so many of the small schools are in her district. “They are no longer here, but through Project Hope, the city is coming in and revitalizing, bringing younger families to the neighborhoods.”
What do you think about HISD’s small school subsidy? Does the district need all of the small schools or should they be consolidated? Texas Watchdog wants to hear from you.
Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
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