Lynn Walsh

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

HISD’s Apollo 20 program needs to raise just $6M more — but cost is up $9M
Thursday, Oct 07, 2010, 09:11PM CST
By Lynn Walsh

The Houston Independent School District is $6 million short in the private donations it must raise to fund a program to reform failing schools — meanwhile, the estimated cost of the program is now $9 million more than the school system originally said.

HISD has secured more than $23 million for the Apollo 20 program to target 20 troubled schools — including $10.45 million just since August, school officials said.

That month, the district gave Texas Watchdog a cost estimate of $20.2 million for Apollo 20.

Now, HISD Chief Financial Officer Melinda Garrett says the overall cost of Apollo 20 is $29.5 million this year, and that the district still needs to raise $6.1 million in private donations.

Why the difference? Garrett said it is simply a misunderstanding.

“The total cost associated with the school programs is $20 million,” Garrett said. “But when you add in the central office costs, close to $9 million, the total comes to $29.5 million for this school year.”

The central office costs include overhead administration costs like money spent on the overall planning of Apollo 20, training costs and the addition of two new positions — a school improvement officer and a secretary for the new SIO position.

Those costs weren’t accounted for when district spokesman Norm Uhl answered Texas Watchdog’s questions in an e-mail Aug. 3: “The high schools are costing $11.4 million for 2010-11. We have to raise an additional $120,000. The middle school cost is $8.8 million, and we have to raise an additional $7 million,” Uhl said then.

This is not the first time HISD has reported discrepancies in estimated costs for various projects. Last month HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said a district-wide construction program was $39 million over budget. On Thursday, a private consultant working for the district said the same program was $4 million under budget.

The Apollo 20 program includes 20 high schools, middle schools and elementary schools that HISD has identified as under-performing. All of the money HISD has received will pay for longer school days, a longer school year, tutor salaries and transportation costs.

The program has already launched at Lee, Kashmere, Sharpstown and Jones high schools, as well as Fondren, Key, Ryan, Attucks and Dowling middle schools. Eleven elementary schools are slated to enter the program next school year.

Where the money is coming from

When asked for the most recent funding numbers associated with Apollo 20, district spokeswoman Sarah Greer pointed Texas Watchdog to HISD trustee Harvin Moore’s recent blog post on donations to the program.

That post details $9.5 million in grants and private donations for the 2010-11 Apollo 20 program since Aug. 3:

* $28 million three-year Title 1 Priority Schools Grant from the Texas Education Agency awarded Aug. 12 to six Apollo 20 schools. That is $9.3 million annually.
* $100,000 private donation from Bank of America on Aug. 27.
* $100,000 private donation from Wells Fargo Bank on Sept. 22.

The district also received an additional $950,000 from the Brown Foundation last week, for a total of $10.45 million.

HISD had secured $13.08 million in funding prior to Aug. 3, bringing the total amount raised to $23.5 million.

Greer said the HISD Foundation, the district’s nonprofit fundraising arm, expects more grants over the next two years. “Because corporations and foundations have different times when their boards meet or when they do their annual budget, it is a continuous, ongoing process,” she said in an e-mail Friday.

Reach Lynn Walsh at lynn@texaswatchdog.org or follow her on Twitter at @lwalsh or @texaswatchdog.

A story produced for Texas Watchdog:

Learn how to investigate schools and school districts with our TrentTV Webinar, now on YouTube
Thursday, Oct 07, 2010, 04:49PM CST
By Lynn Walsh

Learn some tips and tricks on investigating school systems on the latest episode of Trent TV.

The September episode can be viewed below or on the Texas Watchdog YouTube page.

Watch live streaming video from newmediatvorg at livestream.com

Questions about investigating school districts or general education investigation questions can be directed to Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org or @LWalsh and @TexasWatchdog on Twitter.

Next month Texas Watchdog staff will shed light on environmental investigations. The show will air at 11:30 a.m. CDT Tuesday, Oct. 26, on the Texas Watchdog homepage or at www.newmediatv.org.

Viewers are encouraged to submit questions to Texas Watchdog prior to the live broadcast to News@TexasWatchdog.org and @TexasWatchdog on Twitter.

Trent TV is a free monthly training webinar for journalists, blogger, activists, and citizen-journalists. It can be viewed LIVE once a month on www.newmediatv.org. Archived episodes can be viewed on our site, on www.newmediatv.org or on the Texas Watchdog YouTube page.

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Travel stipend could diminish transparency for Austin-area school district
Friday, Oct 01, 2010, 03:42AM CST
By Lynn Walsh

The superintendent of a school district outside Austin will no longer be required to submit travel, meal and other expense receipts — a move being criticized by transparency advocates.

Instead of submitting receipts for travel and meal expenses, Eanes Independent School District Superintendent Nola Wellman will receive an additional $10,000 a year for travel and meal expenses. The additional cash is on top of her yearly salary of more than $200,000.

The lack of receipts will likely make it more difficult for the public to access specifics about the superintendent’s taxpayer-funded travel. If documentation of a dinner, hotel stay or airfare is not required to be submitted to the school district, then there are few public records of the travel and associated expenses.

According to a story in the West Lake Picayune, one Eanes ISD board member, Clint Sayers, voted against the proposal of a stipend because of the lack of transparency and because it would increase Wellman’s retirement pay.

“When it’s done that way, these expenses are now not subject to open records,” he said. “People can’t come out and find out where we are spending our travel money. I think that’s hiding the ball. I think that’s hiding where public money goes. I think the people have the right to know how their tax dollars are being spent.”

The board members in support of the stipend said it would increase efficiency in the district and that there are other documents the public can request.

“There are other ways for people to understand what goes on in this district – calendars, emails, etc,” said (board member) Paul Stone. “This was a reasonable request. It’s more efficient for administration.”

In a recent blog post the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas said, “Eanes ISD gets an ‘F’ in Transparency.”

“Even if she chooses another $350 a night hotel suite or expensive dinner on school business. Instead, she’s expected to pay with a flat $10,000 stipend added to her $231,000 annual contract; b) is it an educational expense or simply additional income?”

Do you think Eanes ISD is trying to get around the Texas Public Information Act? Let us know what you think on Twitter @TexasWatchdog or contact Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or @LWalsh on Twitter.

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

HISD gets $30M for teacher bonuses, despite study that says bonuses don’t help
Thursday, Sep 23, 2010, 08:30PM CST
By Lynn Walsh

The Houston Independent School District will receive more than $30 million in federal funds to help pay for teacher bonuses, the district learned Thursday — two days after a national organization questioned the impact teacher bonuses have on overall performance.

According to a study released by the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University, offering cash incentives to teachers for improving student test scores does not produce a major difference in overall academic performance.

Thursday, two days after the report came out, HISD announced it will receive a $31.5 million federal grant to help the district with its goal of having an effective teacher in every classroom.

The money will be used over a five-year period. According to HISD, almost half of it will fund ASPIRE, HISD’s performance pay program for teachers and principals.

At a press conference Thursday HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said the district’s own internal reviews of its bonus programs show that bonuses work.

“We have done our own studies where we have looked at teachers who have received ASPIRE awards and compared them to those who have not, and they are seeing results,” Grier said. “That does not mean that we will not study it or that we will not make tweaks, as this board has done and continues to do, that will strengthen and improve our program.”

Bonuses of up to $50,000 were available to some teachers involved in the Nashville study. No matter the amount of the bonus, the national research center found that classroom performance did not improve just because a teacher was eligible for a cash bonus.

HISD was one of 62 school districts across the country to receive one of the grants from the U.S. Department of Education.

The study focused on teachers in Nashville, Tenn., public schools and the effect financial performance incentives have on them. The study is being described by experts as the first scientific and rigorous study produced on performance pay in the U.S.

Do you think performance pay is the right way for HISD to reach its goal of an effective teacher in every classroom? Let us know. Message us on Twitter at @TexasWatchdog or @LWalsh, or contact Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org.

A story produced for Texas Watchdog:

HISD magnet programs to undergo performance reviews
Thursday, Sep 23, 2010, 06:33PM CST
By Lynn Walsh

Magnet programs across the Houston Independent School District will soon receive a full performance review that is expected to be complete by the end of the year, according to a presentation given to school district trustees Thursday.

In August, HISD trustees approved an outside review of all of HISD’s magnet programs. The review will be conducted by an outside group, Magnet Schools of America, and will not cost more than $275,000.

The review will be divided into two phases, according to HISD. Phase one will focus on community and district feedback; phase two will focus on individual magnet programs.

HISD has scheduled the parent and community forums for Oct. 11-15, with four sessions in the evening and two daytime sessions. Location and time details have not yet been announced. Magnet Schools of America will visit individual magnet programs Oct. 25-29.

Magnet programs in HISD have come under fire before. In April, trustees debated whether or not apply for federal funding to bring more magnet programs to HISD. Then and now, magnet schools remain a hot issue in the district between board members, parents and HISD administrators.

Before the presentation started, trustees and HISD Superintendent Terry Grier began to criticize the current ways in which magnet programs operate within HISD.

“There are lots of comments about the magnet program review taking away choice, but we are looking at providing more choice, but quality choice,” said HISD’s chief academic officer, Chuck Morris.

Trustee Larry Marshall said open enrollment, where parents can chose to send their child to a school outside the zone in which they live, is just the beginning. “This is kind of like the first shot over the bow, and this board better get ready,” Marshall said. “Somewhere down the line open enrollment has to be revisited.”

When students chose to attend a magnet program out of their zone, students living within the magnet program zone get blocked out. Grier said every year his office receives complaints from parents because their child cannot attend their home school and are forced to attend a school that is farther away.

HISD trustee Mike Lunceford said he wants to see the terms used to describe magnet schools defined more clearly. “We have to define what terms mean. What does it mean to be ‘exceptional’? What does ‘quality’ mean?” Lunceford said.

At the board workshop meeting Thursday, Grier said he was concerned with the way magnet programs are currently being funding. “There is little rhyme or reason about who (magnet schools) gets what money,” Grier said. View his entire comments in the clip below.

Magnet schools in HISD currently range from stand-alone schools to school-within-a-school programs. Morris said some magnet schools call themselves magnets but have never received board approval to do so.

According to HISD, a preliminary report is expected Dec. 1, and the evaluations are expected to be complete sometime in late December.

Magnet Schools of America is a private nonprofit that was originally based in Houston before moving to Washington, D.C., in 2000.

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

HISD gets $30M for teacher bonuses, despite study that says bonuses don’t help
Thu Sep 23 20:30:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

The Houston Independent School District will receive more than $30 million in federal funds to help pay for teacher bonuses, the district learned Thursday — two days after a national organization questioned the impact teacher bonuses have on overall performance.

According to a study released by the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University, offering cash incentives to teachers for improving student test scores does not produce a major difference in overall academic performance.

Thursday, two days after the report came out, HISD announced it will receive a $31.5 million federal grant to help the district with its goal of having an effective teacher in every classroom.

The money will be used over a five-year period. According to HISD, almost half of it will fund ASPIRE, HISD’s performance pay program for teachers and principals.

At a press conference Thursday HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said the district’s own internal reviews of its bonus programs show that bonuses work.

“We have done our own studies where we have looked at teachers who have received ASPIRE awards and compared them to those who have not, and they are seeing results,” Grier said. “That does not mean that we will not study it or that we will not make tweaks, as this board has done and continues to do, that will strengthen and improve our program.”

Bonuses of up to $50,000 were available to some teachers involved in the Nashville study. No matter the amount of the bonus, the national research center found that classroom performance did not improve just because a teacher was eligible for a cash bonus.

HISD was one of 62 school districts across the country to receive one of the grants from the U.S. Department of Education.

The study focused on teachers in Nashville, Tenn., public schools and the effect financial performance incentives have on them. The study is being described by experts as the first scientific and rigorous study produced on performance pay in the U.S.

Do you think performance pay is the right way for HISD to reach its goal of an effective teacher in every classroom? Let us know. Message us on Twitter at @TexasWatchdog or @LWalsh, or contact Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org.

A story produced for Texas Watchdog:

HISD magnet programs to undergo performance reviews
Thu Sep 23 18:33:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

Magnet programs across the Houston Independent School District will soon receive a full performance review that is expected to be complete by the end of the year, according to a presentation given to school district trustees Thursday.

In August, HISD trustees approved an outside review of all of HISD’s magnet programs. The review will be conducted by an outside group, Magnet Schools of America, and will not cost more than $275,000.

The review will be divided into two phases, according to HISD. Phase one will focus on community and district feedback; phase two will focus on individual magnet programs.

HISD has scheduled the parent and community forums for Oct. 11-15, with four sessions in the evening and two daytime sessions. Location and time details have not yet been announced. Magnet Schools of America will visit individual magnet programs Oct. 25-29.

Magnet programs in HISD have come under fire before. In April, trustees debated whether or not apply for federal funding to bring more magnet programs to HISD. Then and now, magnet schools remain a hot issue in the district between board members, parents and HISD administrators.

Before the presentation started, trustees and HISD Superintendent Terry Grier began to criticize the current ways in which magnet programs operate within HISD.

“There are lots of comments about the magnet program review taking away choice, but we are looking at providing more choice, but quality choice,” said HISD’s chief academic officer, Chuck Morris.

Trustee Larry Marshall said open enrollment, where parents can chose to send their child to a school outside the zone in which they live, is just the beginning. “This is kind of like the first shot over the bow, and this board better get ready,” Marshall said. “Somewhere down the line open enrollment has to be revisited.”

When students chose to attend a magnet program out of their zone, students living within the magnet program zone get blocked out. Grier said every year his office receives complaints from parents because their child cannot attend their home school and are forced to attend a school that is farther away.

HISD trustee Mike Lunceford said he wants to see the terms used to describe magnet schools defined more clearly. “We have to define what terms mean. What does it mean to be ‘exceptional’? What does ‘quality’ mean?” Lunceford said.

At the board workshop meeting Thursday, Grier said he was concerned with the way magnet programs are currently being funding. “There is little rhyme or reason about who (magnet schools) gets what money,” Grier said. View his entire comments in the clip below.

Magnet schools in HISD currently range from stand-alone schools to school-within-a-school programs. Morris said some magnet schools call themselves magnets but have never received board approval to do so.

According to HISD, a preliminary report is expected Dec. 1, and the evaluations are expected to be complete sometime in late December.

Magnet Schools of America is a private nonprofit that was originally based in Houston before moving to Washington, D.C., in 2000.

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

HISD’s $1 billion capital facilities program hampered by lack of planning, no annual budget, communication problems
Wed Sep 15 16:24:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

The Houston Independent School District’s $1 billion fund for major building projects has been operating with substantial financial errors and without annual budgets, standard contract forms and budget evaluations, according to a recent report by a national education nonprofit.

The district’s capital facilities program lacked an annual budget, had no set timelines for the completion of project and lacked standard guidelines as to how projects would be established, evaluated and completed, according to the July review by the Council of the Great City Schools requested by Superintendent Terry Grier. There was no tracking of amendments to projects that enlarges their scope and price tag, and district staff had “no understanding of the impact” of such changes on costs.

“We did not have a master plan. We did not have a master schedule,” said Issa Dadoush, who joined the district as general manager of construction and facilities in April.

The district’s process of buying services and goods also raised concerns for some district staff interviewed by the reviewers. There is a “need for greater transparency to ensure that the process is open, fair and equitable,” the report says.

The almost $1.1 billion capital facilities program includes the proceeds from an $808.6 million bond package that voters approved in 2007. It also consists of a $150 million pay-as-you-go district program and other capital funds.
Capitol

Dadoush said there are more than 20 current projects that are in the “early to late design phases that have a potential for exceeding proposed budgets.”

“There was no control in place on how the project budgets were set up,” Dadoush said. “Has the money been spent? No. But can we go back and look at how the money is to be spent? Yes. The question now is where will the excess money come from? If the money is not there then the projects will go back to the drawing board.”

The report describes an environment in which one hand didn’t know what the other was doing. For example, the district’s chief financial officer would often be unaware of financial estimates by lower-level capital program staff.

One HISD manager likened the district’s approach to scheduling projects to “‘all the horses were let go at once,’ resulting in a somewhat chaotic environment,” the report says.

Saavedra doubts shortfall

The report also describes substantial financial reporting errors in June and July status reports presented to the district’s bond oversight committee.

In July, a $16 million project was estimated as being in the red by $15 million. District staff are trying to find a true figure.

A June quarterly report showed that the capital facilities program had a balance of $25.6 million, but another report dated June 22 showed the same capital facilities program was in the red $37 million. HISD was unable to determine if either figure was correct.

Former HISD Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra said he doubts there really is a shortfall.

“The bond program had adequate money and excess funding. It is hard for me to believe that this shortfall would exist unless something really went wrong in the last couple of months,” said Saavedra, who stepped down in 2009 and was responsible for outlining the funding process for the 2007 bond program.

“There are a lot of errors in the numbers, and we are working internally to fix the problem,” Dadoush said, adding that the council’s report is a draft. “We are recognizing we have a problem, and now we are doing a worksheet for every single project that we have so we can verify the budget for each project.”

Sen. Mario Gallegos, who has served on the Senate’s education committee, criticized Grier for not taking quicker action.

“The report shows what I have always known: that is there is lack of communication and planning,” Gallegos, D-Houston, said. “Why isn’t the bond program a part of the strategic plan? That is the first thing I would have done as a superintendent. These are things that should have already been done.”

Dadoush said budget details for each construction project will be presented to trustees Oct. 7. The next step, he said, is to create a “comprehensive five-year construction plan that is solid and accurate,” which would cover 2007 through 2013. The five-year plan would be approved by HISD trustees and updated annually.

As for current projects, Dadoush said they would continue even though there are some inefficiencies.

“We cannot do a complete shutdown,” he said. “If someone tells me there is something going on that is unethical, we will shut it down. But, if it is inefficient, it will continue. We will continue and just make changes as we move forward.”

The council also found that HISD had:

* Failed to consistently prepare an annual report on the Facilities to Standards program.
* No standard contract forms for vendors.
* A clunky way of managing data in which three different systems were used but unable to “talk” to each other, creating inefficiency and greater potential for mistakes.
* No evaluations of contractors for future reference.
* No internal inspectors to evaluate construction projects.
* No evaluation of budgets, cost projections or reporting mechanisms by the auditors working for HISD’s inspector general.

HISD is continuing to look at the recommendations from the Council of the Great City Schools and has partially implemented one of them by moving the bond office under Dadoush’s department and combining the construction department and the facilities department into one single department. The council also suggested moving employees who work with rental and real estate matters into this group.

“We are not there,” Dadoush said. “On a scale from of one to 10, we are not even at a five. We are going out at a two. Hopefully there will be continuous improvement.”

Contact Lynn Walsh at 713-228-2850 or lynn@texaswatchdog.org. On Twitter, @lwalsh. Follow the news from HISD on Twitter, #HISD..

A story produced for Texas Watchdog:

HISD posts campaign finance reports online but obscures addresses, other information first
Wed Sep 1 12:05:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

The Houston school district says it’s protecting donors’ privacy by marking out addresses, but an open government expert says it’s an unnecessary use of taxpayer money.

The Houston Independent School District publishes trustees’ campaign finance reports on its website but marks out significant details, including donors’ addresses and campaign treasurer’s phone numbers and addresses.
The full information can be found in the reports Texas Watchdog has posted on Scribd, and the complete reports are available for in-person inspection at the district’s headquarters.

But the online omissions contrast with what Superintendent Terry Grier has pledged will be a transparent approach to running the district and drew criticism from one expert in government transparency.

”HISD should be commended for posting redacted campaign forms online even though they are not legally obligated to do so,” Joe Larsen, a specialist on open records for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said in an interview with Texas Watchdog.

“However, there is no reason for it to redact publicly available and information from these forms before posting them, as this redaction process unnecessarily consumes taxpayer money, and the redacted information is of legitimate public interest—which is why it is required on the forms in the first place,” the Houston attorney said.

Texas Watchdog noticed that certain information was redacted after viewing the documents online and at HISD’s headquarters on West 18th Street. The latter is an option available to any member of the public wanting to see the complete forms though a busy daytime schedule could make it inconvenient.

In their online iteration, the reports are missing the phone numbers and addresses of campaign treasurers, addresses of companies like AT&T and the Houston West Chamber of Commerce that were paid by the campaigns for services, and addresses of individuals and companies who donated to trustee campaigns, all of which have been “whited out.”

HISD spokesman Norm Uhl said the district posts the documents redacted to preserve the privacy of individuals.

“HISD does not want to put it online for anyone to see,” Uhl said. “It is about protecting them, mainly the individual donors’ privacy online.”

According to the Texas Ethics Commission, HISD is not violating any laws.

“Since there is not a law that requires a school district to post the forms online, there are not any laws that pertain to the action of redacting certain information before posting them,” Tim Sorrells, a lawyer and commission spokesman, said.

While it may not be against the law, is HISD being transparent to the public?

“Yes,” Uhl said. “The information is available upon request.”

Uhl was referring to the public’s right to view and request copies of the documents under the Texas Public Information Act.

But obscuring the details in the online documents makes it difficult for the public to identify who is giving money to trustees’ campaigns, since many people share the same names. Without having additional details about a person, like an address, it is hard to determine whether the John Doe donor is the same one whose company was just awarded a contract. (That’s not just a hypothetical; see our story here.)

And what’s more, the posting of incomplete documents seems incongruous with statements by Grier, who has stressed the need for transparency in HISD many times.

“It’s very important to be transparent so our taxpayers, our community and everyone knows what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Grier said at a board workshop in May.

Watch his comments in the video below.

View complete July 2010 campaign finance forms for each HISD trustee at the links below:

Diana Dávila (resigned in August)
Anna Eastman
Carol Galloway
Paula Harris
Mike Lunceford
Larry Marshall
Greg Meyers
Harvin Moore
Manuel Rodriguez

Support the posting of public documents like these, even when government officials have made them hard to access otherwise. Donate to Texas Watchdog today.

Do you think HISD is being transparent? What would you like to see the Houston district do to be more transparent? Let reporter Lynn Walsh know via e-mail at lynn@texaswatchdog.org or on Twitter: @LWalsh. Be sure to search for #HISD on Twitter for up-to-the-minute updates from board meetings.

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Project GRAD program — where HISD administrator moonlights as executive director — gets funding boost from HISD
Fri Aug 13 15:09:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

Another high school in the Houston Independent School District will receive funding for a program to increase graduation rates after trustees approved more than $59,000 for the new program at a Thursday meeting.

Phillis Wheatley High School in northeast Houston will add Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams) Houston to its campus. According to the Project GRAD Houston website, the nonprofit is part of a national program that works to increase high school graduation and college attendance rates for low-income students. The national program grew “from a scholarship program which began in partnership with (the) Houston Independent School District in 1989.”

HISD trustees unanimously approved the $59,221 cost associated with the program for Wheatley bringing the total cost of Project GRAD Houston’s contract with the district to $1.9 million for the 2010-11 school year.

In June HISD trustees approved a renewal of the contract between the Houston district and Project GRAD Houston. The agreement for the coming school year includes work at three high schools — Jefferson Davis, John Reagan and Jack Yates — and five elementary schools, Thomas Jefferson, James Ketelsen, Adele Looscan, Clemente Martinez and Sidney Sherman.
graduation caps

Texas Watchdog reported earlier that 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 $120,201 in 2008, according to IRS documents. The total paycheck for the two jobs comes to more than $187,000 annually.

HISD Superintendent Terry Grier revealed Stiles’ moonlighting Monday to trustees and the public at a board meeting.

“I want to bring it to the board’s attention as it is probably an ethical issue that should be discussed,” Grier, who took over as the school system chief last September, told the group. He didn’t elaborate.

Stiles’ letter of resignation from HISD is dated Aug. 2. The reason for the resignation, according to the document, is “other employment.” Stiles did not return a call left Wednesday at Project GRAD’s office.

“There does not appear to be a violation of any policy,” and the district knew about her moonlighting, HISD spokesman Norm Uhl said by e-mail. “I just don’t think the question of the possible appearance of a conflict had been asked until now.”

Contact Lynn Walsh at at 713-228-2850 or lynn@texaswatchdog.org. Follow news about the Houston Independent School District on Twitter, #HISD.