Will 4 HISD Schools Be Governed by Outside Boards?

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As much as some parents and students were willing to press the go button, other speakers at Thursday night’s Houston ISD board meeting urged caution about the district handing over the operation of four of its high-performing schools to outside organizations. The board had already moved its vote on the issue to a specially called meeting next Thursday, March 26. Despite this, speakers lined up to offer their input on the program authorized by Senate Bill 1882 that allows outside nonprofits to handle staffing and curriculum at designated schools. The schools involved are Energy Institute High School, Challenge Early College High School, Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and Houston Academy of International Studies. All have received “A” ratings for the last four years from the state. HISD Superintendent Mike Miles, echoed by Board of Managers member Paula Mendoza, stressed that these schools are still part of HISD, but others weren’t so sure about what oversight there would be to help keep the programs from going off the rails. “How are we preparing these boards to be strong and resilient,” board member Lauren Gore asked Orlando Riddick, chief of Strategic Initiatives who is working with the schools to implement the change. Board member Michelle Cruz Arnold asked about the extra funding – said to be about $1,400 per student — that will come to these schools to be able to be able to operate these extra programs. In fact, it was Miles who recommended these schools for this program, saying they deserved this highest level of autonomy because of their past performance. The schools will have to maintain their high academic performance to remain in the program and students there will still have to take required state-mandated standardized tests. By moving to these partnerships, the four schools involved would be able to avoid Miles’ controversial New Education System approach notable for its daily testing and what critics call rote instruction. Instead, supporters of these partnerships say the schools involved would be able to be much more flexible in meeting the academic and creative needs of their students in innovative ways. Madison Dedman, a senor at Energy Institute High School after describing a safety project she completed at the school, said “Energy gave me more than credits. It gave me confidence, purpose and real world skills.” Bella Kalra at Kinder HSPVA also endorsed the SB 1882 approach for her school, noting that it will allow for flexible scheduling for students in the arts. Elected school board member Maria Benzon, addressing the appointed board, highlighted the other concern which is financial oversight and called for the contracts – some of them still unfinished – be released to the public. She maintained that SB1882 was designed to help struggling schools – something later contradicted by Miles who said the legislation was designed for both struggling and high-performing schools. She warned of “inexperienced organizations [that] will take control of curriculum, discipline and budget for our children. And still the community hasn’t seen the contracts.” She questioned where the money would be going and how taxpayers would know what was being done with it. “Our job will be to watch them along the way but in the end they will have their own audit and figure out their own relationship with their principal, their head of schools. They’ll rise or fall based on their governance structure,” Miles said. Community activist Ruth Kravetz also called for the public release of the contracts and questioned the reasoning that the only way these schools could operate with autonomy is if they had nonprofit partnerships. “Miles you can offer them autonomy now without turning them into 1882 partners. If they don’t have autonomy now, why should we expect it under this partnership? The promise of extra funding is another illusion. The extra dollars will be eaten up by bureaucracy and pay for service costs.” The special meeting with an expected Board of Managers vote on the proposed partnerships will begin at 5 p.m. on March 26. The post Will 4 HISD Schools Be Governed by Outside Boards? appeared first on Houston Press.

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