State plans to gut HISD board

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath notified Houston ISD officials Wednesday that he plans to temporarily strip power from the district’s elected school board and appoint a replacement governance team, a long-anticipated decision resulting from a state investigation into allegations of trustee misconduct and chronically low academic performance at Wheatley High School.

Morath’s decision all but finalizes one of the most dramatic state interventions in an American school district to date, putting immense power over HISD in the hands of state-appointed officials. In addition to selecting a new board, Morath also must decide whether to keep HISD Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan or install a new district leader, an authority granted under state law.

In a letter to HISD officials, Morath said he is compelled to act “given the inability of the board of trustees to govern the district" and its "inability to address the longstanding academic deficiencies” at Wheatley. State law mandates that Morath close historic Wheatley or replace the nine-member school board after the campus received its seventh consecutive failing grade in August. In addition, Texas Education Agency investigators last week recommended the installation of a new board after substantiating several allegations of misconduct by trustees.

“This intervention is needed to prevent imminent and substantial harm to the welfare ofthe district’s students or to the public interest,” Morath wrote.

The announcement comes one day after HISD voters ensured four new trustees would join the board in January 2020. Voters delivered stinging rebukes of two incumbent trustees trailed by allegations of unethical behavior, including violating the Texas Open Meetings Act and making false statements to state investigators. The new trustees, however, likely will have their voting authority removed in early 2020, following the appointment of the new board and superintendent selection. The replacement board members likely would serve for two to five years.

HISD’s current school board plans to continue fighting the state’s planned actions, though success is considered along shot. Lawyers for the board are suing the TEA to stop Morath from installing a board of managers, arguing Wheatley has not triggered any sanctions and that state officials overstepped their authority during the misconduct investigation. Opponents of the intervention also note that HISD remains a B-rated district under the state’s own accountability rules and is on solid financial footing.

Immediately following Morath’s announcement, HISD Board President Diana Dávila said elected officials should be allowed to remedy the district’s ills, echoing criticisms that state intervention amounts to an undemocratic seizure of power.

“For him to not give those newly elected trustees the opportunity to be the voice of their community, it’s disappointing to me,” said Dávila, one of the incumbents voted out on Tuesday. “I still believe the voters should decide who represents them, not a board of managers.”

Dávila said HISD trustees are expected to discuss requesting a formal review of the commissioner’s decision during a closed-session meeting Thursday. The TEA offers the review to districts before finalizing its decision to appoint a replacement board.

In a statement, HISD administrators said the district staff’s “primary focus will continue to be the education and success of our students,” offering no additional comment on TEA’s announcement.

A viable solution?

Local leaders and legislators have spent months bracing for Morath’s decision to install a replacement board, convinced the commissioner would not close Wheatley or stand idle amid the misconduct investigation. The specter of state intervention has loomed over the district for more than two years, as Wheatley and a handful of other schools repeatedly failed to meet state academic standards. Wheately, however, was the only school to trigger the sanctions law.

State Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., a Houston Democrat who helped author the bill mandating sanctions against districts with long-struggling schools, said he believed Morath’s move ultimately will benefit students who have languished at the near-northeast side campus. The 92-year-old school routinely scores among the worst in Texas on state standardized tests. In recent years, roughly 70 percent of Wheatley seniors have graduated high school in four years, with about 35 percent enrolling in college. HISD’s annual graduation rate is 81 percent.

“It’s one of those days where you’re both happy and sad at the same time,” said Dutton, who graduated from Wheatley in 1961. “Happy, I think, because now children potentially can get a better start in life and get abetter education. … But it’s a sad day because the adults we had running the system were causing the problem. There should never be a time when Wheatley, throughout its whole, historic history, ends up in the situation where it is today.”

Joy Tyrone, whose son, niece and nephew attend Wheatley, said Morath’s announcement relieved parents concerned that he would shutter the Fifth Ward cornerstone. She embraced the arrival of a state board, while calling on appointed managers to visit the campus and learn about its many needs.

“I want (a new board) to know it’s going to get better with time. I’m going to be patient and give them a chance to see what they can do,” Tyrone said.

As the potential for a appointed board drew closer over the past year, opinions on the necessity of state intervention split the district and state legislators.

Many Republican leaders and the city’s largest chamber of commerce welcomed a state-appointed board, arguing the district needed a governance reset after years of in-fighting that often split across racial and ethnic lines. In a statement Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott said Texas will not “allow Houston ISD’s school board to stand in the way of a child and their path to success.”

“A quality education can make all the difference in a child’s life, and our school districts have a responsibility to deliver the best possible education to every Texas child,” Abbott said. “Houston ISD has failed to meet that responsibility and students across the district have paid the price. An entire generation of students have been left behind because of the school board’s policies and repeated failures.”

Some Democratic legislators, the district’s largest teachers union and many community activists decried any interference, wary that Morath would leverage the opportunity to install charter schools and other conservative-favored approaches to education in HISD. They also noted that state interventions have checkered histories throughout the country, with relatively little demonstrated pattern of raising student achievement. In Texas, some state-appointed boards have succeeded in remedying specific issues, such as financial turmoil, but failed to significantly improve academic scores.

“I just don’t feel that appointees would have the same type of interests in HISD as someone who’s elected,” said Claudia De Leon, a member of the Houston-based grass-roots advocacy group Community Voices for Public Education. “My most optimistic hope would be that TEA would deliver on its promise of making schools in public education better, but they don’t have a very good track record of doing what’s in the best interest of our most vulnerable.”

The takeover process

To date, no HISD administrators, state legislators, education advocates or TEA officials have claimed Wheatley did not trigger sanctions, as HISD’s lawyers allege. State law mandates that Morath close campuses or replace the elected board in any district where a school receives its third straight failing grade after filing a“targeted improvement plan.” Wheatley filed a plan in 2015, then received failing grades in 2016, 2017 and 2019. The campus did not receive a rating in 2018 due to Hurricane Harvey, which did not break the chain of consecutive failing grades.

TEA officials did not release a precise time frame for installing a replacement board Wednesday. In anticipation of the announcement, TEA officials also published a website containing information about the agency’s selection process and criteria, as well as a document detailing community feedback received by state officials about the possibility of a state-appointed board. According to the document, replacement board members must be registered voters in HISD, meet requirements related to criminal history and commit to work at least 40 hours per month for the first six months in power.

State officials also said the board must include members who “reflect the broad diversity present in HISD campuses,” “have ademonstrated capacity for collaboration” and “authentically engage stakeholders,” among several other characteristics. Individuals with business ties to the district, conflicts of interest, involvement with a closed charter school or intentions to seek other elected offices will be disqualified. jacob.carpenter@chron.com