This guy is a piece of work. HISD trustee Larry Marshall, fresh off a two-day school board retreat, flew from Houston to Tampa, Fla., on a clear winter day to watch the 2009 Super Bowl in Raymond James Stadium. Cheap seats for the match-up between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals cost $500 each, [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Larry Marshall’
A first look at the 2013 elections
It is 2013, right? So while we have the SD06 special election and the new legislative session to worry about, it’s not too early to start talking about the 2013 elections. Let’s start with a peek at the campaign finance reports from last July of the Houston officeholders who will be on the ballot this [...]
Why the HISD Board of Trustees needed stricter ethics rules
Ladies and gentlemen, Trustee Larry Marshall. HISD trustee Larry Marshall voted repeatedly to award taxpayer-funded contracts to companies that hired his longtime business associate – who gave him a cut of her earnings, according to court records, deposition testimony and interviews. Marshall, the Houston Independent School District’s most senior trustee, has received tens of thousands [...]
The $25,000 question
What the hell? A $25,000 campaign contribution to a Houston school board member normally would raise eyebrows for its size. Add in the fact that the donation was not listed in the trustee’s financial disclosure forms, and the five-figure check becomes evidence in a lawsuit. A Houston construction firm, the Gil Ramirez Group, alleged in [...]
HISD to hire back some teachers
More good news. More than 300 teachers and other educators in the Houston Independent School District have been rehired since the massive round of layoffs in the spring, according to newly released data. Additional HISD teachers could get their jobs back in coming weeks thanks to a better-than-expected budget outlook — though Superintendent Terry Grier [...]
HISD redistricting on the horizon
This is likely to be a lot less contentious than other map-drawing exercises we’ve seen, but no redistricting exercise is ever completely bloodless. Gene Locke of Andrews Kurth told [HISD] trustees they should have a plan to submit to the Justice Department by this July. Redistricting is called for whenever there’s more than a 10 [...]
HISD cuts 277 jobs
There will be more of this to follow. The Houston school district will have fewer bus drivers, construction workers, finance employees and other staff next year under budget cuts the board approved on Thursday. Trustees, expecting a severe shortfall in state funding, unanimously agreed to eliminate 277 positions, representing about 12 percent of the central [...]
Trustees still dithering about replacing Davila
Still no action from the HISD Board of Trustees regarding Diana Davila’s open seat. Trustee Larry Marshall called for holding an election in November but his motion failed 3-5, mostly along racial lines. The board plans to screen possible appointees during a public meeting Tuesday and might still decide to call a November election. Three [...]
HISD Trustee runoff overview
Here’s the Chron story on the two runoffs for HISD Trustee. It echoes a theme from that Examiner story we saw yesterday. The outcome of the races could reshape several board debates — particularly over wages for construction workers, efforts to hold weak teachers more accountable and the role of magnet schools. Early voting runs [...]
Meet the HISD Parent Visionaries
I’ve mentioned the group HISD Parent Visionaries a couple of times in this space. Here’s an article about them from the Examiner. Parent Visionaries was spawned after HISD’s former superintendent, Dr. Abelardo Saavedra, voiced an interest in eliminating or reducing magnet school transportation. The parent group, largely from District V, became vocal in opposition and [...]
Trustee Marshall endorsed by former opponents
In the runoff for HISD Trustee in District IX, incumbent Trustee Larry Marshall received the endorsement of the third and fourth-place finishers, George Davis and Michael Williams. I find that a little odd, since one presumes when they ran to unseat Marshall they thought a change was needed, but I guess they decided they didn’t [...]
HISD Trustee IX overview
One more Chron overview of an HISD Trustee race, this one in District IX where three candidates are challenging incumbent and Board President Larry Marshall. During the last several months, Marshall has had a tumultuous stint as board president. The 77-year-old has lashed out at his fellow trustees — once saying they had “an overly [...]
The HISD Trustee candidates speak
These are short videos – I think Art Rascon’s intros of the candidates take as much time as they get to speak for themselves – but if you’ve not met the HISD Trustee candidates or listened to any of my interviews, here’s a chance to see and hear them from KTRK. First, in District I: [...]
More on the HISD candidates
The Bellaire Examiner looks at the contested HISD Trustee races, two of which weren’t hadn’t been contested before the day of the filing deadline. HISD Board President Lawrence Marshall appeared to be one of three incumbent trustees unopposed in the upcoming board election. Instead, three last-minute entries will make Marshall’s attempt to retain his District [...]
Parents get their vote on HISD school construction projects
The battle between a parents group and some HISD trustees had been waging with HISD Board President Larry Marshall over getting a vote for some school construction projects that the parents said had been promised during the 2007 bond referendum campaign is over, and the projects will go forward. Most of them, anyway. The Houston [...]
No vote from HISD on several school upgrades
Last week, I noted that a parents group and some HISD trustees were complaining about there not being a vote on three school construction projects that were promised as part of the 2007 bond referendum. Even though we now have a new Superintendent in tow, which was supposedly the holdup on these items, they’re still [...]
Meet the new HISD boss
Here’s more on Terry Grier, the new HISD Superintendent-to-be. Grier, 59, has been at the helm of the 135,000-student San Diego Unified School District since March 2008. He’s won support for his efforts to boost student achievement and curb dropouts, but his relationship with the teachers’ union and the labor-friendly school board has been rocky. [...]
Parents call on HISD to keep promises Saavedra made
With the revelation that HISD may have chosen its new superintendent, this Chron story from yesterday about how parent groups who were promised certain specific actions from outgoing Superintendent Abe Saavedra relating to the bond referendum, and the Board of Trustees’ apparent reluctance to act on them until they have a new super in place, [...]
Eight candidates for HISD Superintendent
We don’t know who the candidates are for HISD Superintendent, but at least we know how many of them there are. There’s a Heisenberg joke in there somewhere, I’m just not certain how to find it. The Houston school board president said Thursday that trustees could possibly hire a new superintendent in the new few [...]
Search openly
Is there really a debate about whether or not we should conduct a search for a new HISD Superintendent in an open manner? Because I think the choice is clear. The Greater Houston Partnership, which represents the business community, is lobbying the school board to introduce a few leading contenders to the public — something [...]