Mike Lunceford
In the past week or so, I have become aware of two candidates for HISD Board of Trustees, District V, which is the seat that is now held by Trustee Mike Lunceford but will be open in November as Lunceford will be stepping down at the end of his term. Both of them are Democrats. The first candidate I heard about is Kara DeRocha, whose website identifies her as an engineer and mother of three kids who attend HISD schools. I didn’t find a whole lot on her in Google, but she’s quoted in this news story about the January 21 Women’s March on Washington. She has a campaign kickoff event planned for this weekend, if you want to know more about her.
The other candidate, who announced via Facebook post on Sunday, is Sue Deigaard, who has been a vocal public education advocate for some time now. She was a 2015 New Leadership Council fellow who has multiple Chron op-ed credits to her name. She was a finalist to replace Jim Henley on the HCDE Board after his resignation in 2013, and has been discussed as a Democratic candidate for HD134 in recent years. She also has two kids in HISD schools. I’ve known Sue for awhile – I actually knew her a million years ago in my first in the MOB at Rice, but got to know her better more recently – and I know she’ll have a lot of support.
This is of course a Republican seat – I unfortunately don’t have any precinct data for it, but it is a Republican seat. I’d bet good money that Hillary Clinton carried HISD V in 2016, but other than maybe Kim Ogg it was Republican elsewhere. Basically, like HD134, which I believe has some overlap with it. For certain there will be one or more Republican candidates running for HISD V as well, though if any have already declared I don’t know who they are yet. As with Anne Sung in District VII and Holly Flynn Vilaseca in VI, this will be a race worth watching.
Which school board members are for a later school start time for the high schools? Teen chronic sleep deprivation is a public health crisis causing health, academic and safety issues in the Houston area where schools start way before the recommended start time by the CDC and the AAP of 8:30am. High Schools in Houston generally start at 7:45 where as the surrounding suburban areas start a7:15 and as early as 7:05 in Aldine ISD. Whereas Austin, San Antonio and Dallas follow the recommendation and start school at 8:30, some up to 9:15am.