Texas Education Agency officials have recommended that a state-appointed governing team replace Houston ISD’s locally elected school board after a six-month investigation found several instances of alleged misconduct by some trustees, including violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act, inappropriate influencing of vendor contracts and making false statements to investigators.
The recommendation and findings, issued by TEA Special Investigations Unit Director Jason Hewitt, will not become final until HISD officials have had an opportunity to respond. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who leads the agency, ultimately will decide whether to oust HISD’s school board. HISD officials have until Aug. 15 to respond, and Morath likely would issue a final decision in the following weeks.
In his recommendation, Hewitt wrote that HISD trustees should be replaced by a state-appointed board due to their “demonstrated inability to appropriately govern, inability to operate within the scope of their authority, circumventing the authority of the superintendent, and inability to ensure proper contract procurement laws are followed.”
[…]
In their report, state investigators outline multiple years of failed oversight and improper behavior by HISD’s much-maligned school board, which long has grappled with in-fighting and distrust. Conflict within the board reached a boiling point in the summer and fall of 2018 when trustees clashed over whether to retain Lathan, who took over as interim superintendent following Richard Carranza’s abrupt departure to become chancellor of New York City public schools.
Five board members had grown particularly frustrated with Lathan, believing she had not been responsive to their desires for the district and failed to adequately protect them from a threat posed by a community activist.
Through interviews and a review of text messages, state investigators determined the five trustees — Board President Diana Dávila, Holly Maria Flynn Vilaseca, Sergio Lira, Elizabeth Santos and Anne Sung — secretly met with former HISD superintendent Abelardo Saavedra in two separate groups to coordinate ousting Lathan and installing him as interim superintendent. The meetings took place at a Houston restaurant on the same day in October 2018, the report said. Investigators determined that arrangement constituted a “walking quorum,” in violation of state law that requires trustees to conduct district business in public.
Three days later, the five trustees voted to replace Lathan with Saavedra, offering no advance warning to the public or the other four board members about the move. Trustees reinstated Lathan within a week of the vote following intense public backlash. Lathan remains the district’s indefinite leader.
TEA officials interviewed trustees as part of their investigation, ultimately determining that Dávila and Lira falsely claimed in interviews with investigators that they only met one-on-one with Saavedra. In separate interviews, Saavedra and Flynn Vilaseca placed Dávila and Lira at the restaurant meetings, the report states.
In an interview Wednesday, Dávila said she provided her best recollection of meeting Saavedra to TEA investigators, and denied that she attempted to mislead state officials.
“They wanted us to remember things that happened six, seven months prior to us being interviewed,” Dávila said.
So in the end it will be the ethics investigation that brings down the Board. We’ll get the performance results for the schools, including the four that needed to meet standards this year, on August 15, so there may be another cause for the demise, but this one came first. This isn’t final yet – the Board has until the 15th to respond to this report, and then TEA Commissioner Mike Morath gets to make his ruling – but the handwriting on the wall is quite clear. The state is stepping in to take over the HISD Board.
The report isn’t public yet – I presume it will be by the time Morath issues his ruling – but the Chron got to see it. The other misconduct allegations reported in the story apply to Diana Davila, with Sergio Lira also being accused of not being truthful to investigators. I feel like in other circumstances, with a Board that wasn’t already under a conservator, this would be an embarrassment but not the end of the existing Board. In such other circumstances, I might be moved to outrage at the prospect of our democratically elected Board being summarily replaced, even if only for a couple of years, by state-selected trustees. I find it hard to muster any such reaction this time. I find myself resignedly in agreement with this:
Trustee Jolanda Jones, who frequently has criticized colleagues who voted to oust Lathan, said replacement of the school board is “sadly, unfortunately” in the district’s best interests.
“I think it’s tragic, but I think the alternative is worse,” Jones said.
The good news, such as it is, is that the four schools in question, which have been making progress, will probably not be closed. That was a huge point of contention with the parent groups. If that’s truly off the table, then my guess is that reaction to this will be somewhat more muted. Who is going to step up to defend the current board, and demand that the TEA leave them in place?
It should be noted that there will still be elections for HISD trustees this November. These elected trustees, along with the others that are not on the November ballot, will still serve but have much less power in the interim. At least two of the four trustees whose terms are up this year (Rhonda Skillern-Jones, who is running for HCC Board, and Jolanda Jones) have announced they are not running for re-election, with Davila being rumored to not run again as well. If the end result of all this is that in another two or four years we get to elect nine new members, and (hopefully) the sword of Damocles that is the academic standards issue is not looming over us when we do (good luck with that, whoever the TEA picks to run the place), I find it hard to be too upset about that. I’m certainly not more upset than I am about everything that led to this.
HISD has filed to enjoy the TEA, the report is public. Almost everything in there is bogus and with out factual evidence to back up what the investigation claims it uncovered.
The difference in outcome depends on the color of one’s skin, or the perceived nationality of of the trustees. Wonder why the why the white community was not so quick to condemn something much worse that occurred in HISD.
According to the 1998 Brookings Institute report “Lessons from Houston,” authored by HISD trustee Don McAdams, Paige provided an invaluable minority front for the campaign by the Houston business community to reform and decentralize the district. Paige’s predecessor as superintendent, Frank Petruzielo, proved insufficiently enthusiastic for plans laid by a committee headed by Harold Hook, CEO of insurance giant American General, and Al Haines, then-head of the Greater Houston Partnership. Haines is a past City of Houston chief administrative officer who later joined American General, then returned to the city under Mayor Lee Brown.
‘McAdams believes that most public education problems arise “because urban school districts are under direct democratic control.” He bragged in his report that he and the other white trustees boosted Paige into the top HISD position.
“The superintendency was offered to Paige in a closed session … it created a firestorm,” recalled McAdams. “Those of us who conceived the idea had kept our opinions to ourselves. The public was stunned. Houston’s Hispanic activists were outraged.’
There are many things not mentioned in the report how a representative told some trustees if they followed the recommendations of the Partnership they would stop the state from taking it over.
Nothing has changed the Partnership in cahoots with others has been running HISD and HCC for decades. The unelected true culprits
filed to enjoin, dah
It will be a great day for HISD when the worthless piece of crap Davila is gone, along with her self serving BS. I won’t miss Jolanda Jones either, with her deck of race cards. Sung has been weak, and a disappointment. Maybe we will get a board that actually cares about students.
It’s also time for Lathan to take her dislike of teachers and leave. It is hard to believe she thought high paid managers deserved numerically large raises while giving teachers essentially nothing.
I am beyond pissed that the district is wasting our money to sue TEA. Give it up you bunch of nothings, and walk away.
Ross you yet to state why you think so lowly of Davila, I have asked numerous times.
As to Lathan forget that, the deal supposedly made with the state and blacks in cahoots with the state (Republicans), is the four under performing schools will remain open and Lathan will stay.
Where were you Ross when Paige was made superintendent? Where was your outrage?
Tell us what you want HISD trustees to do? Why blame them read the report the person responsible is Lathan, Board only sets policy.
The HISD board is a microcosm of identity politics in its final form. There are no whites to scapegoat and vilify, the HISD board has just gone tribal. fighting their own cold race war. If this is the absolute best that the leadership can do, what hope do the students have?
Once again, I have the solution to HISD’s mess. They need to beg, plead, and cajole Bertie Simmons, former principal at Furr HS to step in as superintendent, give her a free hand in hiring and in setting policy, and basically get out of the way and let her and her hand picked people do the job. She knows how to educate and help poor kids succeed.
The clown show that is the HISD board is both sad and predictable.
Bill do you ever have anything good to say about people of color?
Bill why is that some White person always has to be savior in your eyes?
I know why, but I won’t use the R word nor the B word.
Bill behind all the turmoil are white guys from the business community, probably members of the Greater Houston Partnership.
OK, Manny, I’m open to compromise. We’ll see if we can recruit Ben Carson from HUD to fix HISD. I’d Trust the Sleepy Doc to restore order. The kids in HISD, particularly the kids at the current failing schools and the legacy North Forest schools, need a firm hand. Discipline and excellence should be expected and DEMANDED of the kids at EVERY school, not just Bellaire and the magnet schools.
Can we at least agree that the HISD board is a cluster**** of epic proportion at the moment?
Do you need a contact number for him, let me know when you will have Oreo here, oh I meant REO.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ben-carson-oreo-at-hud-hearing-housing-secretary-ben-carson-confuses-real-estate-term-reo-with-oreo/
Pingback: Initial reaction to the TEA action on HISD – Off the Kuff
I’m surprised to see you taking this in stride. For better or worse, the people of Houston elected that Board. I am outraged that the Legislature has decided that they know how to run our district better than we do. I’d like to see Houstonians run the Gonzales battle flag up the pole at Hattie Mae White.
“I am outraged that the Legislature has decided that they know how to run our district better than we do.”
Outraged ?
Mamacita, you must be living in a bubble. Do you not understand what a complete train wreck this Board is ? You and I and Manny and Bill and Dave Fagan could do a better job than Davila et al.