Race, history factor into debate over costs to operate Houston Independent School District's 'small schools'

HISD small schools by trustee

“These communities have so much history,” she said. “It is important to keep these students and schools there, because they live in those communities and should go to school in those communities.”

HISD defines a “small school” at the elementary level as having 500 students or less. For middle schools, the cutoff is 750, and for high schools, 1,000 or below. (For a complete look at schools receiving small school funding, click here.)

By comparison, the largest school in HISD, Bellaire High, has 3,300 students this year.

PRODUCT OF A PREVIOUS ERA

The small schools have roots in the time when HISD schools were racially segregated -- and in the school system's efforts to integrate.

“That was the way it was back then -- we knew our place,” said Galloway, who is African-American and a graduate of the Fifth Ward’s Wheatley High School. “We had to live on the other side of the street, we had our own schools, we had African-American police that could only ticket African-Americans.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in 1954, the same year Alcott Elementary was built, was supposed to end segregation in schools across the country. But it didn’t in many places, including Houston.

“HISD did not approve a desegregation plan until 1969,” said Marshall, who is also African-American. “We waited more than ten years.”

To help with desegregation, HISD created some of the nation’s first magnet programs to attract students to schools outside their neighborhoods. According to Marshall, the district also built new schools in predominantly black neighborhoods.

“These communities are some of the lowest, economically disadvantaged communities in our city,” Galloway said. “They are also some of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. They have a lot of history.”

Many of those schools are now considered small schools, including Durham Elementary in the Oak Forest/Garden Oaks neighborhood northwest of the 610 loop; Elrod Elementary in Fondren Southwest; and Gregory-Lincoln Elementary, just west of downtown.

Houston has changed since they were built. As in many American cities, urban dwellers fled for the suburbs, following the rivers of concrete in Houston’s expressways, nearly emptying some of the city’s most historic minority neighborhoods.

“Now, the population has dwindled,” Marshall said, “and there are not enough families or children in the areas to maintain a school.”

Meanwhile, the racial makeup of the city and the school system changed, too. Nearly two-thirds of HISD’s students are now Hispanic. One student in four is black; less than one student in 10 is white.

The racial makeup of the neighborhoods around the small schools has changed, too. While Gregory-Lincoln’s student body was 61% black last year, Elrod and Durham’s students are now mostly Hispanic.

COSTS OF OPERATION

For HISD, the price tag to supplement the budgets of the small schools this year will be $10,067,352 -- a little more than $2 million for high schools, $2.8 for middle schools and more than $5 million for elementary and early child education campuses.

“The schools have to pay for all of the same services, from utility costs to teachers, yet they do not have always have the funds to do it because of low enrollment,” Melinda Garrett, the school district’s chief financial officer, said earlier this year. The small school subsidy, she said, “acts as a supplement.”

Fewer students means less money overall for a campus. The main chunk of money most schools get from HISD is based on a dollar amount per student, so a school with fewer students gets less per-student funding.

The individual schools have broad discretion in how they can spend their small-school funding, HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said, naming teachers, supplies and band equipment as just three examples.

Small school subsidies vary from $301,000 at Williams Middle, on the north side of town, to just around $2,000 for Kelso Elementary on the south side, which the state has rated academically unacceptable.

It’s unclear when HISD began doling out the extra money to the small schools. Garrett said Tuesday that the subsidy has come and gone a few times over the years.

Seventy-nine HISD campuses are getting extra money this school year for being small, according to data provided to Texas Watchdog by the school district earlier this year. However, HISD officials this week counted just 66 schools still under the enrollment cutoff points to qualify as “small schools,” Grier and Spencer said.

At a meeting with the local press Tuesday, Grier didn’t answer a question from a Houston Press reporter for the names or locations of the 66 schools. Spencer later told Texas Watchdog that some of the 79 schools may have seen their enrollment grow this year enough to disqualify them as “small,” leaving just 66 on the current list.

With anticipated multi-million dollar budget cuts from the state next year, HISD trustees are looking to cut wherever they can. Both the small school subsidy and magnet funding are on the chopping block.

The school board has already voted this year to “repurpose” one school, H.P. Carter Career Center northeast of downtown, because of low enrollment -- 132 students -- and high per-student costs -- more than $20,000 per child.

“The bottom line is that it is cheaper to operate larger schools,” Marshall said. “... You can have a program and a successful school that has the academic rigor it needs when you have the appropriate number of students.”

But many of the small schools are academically rigorous, if the Texas Education Agency’s ratings are to be believed. Forty percent of the 79 schools getting small-school funds were rated “exemplary” by the TEA for this year, a Texas Watchdog analysis found, and another 27% were “recognized.”

CLOSURES MAY BE COMING

“Right-sizing,” as the school system calls it, could mean closures and consolidations for the small campuses.

It “very well could mean closing schools, but that’s a board decision,” Grier said Tuesday. “We want to talk to the board about options and see what they have to say.”

Marshall gave Texas Watchdog an example of one small school in his district, Rhoads Elementary in the South Acres/Crestmont Park neighborhood, which receives more than $212,000 in small school funding.

“The community there is aging, and you no longer have a population of people where there are children attending school,” Marshall said.

“There are only 300 students at Rhoads. Both Law and Woodson (elementaries) could easily absorb the additional students,” Marshall said. Law is less than a mile from Rhoads, while Woodson is even closer, only a half-mile away.

“Once the kids are moved, you move all of the funding to the other schools as well. It creates more educational opportunities for everyone,” he said.

When closing a school, there’s a lot to be considered, Grier said.

“Where would you put those students?” he said. “Is there another school nearby where you could put those students? Then you get into, how do you get them there? Are you now going to charge (for) transportation? Are transportation costs going to offset potential savings? Those are the kinds of analysis we will have to do.”

NEIGHBORHOODS MAY STAGE A COMEBACK

Small schools are positive for a neighborhood, Galloway countered.

“Being poor serviced schools,” she said. “I think (small schools are) a good thing because it helps the community and keeps the community.”

She says she’s also looking to the future.

“Enrollment is going to go up in these neighborhoods in a few years,” Galloway said. “If we consolidate now, then we will have to come up and restructure again. I think, during this economic time, we are facing hardships, but new revitalization projects are coming to these neighborhoods.”

Galloway is referring specifically to the City of Houston’s Project Hope, a plan to reinvest in some of Houston’s historic neighborhoods by providing housing to low-income citizens.

“I represent the oldest African-American neighborhoods in Houston,” Galloway said when asked why so many of the small schools are in her district. “They are no longer here, but through Project Hope, the city is coming in and revitalizing, bringing younger families to the neighborhoods.”

What do you think about HISD’s small school subsidy? Does the district need all of the small schools or should they be consolidated? Texas Watchdog wants to hear from you.

Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.

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