Editor's note: This is another installment in an ongoing Texas Watchdog series profiling the candidates for Houston Independent School District on the Nov. 8 ballot.

One would-be challenger already has vanished.

Now, incumbent school board President Paula Harris faces only Davetta Daniels in her quest to be reelected District IV trustee for the Houston Independent School District.

HISD officials disqualified a former Harris opponent, Art Huerta, last month. District officials said they realized Huerta’s address actually was in HISD’s District VIII, which incumbent Juliet Stipeche represents. Huerta chose to abandon his campaign for a school board seat.

Harris, who is seeking her second term on the Houston school board, identifies multiple issues as important, according to her website. Harris declined to be interviewed for this story in an e-mail to Texas Watchdog sent by her spokeswoman, Jeri Brooks, who works for One World Strategy Group, a Houston-based consulting firm.

Harris supports creating a pre-kindergarten program, paying teachers more, using money to analyze and plan for furthering student performance, examining ways to reduce school dropouts, increasing participation by parents in their children’s education and magnet schools.

“I support giving schools the tools, programs, and flexibility they need to improve student performance,” says Harris, 46, on her website. She identifies parent involvement as a component to students’ academic achievement in the specific areas of reading, math, science and English.

“I believe it is important for school board members to make sure teachers, students, and schools have the necessary tools to provide all children with the opportunity to be successful academically,” Harris says on her website.

Harris was first elected to the school board in November 2007. She became president in January. Harris also served as the board’s second-highest ranking member in 2008 and last year.

As board president, Harris presides over a board that oversees the nation’s seventh-largest school district. HISD has a $1.6-annual billion budget, about 203,000 students and roughly 1.1 million residents.

Harris lists several accomplishments during her first school board term, including implementing the Real Men Read program in 2009. That program “provides students with male role models who teach the joy and value of reading,” Harris’ website says.

She also says that she is the first trustee “to host community wide town hall meetings to bring information to District IV parents, students and teachers,” according to her website.

Harris has been embroiled in ethics controversies this year, primarily for voting to approve HISD contracts with companies run by her friends. Harris announced earlier this summer that she would no longer vote on contract awards that involve companies run by her friend, Nicole West.

She hosts the HISD TV program “Student Achievement Show.”

A petroleum engineer by training, with a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University, Harris is the director of community affairs for Schlumberger, a Houston-based oil-field services company, according to her HISD profile page.

At Schlumberger, Harris has held positions ranging from field engineer to North American recruiting manager, according to her HISD profile page.

She also wrote “For Sister: The Guide for Professional Black Women,” a book published in 2003.

Her community awards and activities include being a recipient of the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce role model award and serving on Space Center Houston’s board of directors.

Harris already has the backing of many Houston organizations and individuals in her campaign to be reelected. Her endorsements include the Houston Business-Education Coalition, the Harris County AFL-CIO Council, the national nonprofit organization Stand For Children, Houston state representatives Alma Allen and Borris Miles, Houston state Sen. Rodney Ellis and Dwight Boykins, president and CEO of d Boykins Consulting, a Houston-based governmental affairs consulting firm.

Harris and her husband, Dwayne, own are the owners of DPM Investments, a Houston-based company, according to Harris’ HISD web profile. The couple has one daughter who attends an HISD school, the web profile says.

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Contact Mike Cronin at mike@texaswatchdog.org or 713-228-2850. Follow him on Twitter at @michaelccronin or @texaswatchdog.

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Photo of polling place sign by flickr user Tom Prete, used via a Creative Commons license.