Despite a policy that explicitly states that Houston school-board members are not to be involved in the hiring of any personnel, the reality under Superintendent Terry Grier has been quite different.
“There is a conflict regarding how the administration works with the different trustees,” Trustee Juliet Stipeche said. “Each community deserves equal treatment and fair, regular guidelines for the selection of their leaders. The community typically knows best.”
Board member influence ranges from zero input to participation by invitation, according to e-mail records obtained by Texas Watchdog and interviews with board members.
Board President Paula Harris has bragged in e-mails about hiring and firing principals. Trustee Manuel Rodriguez said he has been asked by administrators to sit on selection committees. And Trustee Anna Eastman said officials have asked her to review principal candidates.
But Stipeche said district officials prohibited her from providing any input in selecting a principal for a middle school in her district during the summer and held no community meetings before hiring a principal at another school. Yet other trustees said such meetings are typical in their districts.
In a July 6 e-mail to Stipeche, Middle Schools Chief Dallas Dance said that HISD staff do not reveal the names of principal candidates to trustees because “personnel decisions are left to the Superintendent.”
District spokesman Patrick Trahan affirmed that stance in a statement e-mailed to Texas Watchdog: “It is the policy of the Houston Independent School District that trustees are not involved in the hiring process for any personnel.”
Dance said Grier instructed staff in May and June 2010 to standardize the process of principal hires.
“The superintendent was very clear,” Dance said. “We were not to put any board member or district employee in the middle of the process -- particularly if it would look like someone was favoring one candidate over another.”
But that directive has not been applied uniformly.
"I was called by a (school improvement officer) and invited to screen principal candidates," Eastman said, referring to a district official who oversees many schools. “I declined. I believe board members screening principal finalists is crossing the line, and if I'm involved, I lose my ability to hold the administration accountable."
Eastman declined to name the school in question. She was elected to the school board in 2009 and has served her entire tenure during the Grier administration. HISD trustees hired Grier in September 2009. He succeeded Abelardo Saavedra.
Manuel Rodriguez“But I don’t think it’s a board member’s place to have that much influence,” he said. “It might feel like I’m adding pressure.”
Once a selection committee identifies a list of finalists, however, then Rodriguez said it’s a trustee’s responsibility to offer his or her thoughts.
“Just to see if there might be anything negative there for the community,” Rodriguez said. “As long as you’re looking at the macro situation rather than the micro. And you have to be aware of the situation at that specific school.”
‘No community involvement’ in principal selection at one school
Juliet Stipeche
When Stipeche asked to see a list of finalists for principal of McReynolds Middle School this summer, she was rebuffed.
“Dallas Dance would not even let me know who was being considered for McReynolds because he said this was inappropriate,” Stipeche said.
Stipeche sees other inconsistencies.
“On one occasion, they asked me to create a community committee to help select a principal,” Stipeche said of Stephen F. Austin High School. “This community committee was given the opportunity to question the final candidate and offer input. When I asked for the same process at another school (Eastwood Academy High School) right down the street, the administration said, no.”
And at Gregory Lincoln Education Center, “there was NO community involvement and a principal was appointed WITHOUT any meetings or input, which happened EARLY in my tenure,” Stipeche said via e-mail (emphasis hers). She has been on the board about a year. “I was so unfamiliar with everything that I didn’t fight it, and I regret this to this day. The Freedman’s Town community was so mad that it was not involved and rightfully so.”
Trustee Harvin Moore said such meetings have occurred in his district.
“Twice in my experience -- at River Oaks Elementary School -- parents wanted me to attend the kickoff meeting to make sure their voices were heard,” Moore said. “They wanted to be sure there wouldn’t be some decision made by the administration without regard to what they need.”
Policy aimed at blocking board interference
Board policy states that trustees “shall not engage in activities that interfere with the administrative responsibilities of the Superintendent and staff,” nor with “recommendations regarding selection and promotion of District personnel, other than the Superintendent and the Chief Audit Executive.”
“Since I can't fire a principal I send your emails to those that hire and fire him," Harris replied in an April 22 e-mail to a person with questions about Sterling High School matters.
Paula HarrisBut Harris herself has been inconsistent in applying that policy.
She had stronger language in a May 27, 2010, message to then-Yates Principal Ronald L. Mumphery. She scolded him for criticizing the Houston school superintendent and board members and told him that she had helped “the community get rid of the previous leader and put you in his place."
“How soon we forget!” she added. Harris copied the message to Grier.
The e-mails obtained by Texas Watchdog under the Texas Public Information Act show Harris frequently receives messages about HISD personnel decisions. Harris did not respond to a phone call or an e-mail requesting comment for this story.
Audra Aubrey, a fourth-grade teacher at M.E. Foster Elementary School, asked Harris in an e-mail to be considered for an assistant principal position within HISD.
“I am contacting you desiring an opportunity to serve our students and the community in a larger capacity as an Assistant Principal,” Aubrey wrote Harris on May 16. Aubrey outlined her qualifications and concluded the letter with, “Educationally yours, Audra Aubrey.”
Texas Watchdog has no other correspondence relating to Aubrey’s e-mail that demonstrates what Harris did with Aubrey’s request. Aubrey remains a teacher at Foster.
Harris received an e-mail from Beverly Dancer on July 6, subject line: “AP position at Yates H.S.” Dancer at the time was assistant principal at Attucks Middle School and was applying to become an assistant principal at Jack Yates High School. Dancer sent an e-mail to HISD officials on June 9 to apply for the position.
Dancer did not get the job. Her last day at HISD was June 30, said Ann Best, the district’s chief human resources officer.
Governing v. administering
Trustees vote to approve filling vacant positions, not the specific individuals, said Trustee Mike Lunceford. Board members do vote on the individuals filling certain high-ranking posts such as the superintendent.
Beyond that, however, HISD board members hold a variety of opinions on how and when they should be involved in principal selections.
Eastman said she felt comfortable participating in the search process only when parents and other interested parties are outlining what they’re looking for, “before the candidates are chosen.”
Mike Lunceford“My main concern is making sure that the administration includes teachers, parents and community members in developing the principal profile,” Lunceford said, referring to the document used to describe the type of administrator people hope to hire to fill the vacancy.
Lunceford cited the board policy on employment practices, which says, “The Board delegates to the Superintendent final authority to hire contractual and noncontractual personnel.”
He also referred to the board policy on personnel positions, which contains “a detailed selection process for principals. In neither of these policies do the words ‘consult the Board Member before a decision is made’ occur.”
Stipeche said that she has been asking HISD to create a clearer, more practical policy.
Dance acknowledged that now would be a good time to review HISD policy and ensure consistency in the principal hiring practices across elementary, middle and high schools.
“It might be a good idea to operationalize this, to put it in writing,” Dance said.
School boards throughout the country handle the principal hiring process differently, so “there’s no right way or wrong way,” said Gene Maeroff, the school board president of Edison Township public schools in New Jersey.
In some districts, trustees participate in a “meet-and-greet” introduction before the whole board, prior to the superintendent making the final recommendations, said Maeroff, who is the author of School Boards in America: A Flawed Exercise in Democracy and founder of the Hechinger Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York.
“It is a good idea to keep board members informed about the process,” Maeroff said. “That way the superintendent increases the chances his or selection will be approved.”
But Maeroff was adamant about trustees separating themselves from recommending who principals should be. That’s the superintendent’s job.
“There’s a difference between governing and administering,” he said. “That’s why a board exists and why a board hires a superintendent who then hires a staff.”
Contact Mike Cronin at mike@texaswatchdog.org or 713-228-2850. Follow him on Twitter at @michaelccronin or @texaswatchdog.
Keep up with all the latest news from Texas Watchdog. Fan our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Scribd, and fan us on YouTube. Join our network on de.licio.us, and put our RSS feeds in your newsreader. We're also on MySpace, Digg, FriendFeed, and tumblr.
Like this story? Then steal it. This report by Texas Watchdog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. That means bloggers, citizen-journalists, and journalists may republish the story on their sites with attribution and a link to Texas Watchdog. If you do re-use the story, we'd love to hear about it. E-mail news@texaswatchdog.org.
Photo of a classroom bulletin board by flickr user bloomsberries,used via a Creative Commons license.
|
|
Comments
|
Jose Moreno
Monday, 11/28/2011 - 08:24PM
How about talking to some Texas educators and skip New Jersey? What is going on in HISD? You should explore the relationship between Paula Harris and Terry Grier. There's something just not right there. |
|
|
gone and forgotten
Wednesday, 11/30/2011 - 10:08PM
the hisd board should take back its authority and obligation to vote on the hiring of campus principals and other senior level administrators. this lack of authority results in less competent principals in the african american campuses in the north corridor of hisd. also,despite the fact of the overidentification of african students in special education,none of the special education senior managers in the field offices is african american.the hisd board should correct this inequity since the students cannot. |
RSS feed
StumbleUpon
Twitter
Newsvine
Facebook
Digg
De.licio.us
YouTube
