Forget the niceties spouted by Houston schools Superintendent Terry Grier and school board President Paula Harris last month about next year’s merger with the North Forest Independent School District.
“It’s a very bad idea,” said Galloway, who represents the second district in the Houston Independent School District – an area demographically similar to North Forest ISD. Many North Forest families are low-income. Of that population, roughly 70 percent are African-American and 30 percent are Latino.
“HISD is too large, and we can’t even track all the things going on in our own schools,” Galloway said. “We haven’t been able to properly provide for people in (HISD District II). The whole thing doesn’t smell right.”
Texas Education Agency Commissioner Robert Scott ordered HISD to absorb North Forest last month. The merger formally will occur next July.
Galloway attended her final school board meeting last week. She has served a total of 12 years as an HISD trustee. First, from 1991 to 1998, then most recently from 2007 to the present. Galloway will remain on the board until Jan. 12, when Rhonda Skillern-Jones will succeed her.
She identified HISD’s absorption of North Forest’s millions of dollars of debt, the possibility of HISD residents’ property taxes increasing, North Forest teachers losing their jobs and an inevitable raise for Grier as just some of the problems the merger presents.
“Everyone’s keeping this kind of criticism quiet,” Galloway said. “The superintendent told the board not to comment. He doesn’t want anyone thinking we don’t want to welcome all those poor kids. He doesn’t want us to offend the commissioner. But no one’s going to tell me not to comment. I’m going to say what I feel is not right.”
Grier did not return a phone call or an e-mail requesting comment.
“If Commissioner Scott’s decision is upheld, HISD stands ready to welcome the entire North Forest community,” HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said.
“HISD is committed to ensuring that every student, regardless of where they live, has access to great schools that challenge them academically and prepare them for college and meaningful careers. The graduation rate for HISD students of every racial and ethnic group has never been higher and the dropout rate has never been lower. The number of students scoring well enough to earn college credit on tough Advanced Placement exams has increased 39 percent in just two years. Recently released results of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress show students in HISD are quickly gaining on their peers in Texas, while generally outperforming their counterparts in America’s large cities.”
The most recent data from the state shows that minority and economically disadvantaged students in HISD had higher graduation and completion rates and standardized test scores than their counterparts in North Forest, as well as lower dropout rates.
And TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said, “Because Houston does have similar demographics, it will have a better idea about how to serve these students than would a district with a completely different make-up. No one is saying that forced consolidations are easy, but we truly believe Houston will provide a better education to these students. If we didn’t believe that, we would be discussing the merger with another district.”
Poor financial management and academic performance have plagued North Forest ISD for years. State education officials removed North Forest board members in 2009 due to a $12 million budget deficit and academically unacceptable rankings. The state ran the district before returning it to a locally elected board last year.
Ratcliffe could not provide North Forest’s current debt load. Scott declined a request for an interview and referred all questions to Ratcliffe.
Houston TV news-station KTRK reported earlier this year that:
- “The district will have a substandard financial rating statewide for the fourth straight year, and North Forest High School will be given an academically unacceptable rating for the sixth year.
- “Last year, only 31 percent of ninth graders passed the TAKS test. Of the 8,000 public high schools in Texas, North Forest High School is the worst-performing school."
Calls to North Forest Superintendent Edna Forté and North Forest’s media-relations department were not returned. The North Forest school board voted to hired Forté, despite Forté not having a superintendent certification.
North Forest’s school board “asked the commissioner to waive this certification requirement, which he can do temporarily,” said the TEA’s Ratcliffe. “The district has a waiver for her for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013.”
The Houston Chronicle’s Ericka Mellon reported earlier this year that the most recent outside audit, conducted in August, “found serious problems with the district's internal controls to prevent misspending. Auditors also noted that the district could not afford to repay $13 million it borrowed from its construction fund.”
Despite all that, Grier and Harris remained publicly optimistic.
“Strong neighborhood schools are the foundation of strong communities,” Grier said in a November statement. “The work that is underway in HISD to place a great teacher in every classroom and an effective principal in every school will benefit the children of North Forest, just as it has in HISD.”
Harris said at the time that “we know it's going to be a challenge. We believe there should be an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective leader in every school. We are realizing the positive results from those beliefs, and we are looking forward to sharing our academic achievement with every student, teacher, and community member joining Team HISD. We look forward to working with Commissioner Scott to ensure that HISD receives adequate financial resources to tackle this unique challenge."
Still, challenges remain for HISD. One is the two-year contract that Forté recently received. Ratcliffe said HISD officials “will make all hiring decisions.”
Ratcliffe also said that HISD officials also will decide whether to keep North Forest campuses open.
And Ratcliffe said that “state funds follow the students so that automatically will cause HISD to receive more state funds.”
Consolidating districts also receive state aid if the districts would have received more state funding by remaining separate districts, Ratcliffe said.
“We provide an incentive payment to the combined district during the settle-up period, which is generally in September,” Ratcliffe said. “The district would get this incentive payment annually for 10 years.”
But that speaks to nothing about what might happen to property taxes in the two districts, Galloway said.
“Are they going to lower their tax rates and lower ours?” she asked. “Or are ours going to go up?”
HISD residents currently pay the lowest property taxes of all 21 Harris County school districts, HISD officials say.
“The tax rate of $1.1567 per $100 of taxable value is the lowest in Harris County, where the average school property tax rate in 2010 was $1.3996,” according to the district’s website. “HISD homeowners are also among the few in Texas who receive a 20 percent optional homestead exemption. This exemption is in addition to the standard $15,000 exemption given to all Texas homeowners.”
Meanwhile, North Forest ISD's tax rate is slightly less than $1.47.
The TEA incentive-payment program doesn’t address the raise that Galloway said Grier inevitably will demand.“Of course he’s going to get a raise with all the problems he’s going to have with more kids,” said Galloway, referring to the roughly 7,500 students that would be added to HISD’s rolls. “It’s common sense.”
Grier currently earns a base $300,000 annual salary. But his contract contains another $87,500 in performance bonuses the superintendent could earn if he meets certain goals and the nine-member school board approves of his work.
“Dr. Grier is eligible for two bonuses,” Spencer said in an e-mail last month. “One is based on student academic performance using specific targets. The maximum payout for this bonus is $50,000. The other bonus is based on his annual performance evaluation. If the Board gives him a ‘satisfactory’ evaluation, he receives $37,500.”
HISD trustees have completed Grier’s job review, but that review is confidential, according to Texas state law.
District officials have not said whether Grier earned any of the potential bonuses.
Galloway said she also feared for the teachers of North Forest.
“A lot of people are going to be affected,” said Galloway, referring to the same financial pressures that caused hundreds of teacher layoffs in HISD last year. “They’re going to lose their jobs, and they’re the breadwinners for their families.”
Galloway also worried that North Forest officials were doing little to nothing to get their own families and students ready for the transition that’s about to come.
“What are they doing up there to prepare them?” she asked.
***
Contact Mike Cronin at mike@texaswatchdog.org or 713-228-2850. Follow him on Twitter at @michaelccronin or @texaswatchdog.
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