A controversial campaign brochure distributed by incumbent Houston Independent School District Trustee Manuel Rodriguez is not hurting him at the polls, according to early election returns. 

Early voting in the Nov. 8 election, which includes a contest for mayor of Houston, started Monday. If you care about water resources and Houston’s public schools, if you hate the new Houston drainage tax, or if like me you were moved by the fact that 9 out of 10 Tunisians turned out for their weekend election, vote.

• See Texas Watchdog’s profiles of candidates for Houston Independent School District trustee. Mike Cronin has the rundown in District III (Ramiro Fonseca challenging Manuel Rodriguez), District IV (Davetta Daniels challenging Paula Harris) and District VIII (Dorothy Olmos challenging Juliet Stipeche). Not sure who represents you? Here’s a map and listing based on schools in each district.

• Find your polling place, and print out your sample ballot at the Harris County Clerk’s website. View a countywide sample ballot and early voting locations on Texas Watchdog’s Scribd page or at the map (above) by Greg’s Opinion. Early voting ends Nov. 4.

• Hear interviews with candidates at the liberal blog Off the Kuff, where you can also check out an aggregated list of endorsements from various interest groups. We have not seen a similar interview presentation from a conservative outlet, so to our readers, please post a link in the comments if you know of such.

• See endorsements by the Houston Chronicle.

• View election guides provided by the Harris County Democratic and Republican parties.

CORRECTION: This story incorrectly reported that Houston school board president Paula Harris attended Yates High School. Texas Watchdog regrets the error.

The president of Houston's school board took credit in an e-mail last year for helping oust a previous principal of a historic high school in her district -- and noted to the school's principal at the time that she had helped him get his job.

Paula Harris, whose district includes Jack Yates High School, scolded then-Yates Principal Ronald L. Mumphrey in summer 2010 for criticizing the Houston school superintendent and other school board members.

Harris told Mumphrey that she had helped “the community get rid of the previous leader and put you in his place" in a May 27, 2010 e-mail obtained by Texas Watchdog.

“How soon we forget!” she added. Harris also cc’d the message to Houston Independent School District Superintendent Terry Grier.

The involvement of a school board member in hiring and firing a school principal, and personally reprimanding a principal, violates the separation of powers that is supposed to exist between a school district’s board of trustees and its administrators, said one national expert.

It also contradicts statements by three HISD trustees in recent weeks that Houston school board members are not involved in personnel decisions.

"It is up to the superintendent, not board members, to recommend candidates to be hired,” said Gene Maeroff, a New Jersey school board president and founder of the Hechinger Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City.

“The board may only say yes or no to those recommendations,” Maeroff wrote in an e-mail. "The superintendent is the only person (and in some places, the business administrator) who works directly for the board; everyone else works for the superintendent."

Mumphrey was ousted from his post a few months after the tiff with Harris, after being accused of sexual misconduct. He retired a few days after that.

Another e-mail obtained by Texas Watchdog shows that Harris also met with the two job candidates seeking to succeed Mumphery at the school in the Third Ward.

“I am proposing a schedule that will include a meeting with you with each candidate,” Aaron Spence, chief of HISD's high schools, wrote Harris on Dec. 3. “We’d need you there for the two 30-minute meetings with the candidates just to give you a chance to get to know them.”

Reached on Sunday afternoon by phone, Harris said she did not remember writing the e-mail to Mumphery but said she did not choose the Yates principals.

Harris, who recently served as grand marshal for Yates' homecoming parade, said that “the community got rid of (Winston Steele, Mumphery’s predecessor at Yates). Good!”

Steele left Yates in 2008, the same year Harris joined the school board.

HISD’s board president continued, “The community is real active in picking principals. I was facilitating meetings with the community.”

Harris said the meetings she had with the two principal candidates applying to succeed Mumphery -- Samuel Coleman and David Edgerson -- were part of a community meeting and occurred before that community meeting.

“I didn’t pick the principals,” Harris said. “The community did.”

Coleman, who worked under Grier while both were employed with the San Diego Unified School District, got the job. Harris' friend, Assistant Houston City Attorney Arva Howard -- who was admonished by her own boss last week for sending an e-mail in support of Harris -- was on the Yates parent panel that helped vet the candidates.

But Coleman resigned after five months. Marla McNeal-Sheppard currently serves as principal of Yates.

“I am extremely excited that the administration has the best principal Yates has had to date,” Harris said of McNeal-Sheppard, who was principal of Lamar Fleming Middle School immediately before arriving at Yates. “She is an excellent person. So, all those little e-mails and calls are behind us.”

The Houston school board president has been under fire for months for voting on contracts involving a friend's company and arranging meetings with HISD staff members for friends who wanted to do business with the district.

She is running for re-election for a second term on the school board in the Nov. 8 election, in which she is being challenged by former HISD administrator Davetta Daniels.

School board members aren't mentioned in HISD's policies for how principals are to be hired. One policy says regional superintendents -- high-ranking administrators whose jobs were done away with in a recent reorganization  -- review the applications and select the principal candidates "through the interview process and in collaboration with the chief academic officer."

At the same time, Houston school board members Harvin Moore, Carol Mims Galloway and Anna Eastman have told Texas Watchdog in recent weeks that HISD trustees are not involved in district personnel decisions. Their statements were made in response to questions about the hiring and salary of HISD's top communications officer, Aggie Alvez.

A spokesman for the school board also recently said that district policy forbids trustees from taking questions and problems directly to HISD employees. Instead, trustees are supposed to contact the HISD Board Services office.

An e-mail to Grier and HISD spokesman Jason Spencer on Friday asking the same question also did not receive a response. Spencer did not return a message left on his cell phone or an e-mail sent to him on Sunday afternoon asking whether it was appropriate for a school board member to involved in the search for and hiring of a school principal.

The exact nature of what Mumphrey said to draw Harris' ire is not entirely clear, but Harris' began her e-mail by congratulating Mumphrey on yet another appearance before the Harris County Commissioners Court to receive another commendation for Yates' boys' basketball team.

The Jack Yates Lions are winners of repeated state basketball titles in recent years and have been named by national publications as among the best high school basketball programs in the country.

County records show that on May 25, 2010, two days prior to Harris' e-mail, the Commissioners' Court was slated to honor the Yates team.

Word of Mumphrey's comments, whatever they may have been, got back to Harris.

"At this time of transformation please be very careful on the words that you use to describe the Superintendent and Board members to the public and especially other elected officials," Harris wrote.

"We are working extremly hard to gain public approval with the many initiatives that we are trying to do and the entire team has to present a united front with these efforts. There are many ears listening and waiting to hear from you, as a leader, on the direction of this district. Choose your words carefully.

"Thank you for giving me credit for showing up at Yates events but I also do many things for your school and the community that you may not see directly, including helping the community get rid of the previous leader and put you in his place. How soon we can forget!"

Harris told Texas Watchdog that her admonishment of Mumphery over his alleged critical remarks of board members and the superintendent was appropriate.

Mumphery’s e-mail reply to Harris, written less than two hours later, included an apology.

"I was totally shocked about your references to statements attributed to me," he wrote. “Someone, at best, has misrepresented, misquoted or misinterpreted me. “I was in the presence of Commissioner El Franco Lee, Edwin Harrison, and our basketball coach, Greg Wise. Our conversation about the District and Jack Yates was positive and a collaborative effort was established."

Lee, the powerful longtime commissioner for Harris County Precinct One, and Harrison, then Harris County's financial services director, have ties to Harris' campaign treasurer, local bond attorney Franklin Jones Jr. Harrison left his longtime post earlier this year after being accused of going on taxpayer-funded luxury junkets with Jones and other county bond lawyers to New York City, Costa Rica and elsewhere.

When Harris County Judge Ed Emmett questioned Harrison's role in the junkets -- as well as the county's hiring of Jones' law firm, Greenberg Traurig -- Lee bit back at Emmett.

"I am always careful of my words and complimentary of you and your efforts on behalf of Jack Yates High School," Mumphrey continued. "I am fully committed to the direction in which Superintendent Grier is taking in this District. I am aware that there are always many ears listening and many times as many interpretations or misinterpretations as there are ears listening."

"Please know that I apologize for any misconceptions. I have not forgotten your role then or now. I appreciate all that you do for Yates High School."

He closed by saying, "I am truly a part of Team HISD!"

Whatever Mumphrey said in criticism of Harris and the district, it is not recorded on the archival video of the live webcast of the commissioner's court meeting that day. Mumphrey's brief comments at the podium included thanks to the commissioners, who had given him a standing ovation, and praised the basketball players.

“They didn't just play basketball. they're student athletes," Mumphrey said, "and I want to emphasize 'student.' Every child on that team is going to college, and I don't mean junior college ... At Yates High School, not only are we building athletes, we're building students.”

The video also shows Lee complimenting the team’s “unbelievable, unbelievable accomplishment,” and then-Commissioner Jerry Eversole teasing Harrison, seated in the audience, about his loud tie. (Harrison said it was a Yates tie.  “Take it back to Yates, because it's blinding me,” Eversole said.)

HISD officials put Mumphery on administrative leave in September 2010 after Grier received an anonymous letter accusing Mumphery of sexual misconduct. Mumphery filed retirement papers a few days later.

An internal investigation later said Mumphrey had been accused of sticking his tongue in the ear of a teenage cheerleader years ago during a sexual advance. The victim was, by then, an adult employee of HISD. The district attorney's office reviewed the case and declined to press charges, a district spokeswoman said at the time.

Harrison pleaded guilty last month to felony charges of making false statements to obtain credit and tampering with a governmental record. He received five years of deferred adjudication probation and a fine of $2,500.

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

Photo: Students leave Yates High at the end of the school day. Jennifer Peebles/Texas Watchdog.

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The Houston school trustees took the first formal step in approving a new business-ethics policy Thursday night.

By a unanimous vote, 9-0, board members supported prohibiting themselves from “direct communications, including attendance at meetings, between district administration and current or potential vendors.”

Trustee Anna Eastman, who represents the Houston Independent School District’s District I, applauded the policy before votes were cast.

“We must hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards,” Eastman said. "We must hold ourselves accountable and ensure contract processes are immune from outside influences."

Board President Paula Harris, who during recent months has suffered accusations that she has violated what would be the new policy, said she concurred with Eastman.

The incumbent board president represents HISD District IV and faces challenger Davetta Daniels on Election Day, Nov. 8.

Harris said she wanted to assure parents, nonprofit organizations, vendors and other stakeholders that “we’ll continue to work with you and make sure everyone has access ... and not go back to the old days, when only some folks did.”

Texas Watchdog has reported that Harris talked to the former district’s former procurement chief about contracts and may have met with potential vendors to pave the way for HISD contracts. Texas Watchdog  also has reported that Harris has voted on multiple contracts involving Westco Ventures, a company run by her close friend, Nicole West.

The two traveled to Italy together in April during the weeks leading up to an HISD board vote on a contract with Westco, which Harris voted to approve.

In April, Harris and HISD trustees unanimously approved Westco as one of four companies to share in a $5 million contract for painting at schools. A month later, in May, Harris and the trustees approved Westco to share with three other firms in a $3 million contract to put up fences at HISD schools.

Due to questions from Texas Watchdog and the Houston Chronicle, Harris announced in August that she would abstain from voting on future contracts involving companies run by West.

Harris abstained from a vote during last night’s meeting that renewed a contract to Westco and five other companies for up to $10 million with the district. The contract consists of work related to intrusion-detection systems, security-camera systems, fire-detection and alarm systems and intercom systems.

The board must approve the new ethics code on second reading before it becomes formally adopted.

“We just want to have some system, like the city (of Houston) does, where we’ll have no appearance of impropriety,” said Trustee Mike Lunceford, who represents HISD District V, after the meeting. “We want a system where you don’t make it easy for someone to abuse the rules.”

Two exceptions written into the new ethics policy consist of situations in which the board is selecting its legal counsel or HISD external auditors.

Board members chose a firm last night to conduct an audit of HISD’s contract-recommendation and awards process.

Null-Lairson, a Houston-based accounting firm, will lead the audit.

“They’re supposedly one of the largest auditors that looks at board policies,” said Lunceford, who chairs the board’s audit committee. “We wanted to choose a firm that isn’t beholden to HISD, but is qualified to do the work.”

MGT of America, a company with offices in Austin and Washington, D.C., and that offers “public sector management research and advice,” according to its website, will assist Null-Lairson, said an HISD news release. Susanne Mariga, a certified public accountant based in Houston, also will assist Null-Lairson, the news release said.

The school system has approved spending up to $87,500 on the audit.

“Given the scrutiny that HISD has been under, we were very concerned that we get someone independent,” said Trustee Juliet Stipeche, who represents District VIII. She faces challenger Dorothy Olmos in her campaign to keep her seat.

Trustee Harvin Moore praised the audit committee for its work on the hiring.

“They take it seriously, so I believe in the process they used,” Moore said.

***
   
Contact Mike Cronin at mike@texaswatchdog.org or 713-228-2850. Follow him on Twitter at @michaelccronin or @texaswatchdog.
   
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The former president of a Houston schools parent group has spoken out -- perhaps more loudly than she had intended -- in support of Paula Harris, Houston's school board president.

An e-mail sent out by Arva Howard, an assistant Houston city attorney, has been widely forwarded in the past two days -- multiple people sent copies of it to Texas Watchdog. Her boss, City Attorney David Feldman, called the e-mail, sent on Howard's city e-mail address, "inappropriate and unacceptable."

"All of this harassment simply because an African American businesswoman broke the glass ceiling and earned an HISD bond contract," wrote Howard, a former president of the nonprofit group Parents for Public Schools Houston.

"Over $2 billion in HISD bond contracts have been awarded to non-Black females without question or challenge. Yet the moment a Black female follows the rules and earns an award here comes the Tea Party people complaining and wanting the rules changed."

Howard was responding to Harris' statement that she was being harassed by Texas Watchdog reporter Mike Cronin.

“The use of city e-mail for the purpose shown was inappropriate and unacceptable,” Feldman wrote in an e-mail. “The employee involved has been appropriately counseled and has assured me that such conduct will not be repeated.”

Texas Watchdog has written several stories in recent months outlining Harris' ties to HISD contractors, including her close friend Nicole West, whose firms have done more than $1 million in business with the school district.

Among those stories:

• That Harris voted four times to approve HISD contracts that included work for companies run her friends;

• That friends of hers have been paid more than $100,000 in no-bid work for everything from consulting to tutoring to dry cleaning school auditorium drapes;

• That HISD e-mails Harris sent to staff members of the Houston Independent School District raise questions about whether she helped arrange meetings with her friends to explore possible district business opportunities;

• Possible violations of HISD’s “silent period,” which forbids board members from speaking with vendors in the days leading up to votes on contract approvals.

Howard serves on the HISD Superintendent's Public Engagement Committee and, earlier this year, was on the committee of parents at Jack Yates High School -- she and Harris' alma mater -- who selected Samuel Coleman as the school's new principal. Coleman has since left HISD.

***    
Contact Mike Cronin at mike@texaswatchdog.org or 713-228-2850. Follow him on Twitter at @michaelccronin or @texaswatchdog. Contact Jennifer Peebles at jennifer@texaswatchdog.org or 281-656-1681. Follow her on Twitter at @jpeebles 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.

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The chief spokesman for the Houston Independent School District says Texas Watchdog is unethical.

The president of the Houston school board told a Texas Watchdog reporter on Monday that she hasn’t answered requests for comments about herself and her ties to district contractors for more than nine weeks because the reporter is unethical.

• That Harris voted four times to approve HISD contracts that included work for companies run her friends;

• That friends of hers have been paid more than $100,000 in no-bid work for everything from consulting to tutoring to dry cleaning school auditorium drapes;

• That HISD e-mails Harris sent to staff members of the Houston Independent School District raise questions about whether she helped arrange meetings with her friends to explore possible district business opportunities;

• Possible violations of HISD’s “silent period,” which forbids board members from speaking with vendors in the days leading up to votes on contract approvals.

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.

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.

***
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.

The bids are in.

And regardless what vendor wins, the public could win, too.

Houston school board members plan to address two ethics issues at their Oct. 13 monthly regular meeting.

One will be the hiring of an independent auditor to review Houston Independent School District procurement policies. The other is the board financial ethics policy.

Conflicting school system policies have delayed board members from acting on the hiring of a procurement auditor.

“One says we are supposed to be the (district) Audit Committee and be able to choose an auditor,” Trustee Mike Lunceford, who chairs the Houston Independent School District Audit Committee, said in an e-mail. “The other says that once the (Request for Qualifications) goes out, we cannot speak with a prospective vendor.”

Lunceford said he and his fellow trustees plan to reconcile the two policies at the Oct. 13 board meeting.

Board members are also considering revamping the school district’s board financial ethics policy. That policy includes the “silent period,” when trustees and potential vendors are prohibited from talking to one another.

Under proposed changes, the silent period would start 30 calendar days prior to a request-for-proposal being issued or other form of "competitive solicitation” and end when the contract involved is executed.

Trustee Anna Eastman and the group HISD Parent Visionaries called for an external investigation into the school system's contracting, bidding and ethics policies in the wake of reports that people with connections to school board members are improperly obtaining work for the district.

Ethics controversies have plagued HISD for months -- particularly school board President Paula Harris and Trustee Larry Marshall.

Questions from Texas Watchdog and other Houston news organizations caused school board President Paula Harris to announce she would no longer vote on contracts involving the company of her friend, Nicole West.

HISD officials also hit the brakes on negotiating a contract with Dr. Kenneth Wells, an acquaintance of Trustee Larry Marshall, after Texas Watchdog and the Houston Chronicle asked about the $640,000 no-bid contract about to be awarded to Wells – despite the absence of a job description for Wells’ proposed district work.

“All deliberations” about hiring the independent auditor “need to be in open session,” Lunceford said. “For our committee to interview potential vendors we need to get the board's approval.”

The audit committee will grade the auditors who bid to review HISD’s procurement processes “and determine at that time if we need to speak with them. If yes, then we need the full board approval,” Lunceford said. Otherwise, the committee may vote to recommend an auditor to the full board, Lunceford said.

“It’s extremely important that we make sure it’s all above board,” Lunceford said. “If we don’t focus on the nuances, those are the things that can come back and bite you.”

Trustees plan to vote on the first reading of the new board ethics policy at the Oct. 13 meeting, Lunceford said. Two readings are required for a final vote.

Under review are issues including pragmatically enforcing the silent period and banning board members from bringing potential vendors into meetings with HISD officials, Lunceford said.

Marshall has said he arranged a meeting between Wells and HISD Superintendent Terry Grier and district Chief Financial Officer Melinda Garrett. HISD e-mails also say that Harris discussed her friend West's firm, as well as a local construction company, with the school system's then-chief of procurement, Steven Pottinger. Harris has said she did not discuss West's firm with Pottinger but did ask Garrett about it.

Another sticky subject is voting on contracts during election season, Lunceford said.

One option under discussion is to allow trustees 10 days to return campaign donations from a bidder who donated during a silent period.

“We’re not trying to get anyone in trouble,” Lunceford. “We’re trying to develop a way to realistically enforce these things in today’s world. We want to make sure there are no questions about how we do business.”

But Lunceford said he and his colleagues also are attempting to put teeth into the new rules. Vendors found to have violated the proposed regulations could be banned from doing business with HISD for two years.

“And board members found to have violated the new rules could be banned from voting on contracts with that vendor for up to two years,” Lunceford said.

***
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 toothy fish by flickr user OakleyOriginals, used via a Creative Commons license. In case you’re curious, it’s a walleye.



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Just two of Houston’s nine school board members have their own shows on the district’s television channel -- and both are trustees who have challengers at the polls this November.

Board President Paula Harris and Trustee Manuel Rodriguez, the board’s second-ranking officer, have shows airing on HISD TV, the Houston Independent School District’s channel, whose programs air via the Internet and public-access cable.

Meanwhile, three other Houston school board members said HISD staff members have ignored requests for their own shows. A fourth says he spoke with an HISD media department employee about creating programming at some schools, but the conversation went no further.

HISD TV and its programming are one aspect of the $10 million the school district spends annually on communications, a figure that some school board members said deserved more scrutiny.

“All this PR is going on just so the superintendent can reshape his image because it’s so negative,” said Trustee Carol Mims Galloway, who is not running for reelection for her District II seat. “Especially among teachers, because of the layoffs.”

HISD officials laid off more than 700 employees last spring due to budget cuts prompted by the state's financial woes. The district has rehired about 400 of them.

An educational reformer hired two years ago from San Diego, Superintendent Terry Grier has instituted sweeping changes in the nation’s seventh-largest school system, and has pledged to rid it of ineffective teachers and principals. He’s made both friends and enemies along the way.

The school board comprises nine unpaid members who are the overseers of the taxpayer-funded $1.6 billion Houston school district.

The school district is unable to track viewership numbers for HISD TV, a spokesman said. With channels on the major cable providers, such as Comcast and AT&T, HISD TV is available to the 780,000 households in the city of Houston.

Rodriguez and a district spokesman said Rodriguez and Harris have their own programs because they are the two highest-ranking board members. Rodriguez and the spokesman also said money spent on the communications department budget is, in part, a response to criticism of previous superintendents who did too little community outreach.

The spokesman also said Grier was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

Good HISD teachers and their outstanding students are the featured guests on Harris’ monthly program, The Student Achievement Show. The school board president plays the role of talk-show host -- sort of HISD’s own Oprah Winfrey -- and interviews HISD students and teachers about their accomplishments.

Last month’s episode brought to the set a group of students from Booker T. Washington High who had just returned from a visit to the Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where they watched military officials test a rocket they’d spent a year building.

Another episode last year was a live call-in show that brought together the head of the city’s largest teachers union and a former school board member to go head-to-head on issues like paying teachers for performance.

“Paula started her show two or three years ago, and until that time there was only a president's show,” school board member Harvin Moore wrote in an e-mail to Texas Watchdog. “We've never had a policy about a show and so when she said she wanted to do a TV show, and was going to do all the work to do the stories and set up the interviews, etc, they filmed it.”

Moore said he never did a show when he was board president because he simply never had the time.

But some other school board members said they’d like to have their own shows, too.

“Anna (Eastman) and I asked for our own TV show months ago and are still waiting for an answer,” said Juliet Stipeche, the HISD District VIII incumbent trustee who, like Harris and Rodriguez, has an opponent this year.

“I mentioned it and did not get a response, but I also have not been aggressive in pursuing it,” said Eastman, who represents District I.

“I didn’t hear anyone come back with an answer,” said Galloway. Candidate Rhonda Skillern Jones is running unopposed to take over her seat when Galloway’s term expires.

There are good reasons why only Harris and Rodriguez have their own shows, HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said.

“Ms. Harris hosts a show because she is the board president,” Spencer said. “Mr. Rodriguez hosts a show because he is the second-highest ranking member of the Board of Education and is a fluent Spanish speaker.”

Rodriguez, host of HISD TV's Faces and Places show, holds the title of first vice president of the school board, and said he’s only had a show when he’s been one of the highest-ranking board officers. Rodriguez was president in 2007. He’s also bilingual and does one version of the show in English and another in Spanish.

“My shows are not about me or District III,” Rodriguez said. “My shows are about what’s going on in the district as a whole. It’s outreach. The English and Spanish shows are on the same subject.”

Harris faces challenger Davetta Daniels to retain her District IV school board seat in the Nov. 8 elections. Rodriguez faces Ramiro Fonseca.

In response to Stipeche’s, Eastman’s and Galloway’s requests for TV shows, Spencer said, “We are unaware of any official requests from specific trustees using the Board referral system to host TV shows. (HISD communications chief Aggie) Alvez recalls Trustee Eastman, during a campus visit on the first day of school, mentioning a possible TV program in which she and Trustee Galloway would debate issues. Ms. Alvez did not hear from Trustee Eastman on this issue again.”

Plus, Spencer said, “We have no plans to offer all nine board members their own shows because we lack the resources to do so.”

The budget for HISD-TV this academic year is $686,207, down from $808,280 last year, he said. About $4.1 million of the annual communications budget covers printing materials, Spencer said.  

Stipeche said she sent Alvez an e-mail on June 16 about higher-quality programming for HISD students. Stipeche said she did not receive a reply.

“I think we could offer better content for the community,” Stipeche said. “We could focus on nutrition, study skills, magnet programs and after-school programs.”

The HISD TV shows that feature only two sitting board members who are running for reelection do not violate any Texas Ethics Commission rules on campaigning, a commission spokesman said earlier this year. And the “equal time” provision in federal communications law exempts programming considered to be news, which it defines broadly -- even famed radio “shock jock” Howard Stern got a news exemption from the Federal Communications Commission in 2003, when he sought to interview Arnold Schwarzenegger during the actor’s bid to become California governor.

Trustee Mike Lunceford, who represents HISD District V, said he spoke with an HISD employee about possible TV opportunities in schools. But nothing materialized.

Harris did not respond to two phone messages or two e-mails from Texas Watchdog requesting comment. Though she is president of the school board, Harris has not responded to any Texas Watchdog request for comment since Aug. 4.  She also refused to be interviewed on camera by Texas Watchdog after a candidate forum at Lamar High School on Tuesday.

Eastman and Stipeche said they would consider reducing HISD’s $10 million communications budget next year.

“I have concerns about that department if we need to cut $44 million next year,” Eastman said.

The school system faces a $40 million deficit next year due to $126 million in expected state budget cuts.

Trustees Moore and Greg Meyers said during the August board meeting that the district faces a $41 million deficit next year.

With class-size increases, HISD will need additional resources, Stipeche said.

“We have to make sure every dollar is intelligently spent,” she said. “I have a problem with not getting a return for our investment in district media.”

As an example, she pointed to an August survey that showed parents who believe HISD is strongly or somewhat on the right track plunged to 54 percent this year from 79 percent in 2009.

Galloway also said it offended her that Alvez earned more than Elneita Hutchins-Taylor, head of the HISD legal department. Alvez earns $185,000 and Hutchins-Taylor earns $176,000.

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Galloway said.

But Rodriguez said previous district superintendents have been criticized for their failure to properly conduct community outreach. Rodriguez also said he wasn’t going to lose sleep over the $9,000 difference between Alvez’s and Hutchins-Taylor’s salaries.

“Communications has to face an ongoing onslaught of news coming down the pike, good or bad, and get the message out,” Rodriguez said.

Spencer echoed that assessment.

“The Board of Education has made it clear that HISD must do a better job communicating with the public, which is why HISD conducted a national search for” Alvez, who arrived last year from the Montgomery County public schools in Rockville, Md., Spencer said. The board approved her salary and it is commensurate with her duties and experience, he said.

“She oversees four departments comprising 120 employees who handle all HISD print and mail services, partnerships with businesses and community groups, media relations, the HISD TV station, and the HISD website,” Spencer said.

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

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Photo illustration by Jennifer Peebles/Texas Watchdog. Photos of Trustees Paula Harris and Manuel Rodriguez Jr. from HISD website. Original photograph of 1958 family watching television by Evert F. Baumgardner, now belonging to the National Archives and in the public domain.

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