Fort Bend ISD weighs improvement plans for 3 campuses

In a back-and-forth that brought up long-simmering issues of districtwide divides, the Fort Bend Independent School board reviewed improvement plans Monday for three campuses that failed to meet state standards last year.

The discussion exposed problems with everything from facilities maintenance to having teachers knowledgeable enough to deliver quality instruction in their content area.

“I have a hard time speaking about how great some of our campuses are when we have campuses that need help,” said board member Jason Burdine.

The three campuses — Briargate Elementary, Ridgemont Elementary and McAuliffe Middle — all are on the east side of the district, pointing to a divide that has emerged in several conversations regarding everything from zoning to discipline to where specialized academic programs are located. All within minutes of each other, the campuses feed into Willowridge High School, which failed to meet state standards the year before.

Though each campus had a different profile, they shared several qualities, including a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students, a lack of high-quality classroom instruction and high teacher turnover and student mobility, according to the district.

McAuliffe Middle School, for example, had 33 new teachers for the 20152016 school year, nearly 60 percent of that campus’ teaching faculty.

“That is a large amount of replaced teachers,” said Megan Evans, the recently hired director of accountability for the district.

The campuses also struggled with inadequate facilities.

“Are the water fountains working at Ridgemont?” board member Jim Rice wanted to know. Officials from the facilities department reported that most work orders for the campuses had been completed, including repairing the water fountains, but that repairs still were needed.

“That’s just unacceptable,” said board member Kristin Tassin. “If kids cannot go to school and go to a working bathroom or drink out of a working water fountain. I mean, that’s just the basics.”

The improvement plans for the campuses called for the creation of professional learning communities on each campus that would meet daily to support the teachers, more professional development and training for staff and, in some cases, hiring content specialists. The principals also talked about ongoing efforts to increase parental involvement in the schools, including volunteer drives, mentorship programs and even parenting sessions meant to help provide resources for everything from discipline to helping with homework.

“We’re trying to bridge that gap between the home life and our school,” said Linda Espericueta, principal at Ridgemont Elementary, where she said parents are invited to eat lunch with their student or sit in on classes.

But with so much emphasis placed on principals monitoring the implementation of the improvement plans, board members expressed concerns about the level of district support for these campuses and whether enough was being done to address other campuses.

“Why is so much of the work falling on these poor administrators who, we’ve already talked about, are trying to feed their kids, emotionally support them, socially support them, support their parents, all of these things?” asked board president Grayle James. She joined Tassin in calling for more specifics about how the improvement plans would be executed and measured.

In addition to the three campuses identified as failing by the Texas Education Agency, the district has also selected 20 campuses that it thinks require additional support, which will be addressed in quarterly meetings with administrators and district officials.

“We’re really trying to be proactive and get in front of the data,” Evans said.

But for many, these conversations are not new, and any attempt to address struggling campuses is overdue. They echo recent debates about the distribution of academic programming in the wake of new statewide curriculum requirements for high school students. And they exist alongside conversations about last year’s districtwide shakeup of feeder patterns, which failed to address under-enrollment in Willowridge and Marshall high schools.

Those campuses also have the fewest so-called pathways or courses outlined under the recently implemented statewide graduation requirements compared to the district’s other high schools.

The board has to vote on the improvement plans at its next meeting Nov. 16.

In the meantime, board members requested more details on what it might cost to implement programs meant to retain teachers. These include offering support while they attained master’s degrees, as well as a full list of the outstanding repairs still needed and any funds available to hire content specialists to help teachers offer differentiated instruction for individual students.