Watching the clock

HISD deserves another chance to fix its problems, but time is running out.

When the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1842 and imposed harsh sanctions for nonperforming schools, few in Houston heard Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath wind the clock. But three years later and with 10 campuses in Houston Independent School District at risk of triggering these sanctions, the tick-tock signaling the end for the status quo has become deafening.

For too long, black and brown students attended these low performing schools without meaningful help from the board. Kashmere High School has been on the improvement required list for eight years. Two entire cohorts of students — freshmen through seniors — have graduated without being offered a quality education.

There’s no question that the HISD board of trustees has wasted time on fiscal mismanagement, grandstanding, political agendas — everything except a laser focus on what is best for the students.

Rather than impose penalties, Morath has the opportunity to reset his clock and give our community more time to address the problems plaguing the nation’s seventh largest school district.

The devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey offers him the legal option to provide academic accountability waivers to the 10 schools at risk.

The point of HB 1842 isn’t to take over failing campuses or replace bad board members, it was crafted to force a school board to focus on schools that need help. Now, as the bell is about to ring, HISD and our entire community have finally started to pay serious attention to these schools. Morath should give them more time to continue this mission.

An extra year will also give the next state Legislature time to take up school finance, fix our broken system and adequately fund our schools in the 2019 session. The responsibility of funding the public schools shouldn’t be shunted off onto the private sector. It’s the job of our elected officials in Austin, a job they’ve been reluctant to accept.

Experienced teachers deserve worthwhile wages. No teachers should have to buy paper and pencils for their classes. Boards should be structured with atlarge representatives to ensure no campus goes ignored.

But a waiver of the accountability issue doesn’t mean that Morath should stop the clock on HISD governance issues.

The Houston community, not the state, is in the best position to solve the district’s problems. The current challenge for local leaders is that a turnaround will require investment from the business and philanthropic community, and there is real reticence to put significant resources behind any effort led by this board of trustees.

Last week’s board meeting was more civil than recent ones — no one was arrested — but it was far from productive. Our city deserves a governing body composed of members who are focused on all students, not just those in the trustee’s district.

If the trustees continue to be unable to govern effectively, don’t be surprised when even the most strident HISD boosters applaud if Morath fires our factious board and replaces it with a board of managers.

There’s no guarantee that this will improve student achievement. In other communities TEA-appointed board of managers have inspired mixed results. But we’re rolling the dice every day with some of these trustees and their harmful antics.

Again we reiterate a call for HISD supporters to prepare for a worst case scenario and assemble a list of Houstonians to serve on a potential board of managers. Look for people from diverse backgrounds who have some business or leadership skills and can boast a record of putting children first.

This board could assess if acting superintendent Grenita Lathan is the right person to carry the district forward or could choose to hire a different leader. With a different board of managers for four years, HISD could have the credibility to conduct a national search for a superintendent.

Although Houstonians have been mostly deaf to the problems at Kashmere High and the other low-performing schools, they now hear Morath’s clock loud and clear. If the community doesn’t come together, sanctions will affect the course of people’s lives, where they go to school, where they work — and the way the nation views Houston.

Tick-tock. Time is running out.