HISD runoffs will cap revamped board pending takeover
Voters in parts of Houston ISD return to the polls next Saturday to complete an overhaul of the district’s much-maligned school board, which will have four new members seated in January.
Runoff elections in District II, which covers large swaths of northern Houston, and District IV, home to parts of downtown and south-central Houston, pit four newcomers promising to refocus attention on students following months of acrimony on the board. None of the candidates earned the necessary 50 percent of the vote in November’s general election to win outright.
In District II, retired postal manager Kathy Blueford-Daniels, who earned 43 percent of the vote in the Nov. 5 general election, looks to hold off city council aide John C. Gibbs, who trailed with 22 percent.
In District IV, the race between retired HISD principal Patricia Allen and management consultant Matt Barnes figures to be close after Allen received 31 percent of the general election vote and Barnes snagged 30 percent.
While the victors are assured of taking their seats in January, their stay in power likely will be short.
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath is expected to strip power from elected trustees and appoint a replacement board in the coming months, the result of chronically low performance at HISD’s Wheatley High School and multiple findings of misconduct by school board members. HISD trustees and the district’s largest teachers union are suing to stop the takeover.
The looming threat of intervention, however, has not stopped HISD from holding elections to four seats on the nine-member board. The governance team will look dramatically different after challengers Dani Hernandez and Judith Cruz soundly defeated incumbents in November and sitting trustees from districts II and IV did not seek re-election.
After narrowly missing an outright victory in her five-candidate general election, Blueford-Daniels enters the runoff as the favorite to replace incumbent Rhonda Skillern-Jones, who is seeking a seat on the Houston Community College Board of Trustees. Blueford-Dan
iels and Gibbs both graduated from District II high schools in the mid-1970s — Wheatley and Booker T. Washington, respectively — and serve as community activists primarily on the city’s northeast side.
Blueford-Daniels said her managerial experience and dedication to reforming a dysfunctional school board should propel her to victory.
“I want to be that conduit between the administration and HISD, to find out what people in the community want for their children,” Blueford-Daniels said. “I know we won’t be directly engaged with administration and the schools, but I think I can relate to them.”
Gibbs said his deep ties to the district, burnished as a community outreach liaison for Houston City Councilmember Michael Kubosh for the past six years, give him the edge over BluefordDaniels.
“You need to know personalities
and people and issues that are indigenous to those particular schools and communities,” Gibbs said. “I know what the issues have been, and nobody is looking at the systemic problems that have to be solved.”
Blueford-Daniels and Gibbs both advocate for returning more vocational programs to high schools in District II, many of which have ranked among the lowest-performing in the state in recent years, and fostering more stable leadership in the principal ranks.
The candidates differed on applying for the potential state-appointed board, an option open to all candidates and elected trustees. Blueford-Daniels said she does not plan to apply, preferring to use her time without power to build trust among the elected trustees. Gibbs, who declared in October that he supported state intervention, said he plans to apply for the position amid concerns that an appointed board could close campuses.
In District VI, which featured four candidates on the general election ballot, voting patterns indicate Allen and Barnes boast strong bases of support.
Allen scored her biggest victories in precincts located south of downtown Houston and east of Highway 288, which are home to more lower-income and black voters. Barnes earned wide margins in Montrose, Midtown and the southwest I-610 Loop, areas with more affluent and white voters.
Barnes far outpaced Allen in campaign fundraising and endorsements, while Allen boasted strong name recognition as the principal of District IV’s MacGregor Elementary and daughter of state Rep. Alma Allen, DHouston.
Allen, a 35-year veteran of the district, has touted her experience as teacher and administrator while pledging to increase the board’s attention to student achievement.
“I know how the budget process works, what’s expected of the superintendent,
what can be done and where,” Allen said. “I was retired, and I saw that the focus was not on the children. My goal is to have it refocused on them.”
Barnes, who has served on several nonprofit governing boards and counsels families navigating school systems, has vowed to direct considerable resources to raising literacy rates in HISD. He also said HISD should better engage parents in their children’s education.
“I really don’t think of this as a competition, but as a choice between two folks with different sets of skills,” Barnes said. “I believe I’m prepared because of my governance experience, dealing with presidents who have struggled or budgets that were upside-down or a vision that was questionable.”
Barnes said he has applied to join the state-appointed board, while Allen said she intends to file an application.
If elected trustees are not seated on an appointed
board, they will maintain their titles but lack any power to conduct district business. Elected trustees would be phased back onto the board no earlier than two years after losing their authority.
Early voting continues through Tuesday.