HISD partner would focus on academics

Hiring and school governance would fall to someone else

A Baltimore-based nonprofit floated as a potential partner for taking control of six lowperforming Houston ISD schools wants to work solely on academics and staff development at each campus, leaving an open question as to who would be responsible for hiring and governance of the schools.

Talent Development Secondary, which Houston ISD administrators named Thursday as a “possible partner” for the six schools, has no desire to manage operations of the campuses, regional director Tara Madden said.

As a result, Houston ISD administrators will likely need to find another organization willing to run day-to-day operations at the six schools, which serve 5,900 students.

Houston ISD has proposed surrendering control over hiring, curriculum and governance at those schools in exchange for a two-year reprieve from a potential state takeover of the district’s school board. That punishment is tied to the district’s failure to improve chronically failing schools.

“Most typically, we are not the ultimate decisionmaker,” Madden said in an interview Friday. “We don’t have a lot of experience operating a school.”

The threat of a state takeover, made possible by a 2015 law known as HB 1842, has sent educators across the state scrambling to find solutions that will allow their school boards to retain local control. Under the law, the Texas Education Agency must replace the school board or close campuses in any district with a school receiving five consecutive “improvement required” ratings for poor academic performance.

Weighing two options

Houston ISD has ten schools that must meet state academic standards this year to avoid triggering HB 1842. The district is also concerned about four other campuses that have failed to meet state standards for two or three consecutive years.

The district has two options for staving off punishments under HB 1842: form partnerships with nonprofits, higher education institutions or charter school networks, or close and immediately reopen campuses that serve limited grade levels with entirely new staff members. In a partnership, the district would surrender authority over staffing, curriculum and campus governance, among other powers, but still serve all grade levels and possibly retain most staff.

Keeping schools open

District administrators on Thursday floated forming partnerships at eight schools and closing-andreopening six schools, stressing the proposals are preliminary. The changes would take effect at the beginning of the 2018-19 school year.

The proposal named Talent Development Secondary as a “possible partner” at six campuses: Kashmere, Madison, North Forest, Wheatley and Worthing high schools and Henry Middle School.

The two remaining campuses, Dogan and Mading elementary schools, would possibly partner with the Children’s Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

But on Friday, Talent Development Secondary’s regional director, Tara Madden, said her organization wants to focus on its areas of expertise — which don’t include staffing and governance.

Talent Development Secondary has worked in dozens of schools across 14 states, employing research-based strategies designed to help secondary-level students in highpoverty areas. Madden said she’s had a couple conversations with Houston ISD administrators, and the organization is open to employing its areas of expertise in the district.

“We don’t want to bite off more than we can chew,” Madden said in an interview. “We know what we do well under our conditions. And we don’t want to try operating on something new. It’s not good for us, and it’s not good for those communities.”

Children’s Learning Institute representatives declined to comment about their potential involvement in Houston ISD schools, saying it’s “too preliminary.”

Houston ISD’s chief academic officer, Grenita Lathan, said the requirements related to partnerships remain unclear, leaving the district unsure of what responsibilities it must surrender. Proposed rules have been written, but they aren’t expected to be finalized until late February.

“Initially, when we received information from the state, the partnership was more about the academic focus,” Lathan said. “Partners that have experience in that area, we still feel they can make a difference and enhance our schools.”

Maintaining control

The district could face challenges in finding partners willing to run multiple campuses, given their size and the short time frame for assuming control. Houston ISD officials have said they discussed partnerships with charter school organizations, which have the most experience operating campuses, but nixed that option.

“We just did not feel at the time that they would meet our needs,” Lathan said last month. “We wanted to be able to still maintain some level of control as a district over our schools and make sure we were rebuilding our schools”

Community meetings about partnerships and close-and-reopen plans are expected to be held throughout February. School board members are expected to vote on partnerships in mid-April.