Failing conduct

HISD trustees have work to do to reconnect with supporters after a shameful incident.

As Houston ISD attempts to rebuild its 10 most struggling campuses, school leaders must act quickly to address major errors made during a public meeting in which spectators were dragged out and even jailed after the board president ordered district police to clear the room.

Board President Rhonda Skillern-Jones’ decision on April 24 to abruptly eject more than 100 people who’d gathered at a public board meeting has continued to spawn questions both about her judgment and about whether she violated state open meetings law. It has also raised important questions about whether the Houston Independent School District’s own police officers lack proper training and used excessive force in forcibly removing and arresting attendees.

Some aspects of the event and arrests remain under review by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to press charges against the two people arrested that night. The office has declined to comment to the editorial board on the status of any review of the incident thus far. The DA’s office has a unit that specializes in reviewing excessive force.

Skillern-Jones and other board members must learn two important lessons from this disgraceful incident.

The first lesson is that the Texas Open Meetings Act requires leaders of all government bodies to make reasonable arrangements to accommodate the public.

It’s not clear that HISD complied given that board members provided far fewer chairs than usual for what they knew would be a large crowd, Joe Larsen, a Houston attorney and open meetings act expert, told the editorial board.

Skillern-Jones was within her rights to limit the speakers’ times during the public comment period and to try to control outbursts — as long as she was fair in how those limits were imposed, Larsen said.

However under the Open Meetings Act, she could not legally justify expelling the entire audience before the meeting was over simply because some speakers exceeded the one-minute time limit and others commented out-of-turn or clapped, he said.

Larsen said he has never heard of any board hauling out or arresting attendees during a public meeting. This is from a man who has spent 24 years serving as a volunteer attorney for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.

The second lesson is that HISD’s police officers should exercise far more restraint in using physical force and should never arrest non-violent participants at a public meeting.

At the now-infamous meeting, HISD police expelled people not only from the room, but from the entire building. In the process, at least three were manhandled, and two spent the night in jail on bogus charges that did not stick.

In the past, the ACLU of Texas has raised concerns about how HISD police and other school-based officers use excessive force against students. Now we have to ask those same questions about the treatment of parents and community members.

Skillern-Jones has expressed regret on social media for using the HISD police as her security guards, but it’s unclear whether she learned anything from her mistake. In the aftermath of the incident, she traveled in a marked HISD patrol car to the home of two parents who are among those advocating her resignation.

So far, Skillern-Jones has chosen to remain as president. Ultimately, test scores reported by the 10 schools — whether they fail again or manage to improve — may determine how long she and the rest of the board continue to lead. If even one school fails to meet guidelines, a state law could trigger the formation of a new appointed board to replace the HISD trustees as soon as January 2019.

For as long as she continues to lead, she and other board members must ensure there are always plenty of chairs available, that limits imposed on speakers are reasonable, that open meetings law is followed, that armed HISD officers do not manhandle or intimidate and that everyone who wants to participate in rebuilding HISD is regarded with respect.

Parents and community members, no matter how rowdy or passionate, are the HISD board’s best allies in its struggle to improve the district. If the board continues to treat them as adversaries, don’t be surprised when they call for someone else to be put in charge.