Houston ISD community members express skepticism over $4.4 billion bond proposal – Houston Public Media

Shawn Rushing said it was “exciting” to hear about an improvement and upgrade plan within Houston ISD, which is holding a series of community meetings to discuss a bond proposal $4.4 billion that could be put on the ballot in November.

The Madison High School graduate, whose children also attended HISD schools, was among the community members who gathered in the Fondren Middle School cafeteria Tuesday evening to hear details of the plan. District leaders want to renovate and, in some cases, rebuild aging campuses while strengthening safety, security and technology and expanding HISD’s preschool and career training programs.

But at the end of the district’s tumultuous first year under state-appointed leadership, which overhauled school curricula, made massive staff cuts in anticipation of a budget deficit and forced popular principals and teachers to leave because of their performance, Rushing said she wasn’t sure if she would vote for it.

“When you look at the presentation, who wouldn’t want all these wonderful things for children?” she says. “But we have to be able to believe that it will happen.”

“Confidence” was a frequently used term Tuesday night, when other community members said they would vote against what would be HISD’s first bond proposal since 2012. It would also be the largest bond program in school bond program in Texas history – one year after the state’s largest school bond program. The school district was taken over by state officials.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath replaced HISD’s nine elected trustees with a board of trustees and installed Mike Miles as superintendent, intervening because Wheatley High School had a string of academic failures on the part of State. Sweeping changes ensued, and community members and local elected officials responded by organizing protests and calling for investigations by state and federal agencies.

Tiffany Hogue, the mother of an HISD high school student and two middle school students, called it “tone deaf” that district leaders are seeking support for a bond and said she would not vote for it. The board has not yet decided whether the measure will be placed on the November ballot.

“We saw tonight that there was, what, a decade of deferred maintenance? We really should have already had two or three obligations at this point,” Hogue said. “There are a lot of needs in our facilities, so I think everyone wants to support them.

“But in today’s environment and climate,” she added, “when Superintendent Miles and an unelected board have spent a year ignoring what parents have told them, what teachers have told them said, what the students told them, I think it’s a really hard sell.”

Tuesday’s community meeting, like those scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Fleming Middle School and 6 to 8 p.m. Monday at Forest Brook Middle School, featured HISD administrators discussing the bond package while answering questions from the committee District Community Advisory, which is responsible for driving public engagement.

Adam Zuvanich/Houston Public Media

Committee members pressed district administrators for more data to support the proposal and also more details, such as how many students are currently enrolled in temporary buildings and which campuses would be prioritized for renovations. Some also wonder if HISD plans to close underutilized schools and consolidate campuses since the district faces a budget deficit of more than $500 million while experiencing an enrollment decline of more than 20,000 students in recent years.

Alishia Jolivette, HISD’s interim chief operating officer, said district leaders plan to address this issue next year.

“This is a conversation that HISD started later,” said advisory committee co-chair Judith Cruz, a former HISD administrator. “I started on the board in 2020 and we started these conversations, and for a myriad of reasons, we never addressed this looming issue, and it’s going to continue to be an issue.”

Still, Cruz and fellow co-chair Scott McClelland, former president of Texas grocery chain HEB, have expressed support for a bond. Cruz said there would be no other possible way to fund widespread facility upgrades in HISD, where some schools have faulty air conditioning and heating systems and others were damaged by the wind storm deadly which swept the region on May 16.

McClelland urged community members to look beyond the district’s current leadership and focus on the long-term needs of HISD and the families it serves, noting that investments made through bonds have little to do with the curriculum and would last beyond the terms of Miles and the board. managers.

“Will all the children be safe? said McClelland. “Will all the kids be able to go to a classroom where it’s not 90 degrees or 50 degrees? want that.

“So in my mind it doesn’t matter whether you like Mike Miles or not,” he added. “It’s really about, when you approach students, what is the environment that you would accept for them?”

Linda Scurlock, a retired teacher who worked at three different HISD schools from 1970 to 2006, acknowledged the district’s needs but questioned whether the $4.4 billion would be well spent.

Just like John Godchaux, the father of a HISD elementary student. He said he attended Tuesday’s meeting as a concerned parent and also because he wanted to learn more about the bond proposal, adding that he left dissatisfied with what he called ” shocking lack of detail” and inadequate responses to questions posed by members of the community advisory committee.

“The main elephant in the room is HISD leadership, who I don’t think can be trusted with huge amounts of money,” Godchaux said. “Four billion dollars seems like a lot of money to hand over to an unaccountable, unelected board and supervisor.”