What the hell is going on with the HISD board? (Houston: apartments, rental)

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by travelguy_73

I live in the Bellaire zone, but only a few blocks from the Westbury zone. HISD could turn Westbury around within a single school year if the zoned Westbury kids didn't flee for Bellaire, Lamar, and Westside (which, BTW, is a heck of a drive each day!). Bellaire/Lamar/Westside would still be great schools and Westbury would become a real contendor. I don't know how you get from here to there, though. People don't want to socially experiment with their own kids.

I noticed that the way HISD was forced to shut down some of its elementary magnet programs was that so many zoned students went to the elementary schools that they had no more space for the non-zoned students. If more zoned students went to Bellaire, Lamar, and Westside, not as many out of boundary students could go there.

[Clothahump]

Originally Posted by Texas Ag 93

When I first saw this on the morning news (only half paying attention), I didn't realize it was an HISD Board meeting. It was portraying a group that was so unprofessional and chaotic, that I thought was a report that had gone viral about a small organization where there had been a disagreement that had gotten out of hand.

That's our HISD for you.

Let's be honest with each other. HISD does not care about teaching the kids. All they care about is getting butts in seats to get money from the state or the fed. Education is a thing of the past, unless the kids are lucky enough to stumble across a teacher who gives a damn.

And I for one am sick and damn tired of it. I think at the next election opportunity, we should flush the entire herd down the toilet and start with fresh bodies and hopefully people who actually care about our kids getting an education.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by Clothahump

That's our HISD for you.

Let's be honest with each other. HISD does not care about teaching the kids. All they care about is getting butts in seats to get money from the state or the fed. Education is a thing of the past, unless the kids are lucky enough to stumble across a teacher who gives a damn.

And I for one am sick and damn tired of it. I think at the next election opportunity, we should flush the entire herd down the toilet and start with fresh bodies and hopefully people who actually care about our kids getting an education.

You have no idea what you are talking about. HISD does not receive state money due to recapture. HISD sends money to the State. Federal money is about $13 million per year currently, out of a total of $2 billion, so there's no incentive there. Learn to read a budget before you make specious claims.

Every teacher I've met has cared about the kids. It's what they do. I'm going to guess that you don't have a kid in HISD.

[Vicman]

By that standard I don't think any of the ISDs "care". Crosby is cutting PreK and Katy had the Hindt affair.

Since education is societally undervalued, with bad attitudes, it will be harder to get good board members (AFAIK many wannabe politicians see the school board as a stepping stone). HISD has a base of middle and upper middle class parents who support it, so this keeps the board on its toes. Wilmer Hutchins and NFISD had almost no educated wealthy parents to keep them honest.

I would prefer having the TEA remove individual board members and immediately calling a special election over the TEA removing all board members, as state governments have mismanaged districts too.

The reality is people act according to motivations. If the board gets positive motivation from the state to get its act together, maybe that'll help.

Lastly teach HISD residents that their attitudes towards education matter more than a bad board. Even with a bad teacher, or a bad board, you can still learn if you want to.

Originally Posted by Clothahump

That's our HISD for you.

Let's be honest with each other. HISD does not care about teaching the kids. All they care about is getting butts in seats to get money from the state or the fed. Education is a thing of the past, unless the kids are lucky enough to stumble across a teacher who gives a damn.

And I for one am sick and damn tired of it. I think at the next election opportunity, we should flush the entire herd down the toilet and start with fresh bodies and hopefully people who actually care about our kids getting an education.

[hbcu]

Originally Posted by WRM20

So, do you want to send your kid to a school that is awful, when they can go to a good magnet school?

How do you want this to end?

Crowd up in a big magnet school with everyone fighting to get in top 10% only to end up at the same college as everyone else? Or go somewhere, get more scholarship money cause it’s less comp and certain schools receive more attention and you still get to that same college with more ammunition?

I had relatives end up at certain colleges with way more aid than they would’ve ever received if they went to a Lamar, etc.

Certain state schools are so desperate to diversify they’ll target certain high schools and that hurts my alma mater cause their overpaying for the student we would normally get.

[Vicman]

It can end in this way "High School - If You Earn It"

Allow students to get apprenticeships if they lack desire to do academics.

The reason why many students leave zoned HISD middle and high schools is to get away from violent and apathetic students.

I recall a Latino kid at my high school saying he was glad he wasn't at Madison since he knew about predatory students who would "jump" others

Originally Posted by hbcu

How do you want this to end?

Crowd up in a big magnet school with everyone fighting to get in top 10% only to end up at the same college as everyone else? Or go somewhere, get more scholarship money cause it’s less comp and certain schools receive more attention and you still get to that same college with more ammunition?

I had relatives end up at certain colleges with way more aid than they would’ve ever received if they went to a Lamar, etc.

Certain state schools are so desperate to diversify they’ll target certain high schools and that hurts my alma mater cause their overpaying for the student we would normally get.

[hbcu]

violence is everywhere. Choose your friends wisely. We just never hear about it at other schools. You got twice the amount of students at some schools and from all over so surely it aint peaches and cream. Cause I've heard stories.

[Vicman]

Of course big zoned high schools with big magnet programs aren't violence-free, and not all of their students are angels, but an advantage they have with transfer students is that they can have them easily removed (having the transfers canceled for poor academic performance or for behavioral issues). The zoned/home schools can't do that.

The fact that currently zoned high schools can't get rid of students in that manner, short of them dropping out on their own, gives them problems. Lamar can choose over half of its students, but for the most part Worthing cannot do this.

Lamar states that students going into the magnet program must pursue the IB diploma (I don't know how much they enforce this, but this implies they require a certain level of academic standards) https://www.houstonisd.org/Page/48674 - and based on https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...Lamar%20HS.pdf - 923 of the 1,959 transfer students are in the magnet program. 637 are in "Career and Technology", 248 are "Boundary Option" (From Lee and Westside), 84 are there strictly because of the IB program, 15 are from out of district, and 52 have unspecified other reasons.

It also means run-of-the-mill disciplinary problems in zoned schools in ghettos can't be addressed because counselors may have bigger fish to fry Eulises Estrada

In deciding to try and intervene and modify Eulises' behavior, I understood early on that I was basically on my own. I knew Eulises' mother and she would scold Eulises' like I did in the beginning and he would just not learn this way. The counselors were already ultra-busy with the plethora of other problem kids and a student who was not ditching school, bringing weapons to class, stealing, threatening or attacking his/her classmates was not going to rate very high on their list of priorities. And what were they going to do with him that they hadn't already done to him anyway? The one (and last) time I sent Eulises to the counseling office the counselor dutifully came to my room and explained that of all his teachers I was the one who had the least problems with him. I knew from the beginning I was going to have to develop some way to peacefully coexist with this student for one semester.

While I've never attended zoned schools of the hood or the barrio, I've heard that they can be quite different. I had an HS friend who was a white Canadian but lived in the Hispanic east end. He went to R.P. Harris -- he said his parents, unfamiliar with American racial politics, didn't know they were "supposed" to send him to a mostly white school on the west side -- but he enjoyed the school very much. However at Holland Middle School he, in the Vanguard program, was separated from the "regular program" kids and he understood why.

Originally Posted by hbcu

violence is everywhere. Choose your friends wisely. We just never hear about it at other schools. You got twice the amount of students at some schools and from all over so surely it aint peaches and cream. Cause I've heard stories.

[Clothahump]

Originally Posted by WRM20

You have no idea what you are talking about. HISD does not receive state money due to recapture. HISD sends money to the State. Federal money is about $13 million per year currently, out of a total of $2 billion, so there's no incentive there. Learn to read a budget before you make specious claims.

Every teacher I've met has cared about the kids. It's what they do. I'm going to guess that you don't have a kid in HISD.

I am a product of HISD, and I no longer have kids in HISD. But I'm a veteran of the HISD wars.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by hbcu

violence is everywhere. Choose your friends wisely. We just never hear about it at other schools. You got twice the amount of students at some schools and from all over so surely it aint peaches and cream. Cause I've heard stories.

Different schools have different cultures.

When I was at Dowling, it had fights all the time. Madison never had any troubles. I saw one fight all year and the kids broke it up in 10 seconds. And that was basically the same group of kids.

20 years later problems at Dowling were all over the news. Same type of problems, even though it had gone from very mixed W/B/H middle middle class to roughly 3/4 Black, 1/4 Hispanic lower middle class. But the principal was the same.