Backers of an effort to convert Dallas ISD to a home-rule district
Thursday night struggled to win over a crowd of frustrated parents,
teachers and activists.
State Rep. Jason Villalba, Dallas City
Council member Jennifer Staubach Gates and others leading a town hall
meeting on the issue in northwest Dallas were interrupted on several
occasions. They were asked why the campaign is moving so fast, who is
funding it, what a new governance structure might look like, and why
none of their promotional materials were published in Spanish.
Attendees appeared largely unsatisfied with the answers.
“We’re
at a crossroads here,” said Villalba, R-Dallas, who is also a DISD
parent. “This is a new process. We need your input. This is not
something that is meant to be done by billionaires from another place.
This is meant to be done by you.”
Villalba acknowledged that many
concerns appear to be centered on possible governance changes. He said
that he would not support a school board with members who are all
appointed by the mayor.
“I can tell you right now: Having appointees appointed solely by the mayor is off the table,” he said.
The
session at the Preston Royal Library was in a hot room that was not
nearly large enough to accommodate the crowd that showed up. It was one
of three town hall meetings held Thursday night by Support Our Public
Schools, the group leading the initiative. The organization launched a
petition drive this month to change DISD to a home-rule district.
Villalba
and Gates hosted the event. Both have endorsed the campaign. The other
meetings were in South Dallas and Pleasant Grove.
Rene Martinez,
leader of the District 3 chapter of the League of United Latin American
Citizens, said the Pleasant Grove meeting was orderly. But he said the
home-rule supporters “got kind of shellacked in terms of a lot of
opposition.”
Similar issues were raised at that meeting, Martinez said.
“What is the rush on this thing?” he said. “Why not start the process again and include people? Who’s behind this?”
Mayor
Mike Rawlings and other supporters say that changing to home-rule would
free the district from burdensome state rules. It could mean an earlier
school start date and a modified curriculum, though the STAAR state
exams would still be required.
Three sources told The Dallas Morning News
this month that the idea was pitched to them with a goal of
establishing a new governance structure, perhaps under the mayor’s
oversight. Rawlings has declined to publicly share specific goals,
saying the process would start with a blank sheet of paper and community
input.
A never-before-used 1995 state law allows school districts
to switch to a home-rule format. If 5 percent of DISD’s registered
voters sign the petition, the school board will have to name 15 people
to a commission to rewrite the district’s charter.
The charter
would then have to be approved by local voters and the state education
commissioner. Organizers hope to have it on the November ballot.
Support
Our Public Schools, also known as SOPS, is financially supported by
Hillcrest High graduate John Arnold, a Houston philanthropist and former
Enron trader and hedge fund manager, and other, anonymous donors.
State
records show the group was formed in November as a tax-exempt 501(c)(4)
nonprofit. Louisa Meyer, chair of the Dallas ISD Citizens Budget Review
Commission, is one of the organization’s five board members. She was
among the meeting leaders at the northwest Dallas meeting.
She addressed whether the names of donors would be publicized.
“It’s the privilege of the donors to remain anonymous,” Meyer said, to a chorus of boos.
SOPS
has declined to say how many of the required 24,459 signatures it has
collected since launching the drive earlier this month.
Thursday’s
forum followed a tough meeting last week between Rawlings and Hispanic
leaders at an East Dallas church. At that gathering, the mayor spoke for
about 10 minutes and was interrupted twice. He walked out after the
second interruption.
On Wednesday, DISD Superintendent Mike Miles
said he believed his schools could improve without becoming a home-rule
district. Miles declined to take an official position on the home-rule
effort, but he shot down the key reasons that advocates are citing for
the campaign. Specifically, he said state law, the Texas Education
Agency and the DISD school board have not stood in the way of his
efforts to overhaul the district.
That’s not consistent with the
message Rawlings, a staunch Miles ally, has been spreading in his
attempt to sell people on home-rule. The mayor and others have argued
that the district has performed so badly that it cannot be fixed without
a radical transformation.
Thursday’s meeting was disrupted
several times by frustrated opponents of the plan. In almost every case,
the meeting organizers ignored them, saying that only questions that
were written down would be answered.
Organizers did answer
numerous written questions, but many others could not be addressed in
the allotted hour. They promised to post the questions and answers on
the group's Facebook page.
Local activist Carlos Quintanilla
refused to be ignored. He demanded to know why the meetings did not also
include opponents of the home-rule effort.
“Because this is not a debate,” Villalba said. “Tonight is a town hall forum.”
Quintanilla promised: “We’re not going to make it easy for you!”
Follow Scott Goldstein on Twitter at @sgoldstein.
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