Ten Million More for Fort Bend ISD?

I’m still skeptical that school districts will see one penny of the $830 million federal education dollars that the US Department of Education recently approved for Texas with the repeal of the Doggett Amendment.

Still skeptical.

Why would Rick Perry alter his MO and do the right thing for Texas public education? Why, when he virtually robbed public education of $3 billion in 2009 in the budget shell game he played with that money.

But according to this article in FortBendNow, the FBISD CFO seems confident that based on the district’s Weighted Average Daily Attendance number, the district should receive ten of that $830 million.

I am the other way, and tend to doubt that the district will see any of that. But if by some remote chance I should be proven to be wrong and the funds come rolling in, then I would like to suggest an answer to what the district CFO doesn’t know the answer to: what to do with that extra funding.

Rehire the RIFed.

Classroom Teachers being the priority.

Early Voting Has Begun in the May Local Elections

Tip O’Neill wisely once said “All politics is local.” Nothing is more local than a school board election. Electing people to the Board of Trustees has a daily impact on tens of thousands of lives.

Now, more than ever.

As the state legislature contemplates sending insufficient funds to the state’s school districts, quite against the constitution I might add, and school boards have to decide how to allocate increasingly scarce resources, now it is more critical than ever that voters go to the polls and vote in school board elections.

Now I don’t live in Lamar CISD but I know two remarkable women who are running for two seats on Lamar’s Board of Trustees. I couldn’t recommend more highly that voters in that school district cast their votes for Julie Thompson and Lynn Franklin. Thompson is running for re-election. She knows the job inside and out, sincerely cares about education, and has children attending schools in the district. Lynn Franklin I remember from the days when the Grand Parkway  was going to be extended to the south as a toll road. Franklin worked actively to put a stop to that one.

In the Fort Bend ISD BOT election, which I just voted in, I voted for Dr. Jonita Reynolds. Her opponent simply did not care enough to put up a campaign at all and no one knows much about her. Dr. Reynolds has a PhD in Education and is a former classroom teacher. We need teachers on the board of education.

I also voted for Kevin Daniels, also an educator, who has taught at several levels in public education. He’s raw and will need training up, but he is also very sincere. He is also the only educator running for that seat, and like I said, we need educators on the BOT.

And finally I voted against Susan Hohnbaum. If I wanted a rubber stamp on the school board, I would have gone and bought them one.

Early voting numbers are low, as always. I believe the first day saw 571 voters show up in Fort Bend ISD polls, with numbers higher in areas where there are city elections as well as school board elections.

So go and vote. And if you want to vote my slate you could do worse.

Teachers’ Union Endorses Dr. Jonita Reynolds for School Board

It came as no surprise to me that the Fort Bend Employees Federation endorsed the candidacy of Dr. Jonita Reynolds in her contest for Position 5 on the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees. First, because her opponent Patsy, Taylor, was a no-show at their recent candidates forum and did not submit answers to the union’s questionnaire, something that disallows any endorsement whatsoever.

Indeed, from what I am told, Taylor has been conspicuously absent from this race.

But really, that fact notwithstanding, the union simply picked the best candidate sitting on the speaker’s platform last Thursday. Reynolds wowed the audience with her firm and complete knowledge of the matters at hand in school board politics. She has this quality of seeming to look at things with an eye that can truly see the big picture.

No, there was no surprise in that endorsement.

The surprise, I think, is that although there are 3 seats up for election this year, this was the union’s only endorsement. They declined to endorse anyone running in the at-large race though the field was 4-people deep, and with an incumbent to boot. They also declined to endorse anyone running for the Position 1 seat.

Anyway, this was a great choice. Dr. Reynolds, obviously, is a Democrat as her spouse, is the Hon. Ron Reynolds D-Missouri City and I think they agree on most things. But you shouldn’t vote for Dr. Reynolds because both you and she are Democrats, and you shouldn’t not vote for Dr. Reynolds because you are a Republican. You should vote for Dr. Reynolds because we have an opportunity to elect a truly thoughtful and caring person to a school board where being mean and nasty has been a way of life for so many years.

Dr. Jonita Reynolds on the Three Most Important Issues Facing Fort Bend ISD

Dr. Jonita Reynolds, running for Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees, did finally show up last night at the Fort Bend Employees Association candidate forum. Her timing was exquisite. I saw her coming in the door and she saw me. We exchanged smiles and then she rushed up to the dais where Kevin Daniels was winding up his take on the three most important issues facing Fort Bend ISD.

Daniels was the last candidate to comment.

So just as he was finishing, up goes Dr. Reynolds and she sat at her place on the end. Karrie Washenfelder, the moderator for the evening introduced her and then restated the question.

Without batting an eye, and within a minute of entering the room, Dr. Reynolds dove right in.

Here is what she said (mostly, she really talks fast sometimes):

"There are a number of issues that are facing Fort Bend Independent School District. The plenary issue is the need for all of us to see the district as a complex system. In its totality there are a number of key ingredients that make the district successful. Every stakeholder, business owners, our teachers, the students, the parents, the community leaders, each plays a role in the success of achievement of all of our children. And the need, as I have expressed when I have been going around talking to others, the need for us to work together throughout the community is key to the success and is the number one priority. We can’t fix one thing without being able to anticipate the unintended consequences of impasse of the decisions that have been made. So the system’s approach to the district is first and foremost the number one issue is to that is we need to see that system and approach the solution in a systematic way. "

"The second issue is communication. Whether that communication is perceived as a lack of communication, or mis-communication, or no communication. To not have it begets distrust. I talked to a number of stakeholders within this complex system, for whatever reason there is a sense and perception that the communication is not forthright. And it is important that we have ongoing communication. We listen and talk to each other in a consistent manner, with our teachers because they are indeed the number one asset that will help to help transform the lives of our students. And so I believe that we can minimize what appears to be a lack of transparency and honesty if we can enhance the communication system between groups."

"And last and certainly not least, funding debt remains a challenge but it cannot ever be done on the backs of our children. We cannot sacrifice what is most important and that is educating our children in an excellent manner so that they can compete successfully."

FBISD Board of Trustee Candidate Forum

A representative of The Fort Bend Employees Federation asked me to post this announcement on the website. Don’t know why. My six readers already know about it. But if you by any chance didn’t hear about it, go and see the candidates for Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees. See them and judge them for yourself. I know I have to reconsider my judgment in one of the races as I clearly do not know the difference between Clayton Alpaugh and Bruce Albright. I kept getting them confused in the last election and the confusion seems to have resurfaced.

Again I am sorry for any stress or inconvenience that my simple honest mistake may have caused, especially to the 15 who had to view the mis-attributed video. It was a mistake of identity due to faulty memory and nothing else.

Press release follows:

FBISD Board of Trustee Candidate Forum

to be Hosted By Fort Bend Employee Federation

Sugar Land, TX - March 29, 2011 - With the current state budget crisis as a backdrop, the Fort Bend Employee Federation will host a "Cake and Coffee with the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustee Candidates" at 7:00 PM, Thursday, March 31, 2011. 
 
The event will be held at the Sugar Land Marriott Town Center Square Conference Center and is open to the general public.

Audience members will have an opportunity to receive a copy of the candidate questionnaire published by the Fort Bend Employee Federation.  Answering the questions presented in the questionnaire is a prerequisite to participating in the event as well as making the candidate eligible for endorsement by the Federation. Attendees will have an opportunity to submit questions to the candidates as well as enjoy cake and coffee immediately following the event.

Thursday, March 31, 2011 7:00 PM
Sugar Land Marriott Town Center Square Conference Center
16090 City Walk
Sugar Land, TX 77479

Betty Baitland is Back

FortBendNow is reporting that Stafford Municipal School District, a district that borders Fort Bend ISD (and was once a part of it) has hired Fort Bend ISD’s former superintendent, Dr. Betty Baitland, as its interim superintendent.

Dr. Baitland was ousted by a reactionary neoconservative school board in 2006. That was, you might already know, the last year that Fort Bend ISD had a budget that ran in the black. Deficit spending became the norm after Dr. Baitland left and the school board started firing cannon shells into the deck.

Stafford Municipal School District isn’t short on the smarts. It removed itself from Fort Bend ISD when school children living within Stafford city limits kept getting the short shrift even though the city, with its heavy industry presence and lucrative tax base, contributed mightily to the district’s coffers.

And now they have taken advantage of Fort Bend ISD’s short-sightedness again.

Have to say it again. I love irony.

Nine File For Three FBISD Board of Trustee Seats

Awhile ago I mused to myself about who on Earth would ever want to serve on the Fort Bend ISD school board right about now? The state legislature is making noise about short-changing Texas’ school districts to the tune of billions of dollars. No good can come of that. Draconian decisions will have to be made on the order of whether it is better to cut off one’s left hand or right foot.

Or worse. They might have to decide that public education is something worth keeping around for awhile, but to do so they might just have to raise taxes.

In Texas, deciding to raise taxes is, well, akin to being hit by a 10 meter high tsunami: nothing good will come of it.

So, yeah, rock, meet hard place.

But much to my surprise, today, the filing deadline for the May 14^th 2011 BOT election, I come to find that nine brave souls have filed to fill three seats. And only two of them are incumbents.

As reported before, Jonita Reynolds filed for the East Side Position 5 that is being vacated by former “Gang of 4” board member Laurie Caldwell who has called it a day (and in my opinion, called that well). Unelectable is a word that might just describe the soon-to-be former board member. Additionally, we see that Patsy Taylor and Rodrigo Carreon, both of Fresno, have filed for this position. I know Rodrigo. He is a perennial candidate who has actually surpassed Harold Stassen in his bids to occupy a vast plethora of county and municipal positions, both paid and unpaid. Rodrigo actually has his own name engraved in a seat in the FBISD boardroom. OK, I exaggerated on that one. Let’s just say he knows the way to the boardroom.

Patsy Taylor. I don’t know about her.

David Menendez has drawn two opponents in his bid to be retained on the BOT for another two years on his At Large Position 4 seat. A bid that should see sure and certain failure. Menendez hasn’t a prayer. Bruce Albright, who ran in the 2009 election, and lost, has a website up and I am starting to see campaign signs for him up in the neighborhood. He probably has a good chance of knocking Menendez off the board. A third person, Kevin Daniels of Missouri City, an “English Lecturer” has also filed.

Kevin Daniels. I don’t know about him.

But the big surprise is that the West Side Position 1 seat, currently occupied by Susan Hohnbaum, a candidacy that was unopposed for much of the month-long filing period, also drew not one but two challengers: Kyle Brantley and Wade Watassek, both of Sugar Land. Brantley lists is occupation as “Marketing” and I assume by that he doesn’t mean what I just did earlier today when I went out to pick up some milk and eggs. Watassek says he is in “Risk Analysis” although the only Wade Watassek I could locate was married to a teacher in Fort Bend ISD. Same guy, I think.

Anyway, it looks like I will have to attend the Fort Bend Employees Federation Candidates Forum to be held at the JW Marriott in Sugar Land Town Square on March 31^st. My mind is made up on Position 5, and I think it has all but been decided in Position 4. Menendez is history and people seem to be flocking to Albright, who has a website now.

I guess I just need to figure out which of the two candidates in Position 1 is most likely to oust Hohnbaum out of the boardroom.

She just isn’t working out.

UPDATE (3/16/2011): FortBendNow is now saying that Fort Bend ISD improperly reported that Rodrigo Carreon was running for Position 5 against Jonita Reynolds and Patsy Taylor. Now we find that he is, instead, running for the At-Large seat against incumbent Menendez, Bruce Albright and Kevin Daniels. This is big news for Menendez who can now take advantage of the fact that Albright is putting his name out there - and also ran in the most recent BOT election, and Carreon has name recognition in local elections. They will most certainly split the anti-BOT vote.

Good News: Jonita Reynolds Filed For FBISD School Board

At last some good news has come out of the day.

Jonita Reynolds has filed for Position 5 on the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees. This is good news for a couple of reasons: 1) I have no need to do research on who is the best candidate, and 2) she’s the best candidate to file for school board in a long, long time.

Jonita Reynolds is herself an educator. Her full name, actually, is Dr. Jonita Reynolds as she holds a doctorate in education. Imagine that, someone on the FBISD school board who hasn’t made it their primary interest in getting FBISD school construction contracts. Someone on the board of education who actually knows something about education. Someone on the Board of Trustees that we can trust.

Someone on the school board who cares about teaching. And teachers.

You might recall that Dr. Reynolds ran for the same seat in 2008 running against incumbent and now sole surviving member of the infamous “Gang of Four” that wreaked such havoc on the board, Laurie Caldwell. Caldwell has as of this date not filed for re-election, but she has until the 14^th of this month to do so.

You might also recall, because I wrote about it, because I saw the report here, that in her 2008 race, Dr. Reynolds was subjected to a massive smear campaign in the days leading up to the May 10^th election. The claim was that Dr. Reynolds had bought her education degree. Unfortunately for Dr. Reynolds, the damage was done even though the truth emerged that her degree was not only earned at the University of Houston and not a diploma mill, but that two faculty members at U of H that taught classes she attended were none other than the former FBISD Superintendent, Dr. Betty Baitland, and the guy she succeeded.

Republican lies, also known as “damned lies” often do the trick for them.

Oh, and I guess I should also mention that Dr. Jonita Reynolds is married to one of the smartest new state representatives in Texas, the Honorable Ron Reynolds. I don’t know, is it just me or does anyone else think that she might also wield a little influence through her Austin connections?

School Closure Remains an Agenda Item In Fort Bend ISD

As reported at the KTRK website, the Fort Bend ISD board of trustees will hold yet another workshop on redistricting this evening. One of the agenda items, according to the notice is to consider the closing of a middle school and a high school, both of which are currently under-enrolled. Not mentioned in that article, but certainly on the minds of the parents of hundreds of Colony Bend Elementary School students is the possibility of closing that school. That possibility has alternately risen and then dropped below the radar.

The possibility of this closure is now found only here.

But I have to say that based on what we are seeing coming out of the State Comptroller’s office, the likelihood of an elementary school closure seems more and more probable.

Susan Combs, who in the past made herself felt in Texas schools as the State Agricultural Commissioner when she issued edicts that forever changed the rules on access to “junk food” in public schools, is at it again, once again making her presence known in Texas public schools.

Susan Combs wants to trim $558 million from the state’s education budget simply by increasing the statutory class size limit from 22 in the state’s Kindergarten through 4^th grade classes. In doing so, this would require the services of 12,000 fewer specialists in early childhood pedagogy, also known as elementary school teachers.

So Fort Bend ISD, in considering an elementary school closure, and consolidation of classes in a redistribution of Colony Bend students, appears to be ahead of the curve.

Ahead of a curve that, arguably, decreases student performance, only because student performance increased when the lower class size limit was instituted all those years ago.

So should Fort Bend ISD parents be concerned? Undoubtedly. What can they do about it? How about step up? Now that we have a super-majority Republican presence in the state house, including a bunch of something for nothing Teabaggers, Fort Bend parents, if they want to maintain the current quality of education that their children currently enjoy, need to step up as the Republican majority in the House, and the Republican-dominated executive branch, including the TEA and the Comptroller’s office find a way to step back.

Step up or accept mediocrity.

Why Education is Poised on the Brink of Disaster and No One Cares

It’s all here at FortBendNow. Fort Bend ISD, a local school district held a workshop meeting this week in which the discussion was going to be based on redrawing school zone boundaries to meet the fluctuations in school populations.

Parents were arrayed all over the board room sporting printed T-Shirts that they had paid to put forth their own agendas.

“FBISD Don’t Divide New Territory,” read one. Yet another pleaded with the board to “Keep Sienna Together.” New residents in the Telfair community sported T-shirts that said, alternately,“Don’t Divide Telfair” and “Choose Telfair High School Number 12.” Yet another wore the shirt that asked them to“Be Fair To Chelsea Harbor.”

School boundary lines, it seems, evokes strong feelings among the parents in the community.

Board President Sonal Bhuchar, seeing the array of beshirted people decided to try and let them know what it is that they were concerned with, as opposed to what the parents seemed mightily concerned with: the budget.

From FortBendNow:

“Before we open up discussion, I want to take two minutes to explain what I think the board understands very well, but to explain to the community the framework within which we are trying to work. Rezoning is a very, very difficult situation – always stuck between a rock and a hard place. As we go into this I want to make sure all in this room know we are not drawing arbitrary lines. As a board I want to remind everybody that we are working with a very severe budget crisis.”

She went on to make the projection that state funding coming to Fort Bend ISD, according to one projection, could fall by $26 million each year. This is if education cuts face the same chopping block as other areas of the state budget.

Now this school district has been running a deficit for three years, and has recently laid off 463 teachers in order to avoid a 21 million dollar shortfall. Since the school district is already running lean, it is difficult to see where other cuts could be made. Another reduction in force is inevitable it seems.

But parents are not very concerned with that. Not as much as they are concerned with their children getting to go to the school of their choosing.

They don’t realize, it seems, that it’s not the school building that delivers the education, it is, however educators that do that job.

This is why education is doomed for a pasting in the next couple of years. Parents, that is, taxpayers haven’t yet gotten the fact that if they don’t step up and take up the slack that the state seems to be willing to extend to local districts, their schools, and the education of their children, will suffer.

Most telling is a remark by the district superintendent. The district, ironically, has funds to build more schools. They just don’t have any money to operate them (for that, read pay teachers).

And as long as parents are more concerned with what school their children attend than they are about the actual education that they receive, education faces looming disaster.

FBISD et al. Early Voting Stats

Early voting ended yesterday for the statutory local May elections in Texas. Turnout was as expected: miserable.

I know voting for president or senator or governor isn’t as sexy as voting for city council, or a MUD board, or a school board but it doesn’t get closer to home than this. It is the local elections that affect you the most. But that doesn’t ring true to the vast majority of voters in our midst.

I will never understand it. Do we have to pay people to cast a vote? Give out gold stars? Free coupons? What is it going to take to get some voter participation?

Here are the Early Vote totals for each of the elections as compiled at the Fort Bend County Elections website:

By the way, anyone can access this data. The trick is to know how to drill down through that arcane thing called the Fort Bend County Elections website. Get this, to view the Early Vote statistics on a daily basis you go to the Fort Bend County Elections website at
http://www.co.fort-bend.tx.us/Home.asp then click on “Elections” on the top menu bar, then on “Maps” on the side menu bar.

Get that? Maps.

Then you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the Maps page and you have two links you can click on, the “Early Voting by Personal Appearance Report” and the “Early Voting by Mail Report.” You have to have Adobe Reader to read the PDF files.

Anyway, it looks like the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustee race is the one most people are voting in. Again. Not in huge numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but numerous for a May election. Missouri City – which has a much smaller jurisdictional area is doing pretty well, too.

For a May election.

Just for grins, I thought I’d compare the EV turnout in the Fort Bend ISD BOT election over what has happened in past years. Here it is, by year since 2006 when the county kept separate records for Early Vote. The only thing that is truly startling is that the Early Vote numbers are down over the period of tumult on the Board when a cleaning crew was voted in, then voted out when the public reacted to their handiwork.

Really, in recent history no one recalls when hundreds of Fort Bend ISD employees were given their walking papers in light of a budget deficit. But apparently that has had little effect on voter turnout.

Look for the final numbers to be roughly double the Early Vote, if things go on trend with past elections.

Early Voting Begins Today

Oh no, not another election.

Depending on where you live you might be having a city election, a MUD election or a school board election. Saturday, May 8th is the statutory uniform election day for local elections here in Texas.

Early voting for that election begins today and extends through Tuesday, May 4th. In Fort Bend County you can find out your early voting location here at the county elections website.

The schedule varies depending on what election you are voting in so you have to click on the separate election links from there.

Now I already went and looked. In every election listed in Fort Bend County no polling location will be open on Sunday. None.

And it’s even dicey on Saturday. For instance, out of the ten early voting locations listed for a majority of the elections (the ones where one would go and vote early for the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees, for instance) only four of them are open on Saturday. So if you’re planning on voting on Saturday because you can’t make it to the polls between 7 AM and 7 PM on weekdays, make sure you go to one of these poll locations this Saturday between 7 AM and 5 PM:

Aliana Clubhouse – 17122 West Bellfort, Richmond, TX
Missouri City Community Center – 1522 Texas Pkwy, Missouri City, TX
Hightower High School – 3333 Hurricane Lane, Missouri City, TX
First Colony Conference Center – 3232 Austin Parkway, Sugar Land, TX

Everybody else will be closed on Saturday.

I’m voting tomorrow. I vote in every election. I always early vote and I always early vote on Day 2 so there are no glitches and they’re operational or have identified the problems and established the workarounds.

And no, I’m not making any endorsements on the school board election. No one would listen to me anyway.

Well . . . OK, I’ll make one anti-endorsement. I’ll not vote for Jim Rice. First because he’s a Triple R – I checked – and next because as an established vendor that has done work for the school district, he’s just too close to the situation notwithstanding the fact that his firm will not bid on district contracts if he is elected. He has even said that he will recuse himself in bid award decisions. Frankly that disqualifies him because I want a voting board member, not a non-voting one. Oh, and my third reason for not voting for Rice is one I just came up with today. Not an hour ago I listened to a voicemail message from Rice. Rice paid for a robocall ad. This is when a candidate or his surrogate records a message and then pays someone with a robophone to dial a list of numbers and deliver the recorded message.

Now I don’t hate robocalls. I kind of like them because you can do stuff with recorded messages. What I didn’t like about this particular robocall is that the message was really boring.

Compared to the robocalls I received in the Republican primary, where the attacks were absolutely bloodletting – Rocky Road with sprinkles if you will, this robocall was plain Vanilla.

No, if you’re going to make me sit through a robocall to see if you say anything really awful about your opponent, and you don’t, and it’s a really boring message besides, then you don’t get my vote.

Fort Bend Teacher’s Union Have a Candidates’ Forum

As is my usual habit, I like to cover candidates’ forums (fora?) and the Fort Bend Employees Federation, affiliated with the Texas AFT – or “The Union” sponsored a candidates’ forum for the two open seats on the Fort Bend ISD’s Board of Trustees last night. School night or no, I had to go and see who these new guys were.

The forum was moderated by FBEF President Karrie Washenfelder, and the room was about 80% full with about 60 union members present.

Both candidates for the west side position, Position 3, were present but only one of the two candidates for the east side position, Position 7, made it to the meeting – somewhat disappointing.

Disappointing in that the candidate who didn’t make it to the meeting, and the one who didn’t submit answers to the union’s survey, Dr. Gerald Hawkins, is the only consistent Democratic primary-voting candidate on the ballot. Dr. Hawkins voted in the 2008 and 2010 Democratic primaries, giving him a leg up in my book. So I was not a happy camper that he didn’t show.

Hawkins’ opponent, Jim Babb, a Houston PD police sergeant, can best be characterized as an Independent, early voting in the 2010 Republican primary, but early voted in the 2008 Democratic primary.

They say that it is a non-partisan office, but from past performances I tend to like my Democratic board members (and former board members) and have had lots of trouble with their Republican counterparts.

So it is an issue with me.

But Babb, I think, despite the fact that he can’t seem to make up his mind on politics, has a proper pro-labor point of view, something that the FBEF was looking for. This came out in a long rant that he got on in the midst of answering a question on the district’s deficit spending, its $18 million budget shortfall, and its $98 million fund balance that sits in the bank collecting interest.

Summarizing, Babb wants to establish a baseline on what parts of the fund balance must be kept in reserve, and what can be used in discretionary spending. “I agree,” he said, “It’s great to have it there, but you know, if we need to use it we need to use it. And I would say if our fund balance is considered a rainy-day fund, I would say we are kind of in the eye of a storm right now.” The implications of his thought being, from his comments further on, that the district was about to undergo a Reduction In Force (aka layoffs) and that experienced employees were not only targeted but voluntarily leaving the district. A bad, bad thing in Babb’s opinion.

Now contrast that to the two bookends who are vying in the Position 3 race. While Clayton Alumbaugh is a former teacher and school counselor of many years in the district (who voted in the 2008 and 2006 Republican primaries, but did not vote in the 2008 primary at all), and James Rice (a Triple R Republican) is a businessman whose engineering company has participated in the building of several Fort Bend ISD facilities, both agreed that having $98 million in the bank while the district struggles with its finances seemed like a very good idea.

Indeed, the only two things that contrasted Alumbaugh and Rice were their attitudes toward the RIF. Alumbaugh took a pro-labor stance, and was all for going after the administrators:

“It appears that the reductions are going to be in staff where they are taking care of math teachers here and there where it’s going to increase the size in classes and it seems to me like everything that is going to be reduced affects the students the most. And it seems to me that if I were on the board one of the first things I would do would be looking at the staff in the administration building. I’d like to know how much money they make, how much education they have, what their job is, and whether we can get rid of them or not.”

There was more, but you get the drift. You might think that this elicited a few Ooohs and Amens from the audience, and you would be right in the thinking of that.

Rice, on the other hand, was predictable. He played the Compassionate Conservative and played it well.

“When you say the words Reduction In Force we know that behind every person that might be let go is a family that has needs and bills just like all of us so it hurts to think that we would have to let anyone go. And I don’t know how they are planning to do the Reduction In Force we do have a challenge in wrestling with our budget and still providing the quality education. It takes teachers to teach the kids in our classrooms. And I don’t know I don’t have all the information right now on how they are going to go about with any Reduction In Force or even how many they will have. I think that on an annual basis there are about 500 people who retire or leave the district under normal conditions. And …but right now I’m not sure they know who is planning to do that in our economy. But I will say that our current economic challenge is a severe challenge and unfortunately I believe it is 78% of the total budget is dedicated for employees. So it’s hard to reduce $18 million without cutting in some of the employees as painful as that is.”

So among the two Republicans vying for the same seat on the Board of Trustees, I think we know who the populist is, and who the economic hardliner is, and predictably it is the educator who comes off as the populist and the businessman who is willing to make those “painful” cuts.

So just looking at this from a labor point of view, appropriate for this forum I think, it is pretty clear who pro-labor voters should opt for in Position 3.

In Position 7, I am willing to say that anyone the voters choose in that race will be just fine.

On Secrets and Public Education

Yesterday’s article in FortBendNow shows an interesting development in a local school district’s project to build a district science center, staff it, and use it to teach its K through 8 students aspects of science that cannot be taught in a typical middle or elementary school classroom.

And teach their teachers about science.

It seems that a local group of activists have asked the Fort Bend County district attorney’s office to look into the possibility that recent actions, or shall I say inactions, by the Fort Bend ISD administration are violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act.

The group has petitioned the school district to present records on specific details in regard to its feasibility study and other actions taken to promote the construction of the center, thought to be costing somewhere in the $23 to $25 million range.

Things like (from FortBendNow):

1. All documents under review by a committee the district set up to study the proposal’s feasibility
2. All comments made about the project publicly on an FBISD website
3. A list of “current committed companies and the amounts they have already donated to this project
4. All communication between members of the feasibility committee, PBK architects, FBISD Superintendent Timothy Jenney, and former Sugar Land mayor and developer David Wallace, who headed the feasibility committee
5. Any available financial disclosure statements since 2007 for Jenney.

The group claims that they have yet to receive any of these documents despite the fact that the records-release deadline has long since expired. So DA John Healey, truly a man of action, asked the Fort Bend Sheriff’s Department to look into the matter.

So that should do it. Now we’ll see some action, right?

Can anyone say “dead man in a truck in Needville?”

Now all of this took place earlier this year, but since these events, filings, and inactions the Houston Museum of Natural Science has opened its Sugar Land branch in a restored prison barracks building 3 miles from where Fort Bend ISD wants to build its science center.

It even has its own web page.

But my main point is here. They are going to be offering a wide variety of educational opportunities for the local student and teacher community.

Daytime classes ($10 per student)

Field Trips ($2.50 per student to “varies”)

Professional Development (Free - that is, sponsored - to $1250/person)

Because this makes me ask three questions:

1. If the district wants to build its own science center, what are the chances that it will want to send a single student to the museum to take advantage of their offerings?
2. In the absence of building the center, and in light of the same arguments that the district cannot afford a center, how much does anyone think that the district will have funds budgeted to take care of financing these field trips?
3. And finally, if those who oppose building the science center get their way, are these self-same people willing to kick in, say, $100 per student per year to take care of the museum fees?

Because “public education,” despite its appellation, isn’t free.

Halfway Through FBISD Trustee Early Vote

With one week down and one to go, we are now halfway through the early vote part of the May 9^th Joint Election where voters will choose between 3 rookies for one trustee seat, and between a rookie and the current FBISD board president.

And it looks like people are coming out to vote in this thing.

A few anyway.

Early vote totals for the first week stands at 1226 as of the end of the voting day on May Day. Most of the voting seems to be taking place in Sugar Land where most of the 10 early voting polling sites are located.

When I showed up to early vote at my usual place, I joked with the election workers when they asked me if I was there to vote. I said “Yes, me and three other guys.”

In this, as it turns out, I was not wrong.

In addition to the early vote, a total of 389 absentee ballots have been received of a total of 1296 that have been requested. Of these we don’t really know which of them were cast from voters who live within Fort Bend ISD boundaries, so what the heck, let’s assume all of them are.

So right now, as it stands, according to my calculations a total of 1615 ballots have been cast in the election, or about 1.061% of the total electorate within FBISD boundaries.

That’s low.

Well, we had that bad rainstorm on Monday evening and all of the school voting locations were closed on Tuesday because Fort Bend ISD decided to close all of their schools for some reason.

And then there’s the H1N1 problem that’s on a lot of peoples’ minds right now, and maybe the last thing they want to do is go to a public school campus and vote.

In 2008 the school board election attracted 14,848 voters or just over 9.76%, which is, in school board elections a huge crowd. With so many teabaggers out there who are angry about how their bond dollars are being spent, or are not being spend, or are angry over what they perceive as the superintendent’s pet project to build a Global Science Center, you would think the early vote numbers would be a little higher right now.

So I wonder what’s going on.

The Wallace Line: Private Funding Sought for Science Center

Not that you didn’t hear about this before . . .

I hate to say it. I really do. No, really I hate to say this thing that I hate to say. The thing that nobody wanted to listen to me about. The thing that . . . oh H-E-double-hockey-sticks . . . I was RIGHT as RAIN about.

In this afternoon’s FortBendNow, out comes David Wallace with the bombshell that I thought would have been delivered in about, oh . . .say, three weeks from now.

“We have had talks with private businesses and institutions that have expressed interest in the possibilities of forming collaborative partnerships to help fund the center. If we could move in that direction, we believe the center could be funded without any need to raise taxes, or take away resources already allocated for other district purposes.”

So let me translate.

In order to fund the construction of the proposed Fort Bend ISD Global Science and Technology Center, the district is looking for external sources and “collaborative partnerships.” That is, the plan is that no public funds will be involved in the construction of this center. No money to buy copy paper, no money to buy textbooks will be used to fund this “Taj Mahal.”

Gee, no kidding.

So my read of Ms. Bhuchar’s comments and cautions to her opponent had some degree of validity after all.

Why, a reader wrote in the comments section to the blog posting in question, would the district construct a “sales pitch” to the public if they already had the funds lined up?

Why indeed. Maybe they didn’t, and the feasibility study was conducted to find out if they would have it. Or maybe the “red herring” was well-played. Who knows what the truth is.

One thing is for sure, with this announcement coming out one month before Election Day rather than one week before, we will all now get to witness how or whether there is a realignment in argument. My question, asked in the previous blog is still timely:

“My question, then, is this: if the funding is found, and the Global Science and Technology Center is planned and built with this private sector funding, is there any further objection to the project? Private sector funds in this case would never be used to buy textbooks, copier paper, or pay salaries of teachers. These funds are donated with the express purpose of seeing this thing gets done.”

So the question remains: is there any further objection to the project?

And if there are now new objections to the project, where were they before?

Are we willing to look a gift horse in the mouth? Even if the gift horse will have to be called the Taj MaSchlumberger? The Fluorapalooza?

Down to The Wire: Vote For Jonita Reynolds on May 10th

Tomorrow the voters living within the boundaries of Fort Bend ISD will have a final opportunity to repudiate the “reform” Gang of Four that turned Fort Bend ISD on its ear for two memorable years.

Two years that saw mass exodus of teachers and administrators. Two years that saw hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars flushed down the commode from the expenses incurred in replacing these people, and the lawsuits that resulted from board member actions.

Two of the original gang of four are standing for re-election and are being challenged by members of the education community. Of the two, former educator Susan Hohnbaum has the easiest task to unseat trustee Stan Magee, who claims that he does not have the time to campaign for his seat – and by correlation, does not have time to serve on the Board of Trustees. So unless the voters in Fort Bend ISD are truly asleep, look for a fond farewell to Stan Magee. In the other race, however, long-time Texas educator and administrator Dr. Jonita Reynolds has the steepest slope to climb to defeat her opponent, Laurie Caldwell.

Caldwell, whose personal and educational qualifications for this position are dwarfed by those of Dr. Reynolds, apparently has attempted to make up for that in having some help from fellow board member, Steve Smelley.

Smelley, a former supporter of Dr. Reynolds’ husband’s run for state representative in HD 27, has no similar feelings toward her. So much so that a story has emerged that Smelley, in his attempts to discredit Dr. Reynolds, has suggested that Jonita Reynolds bought her PhD degree in Education. All of that blew up in his face, however, when it was revealed that two of Dr. Reynolds’ professors in her quest for the degree at the University of Houston were none other than former FBISD Superintendents Betty Baitland and Don Hooper.

These attempts to defame Dr. Reynolds by casting doubts upon her honesty and integrity must be answered by the voters. Smelley’s insinuation is actually an accusation that Dr. Reynolds is in violation of Texas law by claiming a doctoral degree from an unrecognized institution. This is a practice that was recently abandoned by a couple of Republican elected officials in Fort Bend County when they were informed that they were committing Class B misdemeanors. Voters must reject these political ploys as the disingenuous things that they are.

Show your support for education in Fort Bend ISD by showing up at the polls tomorrow, May 10th 2008, and show even more support for education by voting for Dr. Jonita Reynolds for Fort Bend ISD Trustee Position 5.

The Fort Bend County Democratic Party Endorses a Non-Partisan Candidate?

I really like how the Fort Bend ISD Trustee races are filling out nicely with candidates to challenge Trustees Bryant and Rikert. If last year’s school board elections are an indication, it is highly probable that these two board members will be replaced this coming May 12th, and a long sad chapter in the district history will come to a conclusion.

But the most recent announcement in FortBendNow, which includes lots and lots of information that voters can use to weigh their options, has one curious bit of information that is tacked on right at the end.

Apparently, Ann Hopkins, a former educator in FBISD and current administrator in the same district, has been endorsed for this non-partisan office by the Fort Bend County Democratic Party.

This is a new one for me. I wasn’t aware that the Democratic Party could endorse a candidate in a non-partisan race.

And there’s something else.

I’ve asked around, and no one recalls a vote on this.

So I am a little confused here, but in confusion I see opportunity. I’ve been thinking about this for about 45 minutes now, and am convinced that I am on to something here.

I would like this blog, Half Empty, to be endorsed as the official “blogsite” of the Fort Bend County Democratic Party. It makes huge sense to me. I am a Democrat. I author a blog in Fort Bend County. I think it’s a good blog. Maybe it goes on rants from time to time but that can only be chalked up to frustration.

So OK, here goes. All in favor of endorsing Half Empty as the official blogsite of the Fort Bend County Democratic Party signify by saying “Aye”.

AYE!

Opposed?

Silence.

The Ayes have it, motion is passed.