To
borrow a pet phrase from AISD’s top dog, Jim Fox, the pains of a “learning, changing, growing
organization” are certainly beginning to emerge. With new principals at the
helm at over two-thirds of the district’s schools, employee/supervisor
skirmishes were bound to flare up — and the sparks are a-flying. In March,
teachers whose contracts are not being recommended for renewal were notified of
their lame-duck status. Among those is Monica Gambrah, a fourth grade teacher
at Winn Elementary School in Northeast Austin. But the Winn community, which is
predominantly African American, won’t let Gambrah go without a fight.
At the regular meeting of the AISD Board of Trustees on Monday, over a dozen
speakers went to the microphone and testified on Gambrah’s behalf, urging the
board to reject the administration’s decision not to rehire Gambrah. The
problem, they insist, lies not with Gambrah (who is a veteran black teacher),
but with Winn’s new principal, Suzie Cunningham (who is white). Cunningham,
they say, has treated the teacher — and them — rudely. Among the speakers was
young Antonia Edwards, a student at Winn. Antonia’s main objective behind
appearing before the board was to shed light on what she and her mother
characterize as an ongoing conflict between them and other Winn personnel
(including Cunningham). But having once been a pupil of Gambrah’s, Antonia
said, “It’s just not right to move her,” before bursting into tears.
What’s going on? At press time, Gambrah had not made herself available for
comment, and calls to Cunningham were swiftly deflected to AISD central
administration. But it seems that Gambrah’s non-renewal comes on the heels of a
grievance she filed against Cunningham. Winn parents, who have been
dissatisfied with the entire timbre of the school for years, obviously see a
connection and have, of their own volition, taken up “Mrs. G’s” cause.
In some respects, this case evokes another memorable incident in school
district history. Not since the groundswell of support in 1995-96 for ousted
LBJ High School principal Eddie Orum have African American parents rallied as
forcefully around an embattled AISD employee as they have in behalf of Gambrah.
But this time around, most of the usual African Americans who routinely appear
before the school board have been absent from the arena. Instead, a distinctly
different group has coalesced. A true school community is protesting, arguing,
complaining, letting the big dogs know: “We are here.” Dagnabbit, Fox is right.
AISD is a learning, changing, growing organization. Not much fun, is it?
In board business: Trustees were asked to review a proposal for interim relief
from overcrowding at a dozen schools, while major additions and renovations
under the bond program are being completed. In most cases, the main strategy
would be to shuffle students around to new portable buildings, which would go
up on the campuses while construction is going on. Surprisingly, two of the
more strained schools, located in Southwest Austin — Bailey and Covington
Middle Schools — are only asking for one new portable each. This truly rankled
Geoff Rips, the only board member to vote against the Southwest Austin relief
areas as they have been defined by AISD administration. The real possibility of
a new middle school, smack on top of the Edwards Aquifer recharge or
contributing zones, could loom ahead.
Parents of children at Southwest Austin schools (such as Bailey and Covington)
have been on the forefront of the “We’re bursting at the seams! Build it
YESTERDAY!” campaign. Environmentalists and South/Southeast Austin residents
want to see new secondary schools built away from environmentally sensitive
regions, in South and Southeast Austin. So Rips, um, ripped into the
notion that Bailey’s and Covington’s needs in the interim could be handled with
only one portable building. What, he asked rather facetiously, “phenomenal
growth” won’t overrun those campuses while the construction is going on? “It
just flies in the face of everything we’ve been hearing for the last two or
three years,” he argued.
Deputy Superintendent Kay Psencik countered that Bailey and Covington will
indeed still be strained during construction, but campus officials will
brilliantly handle it, by ensuring that every corner of the building is used at
all times. This answer still did not placate Rips, who was very plainly dug
into this matter. Why? A glaring, obvious, option to the overcrowding problem
remains — and was not even proposed by AISD administrators. Martin Junior
High, in Central East Austin, is under-enrolled and could easily handle
overflow or transfer students from Bailey and Covington. In that vein, Liz
Hartman proposed that the board at the very least discuss capping enrollment at
schools that are frankly, stuffed to the gills. Trustees are slated to approve
the interim relief proposal some time in May.
This article appears in April 18 • 1997 and April 18 • 1997 (Cover).