The AISD Board of Trustees on Monday quickly moved through its agenda, approving an Army JROTC
program at Lanier High School (Air Force JROTC programs currently exist at
Bowie and Reagan high schools), a contract for drug abuse and violence
prevention for middle schoolers with Austin/Travis County Advocates Programs,
and three applications to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for funds under the
federal Goals 2000: Educate America Act. Stigmatized by cultural, religious,
and paranoid conservatives as a covert plot to seize control of the schools,
Goals 2000 has presumably been given a fresh start in Texas, renamed “Academics
2000.” Texas received some $29 million in Goals 2000 funds this year; to
receive those funds, the state’s 1,000-plus school districts may elect to
submit workplans to the TEA to boost the achievement of students in Grades 1-4.
AISD’s proposals, if approved, would help students in the district’s poorest
and lowest-performing schools.
Angry citizens’ participation dropped off precipitously this week, although a
few members of the public returned to excoriate Trustee Liz Hartman for what
they perceived as her undercutting of Trustee Loretta Edelen’s “Six Point
Plan.” Among other things, the plan called for “full restoration of funding for
the lowest socioeconomic level schools,” an apparent (but erroneous) reference
to the 16 former “priority schools.” The board learned during its last budget
cycle that many other schools in AISD not designated for “priority” status
(including several middle schools) have just as great or even greater numbers
of low-income children as the 16 priority schools. Changes in federal funding
guidelines last year for economically disadvantaged students forced the
redistribution of about $1 million among all low-income campuses. Trustees
effectively ended the eight-year-old Priority Schools program by not devising a
way to make up the difference for schools that lost funding due to the
redistribution.
Edelen’s fellow trustees had consistently been unwilling to adopt the “Six
Point Plan”in toto, believing her initiative to be out of the board’s
purview. But Hartman was the one who stuck her neck out. She introduced a
substitute resolution (which passed) at the last board meeting that she
believes pays heed to the concerns raised in Edelen’s Six Points, but does so
within the long-term goals and other policies previously adopted by this board.
For this, Hartman was termed “discourteous and conniving” by one speaker.
In other board action, trustees approved hiring O’Connell, Robertson &
Associates to design and construct classroom additions at Cook, Harris, and
Wooldridge Elementary Schools. The firm of Jessen, Inc., Architects and
Planners, was selected to do classroom additions to Boone and Kocurek
Elementary Schools. The construction is part of an emergency overcrowding
relief plan and not part of the district’s upcoming bond package. Speaking of the bond package… On February 3, the day the board adopted the
bond election order, the board voted unanimously on a resolution introduced by
Vice President Jerry Carlson to keep all new school construction 300 feet away
from any critical environmental feature. This, instead of voting on a much
stronger motion by Geoff Rips to shun any secondary school construction on the
recharge zone of the Edwards Aquifer. Rips, Edelen, Diana Caste�eda, and
Ted Whatley tried to keep Rips’ resolution afloat, but were outnumbered by the
rest of the board. We’ll have more about why they voted as they did and what it
means for the future in a story next week.
This article appears in February 16 • 1996 and February 16 • 1996 (Cover).