By Audrey Jordan Williams
If drastic changes don’t take place soon, I predict within two-three years, Fort Bend ISD will be on a visible fast track going downhill in performance and productivity! You might think this is a fairly strong statement to make, but my observations in the last 4 months have brought me to this FINITE conclusion. Allow me to explain.
After taking notes at numerous board meetings, budget workshops, accountability reviews, zoning workshops, and town hall meetings, I organized my notes. Then I reviewed them, and grouped the responses of each board member, each speaker, each administrator, and the superintendent (Be assured, I am a meticulous note-taker)! To throw in a little flavor, I incorporated a few comments that I gleaned from Fort Bend Now on the various issues of importance. I have struggled with what has become very apparent and quite disturbing!
First, why did the Board reward Dr. Jenney with a new 5-year contract? It has become painfully clear that he is masterful at manipulation and that democracy is not evident on this board. Board meeting after board meeting I have watched him whisper to the board president. She listens attentively to the Superintendent, then begins to maneuver the board in such a way that whenever other board members present strong opposing points, her summation of all of their statements somehow comes out representing only one viewpoint, one that aligns with that of the superintendent’s! It is easy to see that, for the most part, the board has given its power, perhaps not intentionally, to the Superintendent and he is not going to give it back without a fight!
Publicly, Dr. Jenney’s answers are usually correct when it deals with information regarding district policy and regulation or information that is readily available to the public. On other topics, however, his answers are vague if not vacuous and often, just plain rhetoric.
At most recent zoning and budget meetings, Dr. Jenney appears stoic, stone-faced, and rarely has anything to contribute, but at one particular zoning meeting, even Dr. Jenney and administrator Copeland appeared to be extremely confused as to what the board was deciding. Open discussions among board members clearly showed a majority leaning toward Option 2, but with one statement from the board president, the expected outcome takes a 180 degree turn. Most in the audience were stunned! What just happened? We had witnessed a renegade in action!
At one meeting an administrator said there were no problems with McAuliffe Middle School students being housed at Willowridge High School after Hurricane Ike damaged their building. Where did he get his information from? It was mass chaos and I have teacher accounts to support that! Administrators seem to say what they think the Superintendent wants to hear!
At one budget town hall meeting, the superintendent had to refer to former State Representative Dora Olivo to answer a question as to where the state’s “rainy day fund” comes from. Isn’t this what we have been talking about asking the State to dip into to help ease the pain of the upcoming budget shortfall in Texas school districts? And it was rude of the board president to jump up and answer the question although Dr. Jenney had asked Ms. Olivo to do so. Ms. Olivo was certainly qualified to answer!
What HAS Dr. Jenney contributed to Fort Bend ISD? At least 8 former Virginia Beach administrators are now employed by Ft. Bend ISD whose salaries, including Dr. Jenney’s, come close to $1M if not greater. Under Dr. Jenney’s leadership, the district released 450 employees a year ago. Under his leadership, we have now requested a second emergency exigency status from the State. And, although our bond debt is excessive, a GSTC was put on the agenda for consideration. How deep in the hole must the district go before the Board recognizes that fiscal responsibility has gone awry and changes need to be made quickly!
Second, why do we have so many administrators anyway? We have approximately 44 administrators who make more than $100,000 annually. Yet, the board has never mentioned that it will determine if some of those positions could be merged or even eliminated. Instead, the board is scheduling weekly budget meetings to discuss decisions that are to be action items on the same night! The results! FBISD teachers are RIFFED yet again! And what of the teachers who survive the RIF? With lower budgets and over-sized classes, morale is certain to decline! On one hand, teacher absences will likely increase due to stress-related health issues. Can you imagine 24-30 middle school students in one single classroom ? Just dealing with that many students is and of itself stressful! And to keep a valid teacher-student ratio, the district will employ substitutes to fill long-term positions as certified teachers exit the field of education in frustration and disappointment. On the other hand, our administrators will become extremely creative in manufacturing ways to look as if they are busy and productive.
Third, our board, which was voted to represent the interests of ALL students of Fort Bend
ISD, are now politicians, representing their constituents. If they live in west Ft. Bend, they vote in the interest of west Ft. Bend. If they live anywhere in Fort Bend, they vote in the interest of their neighborhood or surrounding communities, and if they live in east Ft. Bend, they attempt to compromise in order to get elected or re-elected. A 7-member district will insure that every school in Fort Bend will get an equal opportunity to be fairly represented on the board. That is something that should be seriously looked into.
Fourth, I shudder at the use of this word, but, this is what Fort Bend has become: hypocritical! We teach tolerance, but we practice separatism, racism, and inequality! We allow schools to be dangerously over-crowded in order to keep those children isolated from those that are different, both in culture, language, and economy. Isolationism can not and will not ever be a pathway to tolerance. Believing that any one group is superior to another is the first evidence of pride. And we all know that pride comes before the fall. And if serious and fair steps are not taken, the fall indeed will come.
There are solutions to the problems and a RIF does not have to be a part of the solutions. Here are my recommendations:
- Mandate that every administrator and principal take a 10% cut in salary, if he or she makes more than $100,000 annually.
- Temporarily house the Baines kids at Ridge Point.Move the Ridge Point students to Baines temporarily. That will at least keep everyone in their community until a viable and long-term solution can be found.
- Take the number of high schools in the district and divide that number into the number of high school students in the district, then draw zoning lines that will give all high schools close to the same number of students. Each school will likely be eligible to take in out-of-district transfers which could lighten the weight of the deficit. This procedure could be done with middle schools as well as elementary schools. Every school would be fully utilized and no school would be over-crowded. And this would certainly cut down on the need to re-zone every two years.
- Cancel all academies and send all students back to their home campuses. While academies are a drawing card, they are also very expensive to operate and a budget shortfall insures the district won’t be able to continue to fund them. This would also save money in transportation cost. While some academies are more popular than others, they are also contributing to the over-crowding at some of the schools. If you are going to keep the academies, then every high school should have one. Hightower has 3 while Willowridge has 1 which will close at the end of this school year. Move the Medical Academy at Hightower to Willowridge. That would increase their enrollment by almost 200 students.
- Charging athletes to participate in sports that bring money into the district is a good idea, but the amount presented at one of the budget meetings was exorbitant. $50/athlete is more in line with what other districts are doing. Parents are already transporting their kids from practice as well as paying for tickets to see their children play. In addition, they support the concession stands in the stadiums. A modest rental fee for the usage of district instruments is reasonable.
- Are there mandates that require Ft. Bend schools to have a certain amount of light during the night? Get cost savings reports from districts that have dark campuses and compare their findings with Ft. Bend’s expenditures on electricity. Dark campuses would save enormous amounts of money in utility costs.
- Be fair in your reporting. Don’t attempt to make one school look better by making another school look worse. For example, a few years ago reports of a WHS student robbing a bank were all over FB papers while there was not one article concerning an FBI Bomb Squad searching for a bomb in lockers at CHS. Each school has its share of problems and we all need to see that no one school is perfect!
- Recognize that teachers who teach students who move from district to district have more challenging situations than those who teach in stable communities. Many of the students they teach are not products of Ft. Bend schools, and did not receive the foundation that our elementary and middle schools provide. Often, students enter FBISD schools with minimal parental support. Some come with language barriers. And some have been moved around so much that they are far below the standards of what Ft. Bend students who have been here for the duration have attained. Nevertheless, those FBISD teachers meet them where they are and work extremely hard to insure that they strive to reach the goals that Ft. Bend has set. Salute those teachers and give them the tools they need because if they didn’t do their jobs, FBISD would not be recognized!
- Include all schools in the re-zoning process. It’s just good business sense and it is the most effective.
- Reduce bond debt and forget about a GSTC.
Utilizing any of the above suggestions would be painful for everyone in the district, but the district would survive because we all would share in the burden. And if any or all of these suggestions don’t meet with approval, I’ve heard quite a few others at recent board meetings that could be implemented that would also save the district money. Gradual changes are less painful, but also less effective! Cascading only the west side is simply a band-aid, not a cure. Drastic steps are needed to keep this district solvent and functional! Is our current board capable of making these kinds of tough decisions? I believe Jim Babb could! However, I lack confidence in the others. That is why it is so important to take time to know your school board candidates, attend a candidates’ forum, ask the tough questions, and keep a record of their answers. They should be giving the same answers to the same questions, no matter who is in the audience! Then make an intelligent decision and VOTE!
IT’S THE LOUDEST SILENCE YOU WILL EVER HEAR!
I hear you golfin buddy and agree very much drew. I don’t like paying for his $40 lunches either. I wonder how is digestion has been over the last 2 RIFs and declared “financial emergencies”. Interesting someone can actually declare an emergency while sitting on 368 million in reserve funds. I think this Texas Tribune article on the highest paid “fat cat” superintendents, which includes ours, is an eye opener. Anyone that can’t balance this budget with this much revenue coming in since 2006 has a spending problem, a 1.5 billion dollar spending problem to be exact.
FBISD Total Revenue for each of year since 2006:
2006 – $521.58 Million
2007 – $549.91 Million
2008 – $568.19 Million
2009 – $591.69 Million
2010 – $610.19 million
http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/texas-superintendent-contracts-annotated/
How do you all like being labelled a “fat cat” big spender district??? I don’t and no taxpayer would. If this man was in charge of a business with a budget like this with the problems he has incurred, he would have already been long gone with the thousands of teachers he has chased out of our classrooms!
The” Slippery slope” we are riding on is called insolvency. That when the State of Texas has to come in and take over an insolvent school district. This is caused by a mountain of Bond Debt $$1.5 billion and rampant spending.
The sad result is this, 2008- 9 million dollar deficit, 2009 -20 million dollar deficit, 2010 – 23 million dollar deficit, and next year $$30 million dollar deficit ???. Check Dr. Jenny’s record at Virginia Beach, they were glad to see him go after he almost “broke” their school district.
While we are not there yet, we are sliding at the top of that slope.
BE ADVISED, ITS TIME TO CHANGE OUT THIS BOARD AND THE “BIG SPENDERS” WE CAN’T AFFORD THEM.
The Alternative is getting used to the State of Texas running your school district and making all the decisions. Zoning ,openining & closing schools, etc…………………………………….
Karma–get the supt & districts financial statement for the last 5 years under Jenney watch how much he spends on lunches for himself, nearly 10,000 in 2010. 5 years worth of budgets in the red under this guy and 1.5 billion in bond debt feeding the district vendors while failing to pay down this huge amount ranking us in the top ten % in the state. It’s costing us 53.5 million out of the operations budget just to service this debt (maintain it). 71+ million goes to personnel. Why do you think Jenney is RIFing so many with help of his school board (Menendez & Hohnbaum). A new broom is needed this cycle. He could have saved hundreds of teachers jobs the way CISD and LCISD did by paying down the debt and not feeding the “vendors”. He should have been focussing on the students instead but he had company boyz to feed I guess.
“Karma–get the supt & districts financial statement for the last 5 years under Jenney watch how much he spends on lunches for himself, nearly 10,000 in 2010″
$10,000/52 weeks=$192/week. Less than $200/week? Sounds like Dr Jenney is a responsible Supt.
Thank you Dr Jenney for being a good steward of tax dollars.
FBISD is the 7th largest school district in the state, but the Supt’s salary isn’t in the 10 ten in the state.
I commend the FBISD BOT for doing such a remarkable job of getting a first rate Supt at a fair price.
You’re right, ITK. He’s incredibly responsible with our tax dollars, only spending about $40 a day for his lunches. Wait a minute…why am I buying him lunch again?
I dunno, why are you buying him lunch?
Let me tell you as a teacher in the district for 10 years, overcrowding is a BIG deal, especially at the HS level. I don’t care what school you’re at or what you teach, if you have 30-35 kids per class and you teach 6 classes, it’s hard to make sure kids don’t fall through the cracks. I completely disagree with the sporadic and selective rezoning. It’s a band aid fix that only addresses the problem ever 2 or 3 years. This district has gotten huge and I believe there’s something to be said for site-based management. I taught at a school that had it and it was great! Granted, we had a principal who knew what she was doing. I love my current principal and he deserves every penny of what he gets. However, I’d never want his job. I teach because I love what I do. I bust my @$$ EVERY day to do good by my students and their families. Most of the fine people I teach with do too. I do believe there’s too much fat on the FBISD “hill” and it really needs to be trimmed. Talk to teachers, they’ll tell you that teaching is the hardest job you’ll ever love. I do. And I want my kids to go to good FBISD schools. We’ve got the great teachers to do it, but damn it, let us do our job and get out of our business. We won’t even get into the 46 days of testing that’s coming down the pike next year. Just you wait, you’ve not seen anything yet. To all my teacher friends, speaking as a fiscal conservative, let’s stand strong and be the awesome teachers we are and keep doing it for our kids (that means your kids :) )!!
Compassionate love is a blessing. For me, the most awesome and fierce job I am blessed to embrace with His graceful empowerment is my children. My first experience in understanding the governances or rules & regulations of our community’s school bonds initially were complex — in 2003. I learned the hard way then because I didn’t fully understand my own strength to parental independence by seperating negative energy that most unfortunately becomes misinformation. Once I felt courageous enough to pursue the facts. (Seperating misinformation vs. reality)
Yes, it is true, that passing our community’s school bond in 2006 was clearly the only right thing to do. Our district’s children needed more room to grow. And that is not something that should be dismissed, nor wrested away from understanding why the School Bond Treasury Report is a vital lifeline too.
“an you imagine 24-30 middle school students in one single classroom ?”
That is actually current class sizes now! Some of our classes are over 35 at my MS. I don’t think the taxpayers are getting the full story about what the class sizes are, and I think they don’t quite understand why class size matters. It is not about having more to grade, it is actually very much about quality of instruction.
lilfoxiq, since you speaking of quality of instruction … how do you feel about school bonds to accommodate overcrowding? Do you believe building new schools is the correct answer to your class size?
Apparently, our athletic world, since my high school days as Vice President of my Drill Team in the 70′s, has become a “whirl of a twirl” of controversy.
~`*`~
“This year, athletic activity buses have been cancelled, the number of periods a coach is required to teach a class has been increased and the district has limited the amount of time coaches can be away from the classroom to attend competition.”
http://www.fortbendnow.com/2011/02/15/50442
“To throw in a little flavor, I incorporated a few comments that I gleaned from Fort Bend Now on the various issues of importance”
No one should take many who comment here seriously.
<>
Yourself included I presume..
are you capable of reading a post and determining if it is credible? I’m sorry if you can’t tell the difference.
Charging through guys…. how do you charge athletes to all play fair?
She wrote a letter to the editor, not a doctoral thesis. Reading others’ opinions to help form your own opinion is perfectly acceptable, in my book.
I think what makes this editorial of much more value is that it comes from the average taxpayer and voter. These are the people that matter and will be voting for a new board, no matter what the current superintendent does, after all he has bankrupted the district under his 5 years here. It’s time for him to go! http://www.brucealbright.com & http://www.votewatassek.com
–It’s time for common sense to take over…
Yes It time for A BIG CHANGE FCCresident
Maybe Mrs. Williams should run for the Board. I agree with Drew with regards to rezoning and believe those points are valid and common sense. The success of a student, I believe, is rooted fundamentally from the values and priorities in the home. If the parents are involved, stable and grounded adults, they will guide their children properly. While diversity is nice, it is not the end all.
Mrs. Williams has done her homework. Too bad everyone who has children doesn’t go to the same trouble to view school district matters so up close and personal.
Her efforts tell me that she cares about everyone’s children, which is a quality we would all like to see in our school board candidates.
As one who also monitors school districts’ affairs, I can say that Dr. Jenney is all too typical of school superintendents these days. School districts wind up with such megalomaniacs because the school board members are not smart enough to provide proper oversight. In the end, it is the voter, though, who is responsible for the situation. Voting for the District’s picks will always yield such a result.
Always make the incumbent run on his/her record. If they don’t HAVE a record, vote them out.
Bravo Mary! We need new leadership and Audrey hit the proverbial nail on the head. Jenney has brought the district to its financial knees. It’s time…
Bruce Albright
Wade Watassek
Well said Bravo Mary
You are right on target, too bad all the voters are not as informed as you are.
Bless You.
I applaud you for taking the time and effort to attend board meetings, take notes, organize your thoughts and share them with us. I agree with many of the things you have observed and stated. I also agree with many of your suggestions.
The one item I don’t agree with is rezoning. I think the district puts way too much time and effort into useless attempts to “balance” the different schools – especially when these numbers are guaranteed to change every year. Maybe someone can explain to me the benefits of shuffling neighborhoods so that all of the high schools have the same number of students. If school A has 3000 students and school B has 1500, is the student/teacher ratio twice as high in school A? I’ll answer myself with a “no.” Does electric bill cost twice as much in A? Doubtful. Will it cost more to bus more kids from A to B? Absolutely.
I’m not trying to be argumentative, but from my observations, the only complaints I’ve heard about the overcrowding at school A (we know which one I’m talking about) are from people outside school A’s attendance zone. I think everyone needs to understand that the successes of students at school A are not due to anything that Jenney or the board has done, but are due to the parents, neighborhoods and community. As soon as I hear from someone who’s kids go to that school demanding the district rezone students, I’ll reconsider my stance.
Drew,
Your points are well-taken. Thank you.
Two things most aren’t aware of are:
1. a public company is in business to make a profit for shareholders.
2. A school’s purpose is to educate students.
if they’re doing anything else is a waste of money.
Bravo. I hope Dr. Jenney reads this and uses your ideas. Its not too late.
Jenny read this AHAHAH you got one coming.
Thank you Mrs. Williams for putting in writing what so many of us in the community are feeling!