From October 2012 through June 2013, a group of community activists and I fought like heck to protect the role of community in Austin's education system. It started with a simple complaint, which worked itself all the way up to the Board of Trustees. This is the story.
Background: Breaking from Segregation
Education is undoubtedly the most valuable asset we can give a child. Our communities' future hinges on our success or failure.
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society.
It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment.
In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483, 493 (1954)
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The Austin Independent School District (AISD) was racially segregated until 1972. That year, a federal court concluded: "AISD has operated and continues to operate a school system which fails to provide equal educational opportunity for Mexican-American and black students" and ordered relief beginning in the 1972-73 school year. U.S. v. Texas Ed. Agency, 467 F.2d 848 (5th Cir. 1972). (Yes, if you're counting, that was 18 years after the decision in Brown v. Board of Education) |
I got involved almost 40 years later. Today, two out of three (63%) children attending AISD schools are economically disadvantaged, one out of three (35%) has a first language other than English, and one out of ten (10%) has a disability to accommodate. (About Austin ISD)
These students face extra obstacles for learning, so their campuses are entitled to special federal money to help teach them. And yet, AISD diverts that money elsewhere, leaving campuses inequitably funded, and leaving disadvantaged students to suffer. "Report Highlights Inequities in AISD Funding," Austin Chronicle (Sept. 21, 2012).
The question facing us should not be, "Who do we blame?" but rather, "How do we move forward?" To find the right direction forward, everyone in the community must have an equal voice in the conversation. That is why it was so important to me and the folks I worked with to attack AISD's habit of dictating orders from the top down, instead of working with the community to find answers.
Community Input Ignored
Community involvement is mandated by law. The Texas Education Code envisions independent school districts in which each school campus’ local community plays an important role in running that campus. The community is supposed help assess academic achievement, set objectives, create a timeline, and measure progress toward meeting those objectives. Tex. Ed. Code 11.253 et seq. It is supposed to be highly democratic.
Moreover, as a practical matter, the community is essential for a school's success. Schools and communities must engage with each other before schools can understand their students. A child is the product of her community. The time she spends in school is just part of a continuum of factors influencing her education.
School administrators cannot address the whole continuum of factors alone. To succeed, they must harness their community’s time, talent, and creativity to overcome the challenges students face. Schools must reach into that community and understand and engage it before the school and the community can hope to effectively allocate resources to meet their students’ needs. Austin Can - Will Take Care of Its Own Students (2012).
But AISD routinely ignores the will of the community. A stark example from recent memory was the District's sudden announcement in early 2011 that it planned to close nine schools. "Some Austin schools may face closure," Austin-American Statesman (Jan. 10, 2011). The schools were given no forewarning, let alone the opportunity to correct any deficiency AISD perceived as justifying closure. (See Lorie Barzano, video statement at 3:50. AISDComplaint.com).
The announcement caused immediate blow-back, including local parents' creating a coalition ("'Save our school' fight gets creative," KXAN (Jan. 24, 2011)) that played a pivotal role in beating back the proposed closures. "What the Task Force Wrought: AISD's facilities review became a panic drill of cuts, closings, and contradictions," Austin Chronicle (May 27, 2011).
Parents say AISD not listening, KXAN (Dec. 19, 2011)
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The controversy over IDEA came later that year. In spring 2011, AISD crafted a plan to give Eastside Memorial High School and Allen Elementary School to the IDEA charter school group. The plan was essentially fait accompli the day it was publicly announced the following October. (See Vincent Tovar, video statement. AISDComplaint.com) On December 19, 2011, the AISD Board of Trustees voted to approve the plan. The decision ignored community opinion and sparked mass opposition. "AISD Approves Its Big IDEA, 6-3: Board ignores overwhelming opposition to charter proposal," Austin Chronicle (Dec. 23, 2011). |
"“Despite efforts to keep discussions civil, the crowd hissed in disapproval several times throughout the meeting and a man was removed by AISD security. The night ended with many in the crowd chanting ‘down with Carstarphen,’ ‘we’ll vote you out’ and ‘boycott IDEA' " "Despite protests, AISD trustees approve in-district charter school program," Community Impact News (December 20, 2011).
The cold December evening IDEA’s contract was approved, a crowd of community members stood in the rain outside the Board of Trustees’ chambers, chanting in opposition, but the Trustees were deaf to their pleas.
"East Austin kids get put down for lack of parental involvement, and that the students don’t care, but here we had 500 people standing in the rain to express themselves to their Board of Trustees, and they were totally negated and totally disrespected... The Board was completely unmoved."
But the underlying question -- whether or not communities would be involved in fundamental decisions about their schools -- had not been resolved.
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| “A Failure to Communicate,” Austin Chronicle (Feb. 8, 2013) |
We Filed a Public Complaint
I got involved in September 2012 when I met Steve Swanson, a retired engineer and co-owner of a construction management business, and long-time volunteer in the Austin education community. He and Robert Martinez had been involved with Eastside Memorial High School for some time as CAC members, mentors and volunteers. They quickly brought me up to speed. I decided to get involved as part of the Austin Lawyers Guild.
The irony is that Austin is a liberal community. Unlike some places in Texas, our local government typically can't take a heavy hand in dismissing community concerns. Instead, officials distract with glad hands. They politely ignore dissent, trusting it will blow over.
I recommended using the administrative complaint process to force AISD to acknowledge the community's wishes and go on record with a response. The tactic fell squarely into our democratic traditions:
678 S.W.2d 94 (Tex.App. – El Paso 1984)
On October 11, 2012, I helped file a public complaint with AISD. It complained the District was ignoring its legal duty to include campus communities in school planning. AISD's system for public complaints is handled in three hearings: a low level hearing, a hearing before the superintendent (or designee), and then a hearing before the Board of Trustees.
Level I Hearing
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| Concerned parents file formal complaint with AISD Your News Now (YNN) (November 14, 2012) |
Our message was simple: Steve and Robert saw a problem, tried to work with the District, and were ignored. That was our complaint. Moreover, we brought witnesses to testify this was a longstanding, ongoing practice by the District.
The hearing was what we expected: district personnel (and their attorney) sat down with us and listened very politely. A few weeks later they issued a written decision, acknowledging there might be room for improvement, and making noncommittal statements about ways to improve.
We were not satisfied. Granted, the suggested changes would have been improvements, but they were vague and there was no time frame for implementing them. There have been too many instances in the past when the District made promises that were forgotten, and drafted plans left to gather dust on a shelf. We were afraid the promises to us would be forgotten the moment we walked away if the District didn't make a more definite commitment. Therefore, we appealed.
Our next hearing was in January. "Parents, volunteers file complaint against AISD," Austin American Statesman (Jan. 24, 2013). The "hearing officer" was Mel Waxler, the District's Chief of Staff. At first glance, it might strike you as odd that we filed a complaint against the District and the neutral hearing officer was its Chief of Staff.
But in a way, it makes sense. We were discussing events beyond his day-to-day experience and policies he doesn't directly administer. And in any event, it was probably inevitable that a complaint filed with the District about the District would be handled this way.
Level II Hearing
Our next hearing was in January. "Parents, volunteers file complaint against AISD," Austin American Statesman (Jan. 24, 2013). The "hearing officer" was Mel Waxler, the District's Chief of Staff. At first glance, it might strike you as odd that we filed a complaint against the District and the neutral hearing officer was its Chief of Staff.
But in a way, it makes sense. We were discussing events beyond his day-to-day experience and policies he doesn't directly administer. And in any event, it was probably inevitable that a complaint filed with the District about the District would be handled this way.
Group files complaint against AISD, KXAN (Jan. 25, 2013)
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We were warned before the hearing that our time would be limited. Therefore, we took the proactive step of gathering video testimony at www.AISDComplaint.com.
In many ways, the hearing was more than I hoped for. We met twice and Mel listened to several hours of testimony from the people we brought. He also brought high-level administrators into the meeting for their input, which was helpful.
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(You can read the Level II legal brief here).
Mel's response was issued much later, at the end of April. District policy requires a hearing officer to issue a written opinion 10 business days after a hearing, but we agreed to several extensions because Mel assured us he was conferring with high-level administrators to make sure he wrote an opinion that could be implemented effectively.
Mel didn't disappoint -- at least not with his "Informal Letter" (we will circle back to his formal opinion in a moment). His informal letter included several, reasonably concrete promises to address many (though certainly not all) of the concerns we presented him. Although I would have liked to see him recommend more, I thought his recommendations definitely moved the ball forward -- and in public policy, like football, I believe you win more games by picking up first downs than by throwing Hail Marys.
But again, his recommendations did not tell us when they would be implemented, nor offer sufficient detail to give us a way to tell whether or not they were being implemented. Nor were we given much confidence by the fact the recommendations were all an informal response to the complaint. Mel's Formal Opinion was that Steve and Robert's complaint was untimely (filed more than 15 business days after the complained-of conduct). We disagreed -- we believed the complaint was timely -- but more fundamentally, I think we can all agree that "timeliness," in this case, was just a technicality.
We decided to appeal, and in the spirit of picking up first downs, we decided to make the issue easy: we asked the Board to implement Mel's "informal recommendations" into District policy as a School Community Bill of Rights.
Level III
(You can read the Level III legal brief here.)
We also noted that institutionalizing the School Community Bill of Rights would address several of the problems identified in an AISD Diagnostic Audit from May 2012 that is colloquially called the “Broad Report." The report recommended a series of steps to build trust and improve campus programming, which we felt could be accomplished with the protections in the bill of rights (this is all explained in the legal brief linked above).
We had our hearing on June 10, 2013. Since our core recommendation was simple, our arguments focused on the threshold issue -- timeliness.
Complaint Level III Hearing (June 10, 2013)
The Board ruled against us on the technicality -- it decided the complaint was not timely.
Then something inspiring happened. At about 1:16:22 in the video, after the arguments had ended and the Board started talking, they acknowledged that community engagement had historically fallen short, and they began discussing the steps the Board could take to improve in the future.
In other words, victory. It was not a total victory, of course. But Steve and Robert raised their voices very effectively before the Board; it gave them substantive and respectful consideration; and although the result wasn't exactly what we wanted, the Board committed itself to moving forward in a better direction than the path it had taken in the past.
Epilogue
Following that cold, raining night in December 2011, when the AISD Board of Trustees voted to give the schools to IDEA, the community rose up and replace several Trustees with a slate of reform candidates. "Direction for New AISD Board?" Austin Chronicle (Nov. 16, 2012).
That victory belonged to the community. It was the fruit of a great deal work by community members organizing, canvasing, and getting out the vote. And it changed the make-up of the Board for the better.
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| “The future of Eastside Memorial High School is so bright, we've gotta wear shades,” [said board trustee Jayme] Mathias Rally at EMHS supports school's new partner Community Impact (May 7, 2013) |
The community, including groups like PRIDE of the Eastside, stayed in the game. They worked with the Board, and through constant pressure, guidance, and support (each in its appropriate measure) accomplished another, somewhat ironic victory.
The school that had been the symbol of a divided community became a focus of unity. IDEA had been approved with a heated 6-3 vote, and it was removed a year later in an even more divided vote of 5-4.
But community members and the new trustees began cultivating a new spirit. They were so successful that six months later, the Board had evolved beyond a balance of power dynamic to consensus -- it was able to reach a new solution for Eastside Memorial that had unanimous support among its members and overwhelming support from the East Austin community. "AISD Board Picks Johns Hopkins as Eastside Partner: Unanimous vote has community support," Austin Chronicle (May 10, 2013).
That's all to say our complaint was a tiny piece in a much larger puzzle. But I hope it helped by forcing the issue onto the official agenda; keeping it closer to the forefront of decision-makers' minds than it would have been otherwise; and hopefully changing a few minds, too.
