Following up on Norm’s great post about the Texas Education Agency possibly overseeing DISD’s finances, here’s some thoughtful commentary from neighborhood resident Patrick Luna, a J.L. Long Middle School and Woodrow Wlson High School parent who is head of Long’s Site-Based Decision Management (SBDM) committee.
Luna says what I’ve heard a lot of parents say the past few weeks: DISD shouldn’t solely use a formula to make staffing decisions for individual schools and, if it does, Luna’s faith in Supt. Michael Hinojosa will be shaken. Luna points out that Long’s enrollment falls just below 1,000, which is a DISD formula cutoff that could cost Long up to 20 employees if the RIF is carried out the way DISD administrators have planned, while if Long had 13 more students, quite a few less people than 20 would be impacted. The problem with Luna’s idea: If every school was evaluated individually, would DISD solve its budget problem before it went broke?
Here’s what Patrick had to say:
I spoke to (J.L. Long principal Danielle) Petters today (Friday), and she has been ordered to plan to cut 20 positions. I am shocked at the magnitude for Long. I understand that the number is so large for Long because, at the official enrollment of 987, Long is 13 students short of 1,000. Until this year, Long has had more than 1,000 students, so the DISD Formula provided a third administrator, a third counselor and so on that Long currently has. The most significant part of Hinojosa’s plan, as I understand it, is to strictly enforce the Formula as the main tool to make cuts across the district.
I have been a supporter of Hinojosa, but now I have doubts. To deal with this budget problem, which has been advertised as a surprise to Hinojosa, requires more than Formulas that are simplistic and short-sighted. The responsible way to effectively fix the budget shortfall is to make a reasoned assessment of the most effective cuts. Formulas are not reasoned. I expect more from Hinojosa and the district’s staff than Formulas.
I am not so naive as to think that only Long is "special"; parents of all DISD schools will want to save their school’s teacher positions. But if Hinojosa is to rely heavily on Formulas to solve this problem, then I do not believe he is the leader DISD needs. J.L. Long has recently experienced Low Performing ratings and has not met Adequate Yearly Progress, to the point last year that only an appeal kept Long from Stage 3 status. To haphazardly apply a Formula that can easily tip this school to failure, rather than make an informed assessment of other options that can keep Long on the track to improvement, is a failure of leadership. Hinojosa has recently said he is accountable for the budget shortfall, meaning is he is accountable to stay and fix the problem. I am now concerned that accountability is not the problem, but rather Hinojosa’s capability.
Nevertheless, my foremost concern is that J.L. Long should not bear an unreasoned share of the budget shortfall. — Patrick Luna, Long SBDM chairman
