Years in the making, the Texas Education Agency’s potential takeover of HISD for chronic underperforming schools and board misdeeds is now in the hands of Texas Supreme Court justices, with Houston Public Media reporting that a decision could be handed down sometime between December and next July.
Attorneys for TEA, which is seeking the takeover, and for HISD, which is fighting back, made their final arguments this month before the court. After years of threats, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath moved in 2019 to replace the elected school trustees with a panel of managers appointed by the state. At issue were years of a cycle of failure and remediation at two HISD high schools, coupled with claims of unethical and illegal actions by some trustees.
While improvement has been registered in state evaluations at the two schools in question, and board members named in the charges of unethical conduct were replaced in the last election, TEA attorneys argue that has no legal relevance to their actions to remove local control.
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