The weather got nuts last night, so I didn't get a chance to update the blog with happenings during the board meeting. Here's an update from the meeting:
Trustee Carlos Vasquez was the only trustee to technically vote against the changes at Tuesday night's board meeting (see post on trustee Juan Rangel below). Vasquez called the minor changes approved a sign of the board's "power struggle" to show they are in charge. "We are not listening to the neighborhood and what it wants in the community," he said.
Superintendent Melody Johnson said some of the changes made to the policy did come after talking with Tech staff and students and listening to their concerns. For example, she had recommended a blind lottery system but then withdrew the recommendation after talking to teachers. Many worried a lottery couldn't ensure enrollment in certain programs or courses offered at the school.
Vasquez told fellow trustees that he was frustrated by the amount of time and resources spent to discuss Tech's policy "being that they're meeting the goals that they're supposed to be achieving.
"Why are we not focused on the issue that the other 12 high schools are not achieving?"
Tech is the only Fort Worth school district high school that met federal academic standards in August.
Trustee T.A. Sims also expressed much frustration last night. Sims, who pushed for changes, said other schools in Fort Worth attracted students from throughout the district through magnet and other programs. But since the district has been released from its desegregation order, many of those programs have evaporated, he said.
"That's what some of us have forgot," he said. "We're going to have to put choices in all of our schools so that students want to go to there."
Sims' district includes O.D. Wyatt High School, which had once had an IB program. That school has the most students who opted to attend Tech instead at 344.
Johnson said staff will focus on developing career or technical programs in other schools, some of which already have special interest programs aimed at attracting students but have low enrollments.
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