North Forest Independent School District (NFISD) was a school district in northeast Houston, Texas. Established in the early 1920s in a low-income white area, it later became majority-black and black-run. The district had a history of financial and academic issues from the late 1980s until 2013. On July 1, 2013, it was closed by order of the state and absorbed into the Houston Independent School District (HISD).
History
The district was established sometime around 1923Wray, Dianna. "Everyone Says They Want the Best for North Forest Students, As Long As They Stand to Benefit." Houston Press. Wednesday October 2, 2013. p. 2. Retrieved on October 8, 2013. as the Northeast Houston Independent School District."Study Area 4 ." City of Houston. Accessed October 21, 2008.Reeves, Kimberly. "Administrator Not Surprised to See North Forest ISD Shuttered by State ." Houston Press. Friday July 15, 2010. Retrieved on July 18, 2011. It was also named the East and Mount Houston Independent School District."The History of B.C. Elmore." (Archive) B.C. Elmore Middle School. Retrieved on November 14, 2011. It began with a single school.Martin, Betty L. "North Forest strives to move ahead / Beleaguered school district battles decline in student enrollment and financial strain." Houston Chronicle. Thursday March 20, 2003. Retrieved on July 15, 2011.
The district originally had a low-income rural white population. Schools were segregated until the late 1960s.Jarboe, Jan. "Who Won't Be Back this Fall." Texas Monthly. August 1986. Volume 14, No. 8. p. 82. By the 1970s, when the area was suburban and still mostly white, the state mandated racial integration of schools. African-American families moved to North Forest for the perceived quality of the schools. After desegregation, many white families moved to other communities along U.S. Highway 59, such as Aldine, Humble, and Porter, and African-American families became the majority and gained political control of NFISD. By the late 1970s it was one of the largest black-run school districts in the state;Wray, Dianna. "Everyone Says They Want the Best for North Forest Students, As Long As They Stand to Benefit." Houston Press. Wednesday October 2, 2013. p. 3. Retrieved on October 8, 2013. on October 12, 1989, it became the largest.Asin, Stephanie. "North Forest district shows off its 'other' side in tour," Houston Chronicle. Thursday October 12, 1989. A22. Retrieved on July 15, 2011.
In the 1970s Billy Reagan, the then superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, considered bringing North Forest into his district, but the Texas Education Agency told him that desegregation laws made it illegal for two minority-population school districts to merge. In addition, area residents wanted to maintain local control of their schools. According to Reagan, he also asked the superintendent of the Humble Independent School District to check whether the state would allow Humble to annex NFISD, but no action resulted.
In 1979 NFISD area residents discovered that a proposed landfill had been misrepresented to them by developers as a housing development.Gaventa, John, Barbara E. Smith, and Alex W. Willingham. Communities in Economic Crisis: Appalachia and the South. Temple University Press, 1990. p. 196. , . The landfill was about from the NFISD administration building, an NFISD high school, the NFISD sports stadium, and an NFISD track field.Finkel, Adam N. Worst Things First?: The Debate Over Risk-Based National Environmental Priorities. Resources for the Future, 1995. p. 249. , At the time the high school did not have air conditioning. Seven NFISD schools were within a radius of the landfill.Gaventa, et al., p. 197. Residents sued the landfill company in federal court, but lost the suit in 1985. As a result of the case, remedies were passed at the state and municipal levels.
In 1981 the NFISD Police Department was established."Police Department ." North Forest Independent School District. Retrieved on November 3, 2011.
In 1991 voters approved an approximately $40 million NFISD bond, and in 1997 another bond, leading to the construction of four schools."About North Forest ISD." () North Forest Independent School District. August 13, 2003. Retrieved on July 15, 2011. On March 1, 1998, the district issued $46.9 million worth of the approved bonds. It used $5 million to refund older bonds at a favorable interest rate and the remainder to construct B. C. Elmore Middle School, East Houston Intermediate School (now Hilliard Elementary School), Keahey Intermediate School (Marshall Early Childhood Center at the time of NFISD closure), and Shadydale Elementary School."Chapter 5 FACILITIES USE AND MANAGEMENT NORTH FOREST INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT" (Archive). Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Retrieved on November 21, 2011. In 1999 voters approved another about $40 million NFISD bond.
In June 2001 Tropical Storm Allison hit Houston, damaging six NFISD schools. Forest Brook High School sustained heavy damage;"Forest Brook High School ends an era after Allison," Houston Chronicle, August 26, 2001 it, Lakewood Elementary School, and the NFISD district administration building were closed for repairs. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said that it would pay 75% of the damage costs sustained as a result of Allison.Stanton, Robert. "WEATHERING THE STORM / North Forest ISD perseveres through difficult year." Houston Chronicle. Thursday December 27, 2001. ThisWeek 1. Retrieved on July 15, 2011.
On March 18, 2003, NFISD had a budget of $65 million during that year; about $50 million came from the state and the rest came from property taxes.
On July 20, 2007, teenagers vandalized Forest Brook High School with a water hose."." ABC-13 KTRK-TV. Friday July 20, 2007. Retrieved on April 20, 2009 Forest Brook students shared the campus of the district's other high school, M. B. Smiley High School,"Damage forces students to share campus," Houston Chronicle, July 21, 2007"Star athlete accused of Forest Brook High vandalism ," KHOU-TV, August 8, 2007 until Forest Brook re-opened in the spring.
In March 2008 North Forest ISD announced that it would consolidate the two high schools to form North Forest High School and close Tidwell Elementary School, merging it into Hilliard. Pupils formerly zoned to Tidwell started being a part of the Hilliard zone in August 2008."North Forest votes to merge schools." Houston Chronicle. March 15, 2008."North Forest ISD to merge Smiley, Forest Brook High; Tidwell, Hillard Elementary ." KHOU-TV."Board Approves Combining of Schools ." North Forest Independent School District.
Academic and management troubles From the late 1980s, the district had experienced recurring financial and academic problems.Hernandez, Pat. "North Forest ISD To Fight District Closure ." KUHF. July 13, 2011. Retrieved on July 15, 2011. "It has been mired in chronic academic and financial problems since the 1980s." In 1988 the TEA assigned a monitor to NFISD to deal with the school board and the finances; Ericka Mellon of the Houston Chronicle said that the school board was "meddling."Mellon, Ericka. "North Forest intervention by TEA — was it worth it?" Houston Chronicle. Sunday August 7, 2011. 1. Retrieved on November 14, 2011. On October 12, 1989, the Houston Chronicle printed an article, "North Forest district shows off its 'other' side in tour", about the district trying to create a positive impression in the media. The state again monitored the district in 2001.Mellon, Ericka. "North Forest ISD hit with second sanction." Houston Chronicle. November 10, 2007. Retrieved on April 29, 2013. "North Forest was under state monitoring, mostly for financial troubles, in the late 1980s and again in 2001." Ericka Mellon of the Houston Chronicle wrote in 2007: "The story has been the same for years in this small, poor, mostly black school district in northeast Houston: Financial problems, shoddy recordkeeping and low test scores prompt sanctions from the state. Employees get indicted on criminal charges. The school board fires the superintendent. The district might improve some but then falls again."Mellon, Ericka. "POOR RATINGS, TROUBLED FINANCES." Houston Chronicle. Sunday March 25, 2007. B1 MetFront. Retrieved on November 26, 2011. Joshua Benton of The Dallas Morning News wrote the same year: "[i]n many ways, its schools are to Houston what the since-closed Wilmer-Hutchins schools were to Dallas: the ones that were always in trouble."Benton, Joshua. "Monitors came, TAKS scores plummeted." The Dallas Morning News, July 21, 2007. Retrieved on November 26, 2011. Alternate link John Sawyer, the head of the Harris County Department of Education, also compared North Forest to Wilmer-Hutchins, another predominantly black school district, which the state had closed.
The district had the highest March 10, 1986 TECAT (Texas Examination of Current Administrators and Teachers) failure rate of any large school district. 25% of the district's administrators and teachers did not pass.Jarboe, p. 80. In 1997 an editorial appeared with the title "Clouds hover over northeast Houston district again".Smith, Morgan. "Texas School Closings Rare, But Should They Be?" Texas Tribune. April 5, 2012. Retrieved on April 8, 2014. "[...]At 7,300 students, North Forest ISD would be the largest district the state has shuttered;"
Graduation rates, test scores, and financial record keeping improved during the tenure as district superintendent of Carrol Thomas, from 1988 to 1996, but the district began to decline again after he left to become superintendent of the Beaumont Independent School District. In a 2006 article Todd Spivak of the Houston Chronicle described NFISD as "a prime example of how inconsistency can wreak havoc on schools".Spivak, Todd. "The Also-Rans." Houston Press. March 2, 2006. Retrieved on April 20, 2009. In the five years before 2006 NFISD had four superintendents, and the TEA had indicated financial and governance problems at NFISD. Dr. Robert Sanborn, the president and CEO of the organization Children at Risk, described the state of affairs as "inexcusable", with both district high schools posting poor state test scores considered to be poor and the lowest SAT scores in the Houston area. Also in 2006 Dan Feldstein of the Houston Chronicle wrote: "By many measures, North Forest ... is a troubled district. Not only is it last in Harris County in SAT scores and passing rates on the TAKS test, but it ranks among the worst in the state."Feldstein, Dan. "Northeast Houston housing plan criticized." Houston Chronicle. July 18, 2006. Retrieved on November 5, 2011. In late 2006 the TEA assigned two teachers to monitor two NFISD campuses that were rated "unacceptable" by the TEA.
A February 2007 report by the Texas Education Agency, based on data from 2005 derived mainly from the testimony of school officials, said that Forest Brook High School had no cheating; however, a statistical analysis of two years of Forest Brook TAKS test scores by The Dallas Morning News in June 2007 which examined two years of scores from Forest Brook revealed patterns that the newspaper considered suspicious. In Spring 2007 state monitors supervised TAKS tests at Forest Brook, and passing rates on 11th-grade TAKS tests declined from 2006. In 2008 outside monitors reported poor management at the district and "security violations" related to TAKS testing."Disorder found at Forest Brook." Houston Chronicle. April 27, 2008.
Also around 2007, the average SAT score of high schoolers in the district, 748 out of a possible 1600, was among the lowest in the state. Eight of the district's 11 schools received the TEA rating "unacceptable." That school year a teacher of "technology applications" did not receive any working computers until March. NFISD was rated "academically unacceptable" by the TEA from 2008 to 2011.