Q&A with Waco school board candidate Angela Tekell

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Q&A with Waco school board candidate Angela Tekell

Sunday April 18, 2010

Judging from the multitude of campaign signs we’ve seen, the race between longtime Waco school board member Debbie Luce and challenger Angela Tekell is garnering plenty of attention in the May 8 elections. The candidates are vying to represent District 4, which includes parts of North and West Waco. Here are excerpts from interviews with the candidates, conducted by the Tribune-Herald editorial board.

Q What’s motivating you to run for office?

Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald

A What’s motivating me is my children. I have an eighth-grader at Tennyson Middle School and my son graduated from Waco High School in 2008. I have been a very involved parent and a WISD advocate for 12 years and I’m very concerned at the state of our district. I’m not a big fan of the TAKS and the reality of how it drives a lot of my child’s school day, but our district is rated as unacceptable by the TEA for the first time ever. And although that is because of too high of a dropout rate, our failure to meet the benchmark set by the state is a benchmark everybody else seems to be hitting. We’re in a very small group of districts in the state and we missed the mark pretty largely last year, by 4.3 percent in one of our sub-populations. Then you also have an accountability rating that is set up by No Child Left Behind, the federal accountability law, and in that realm we have failed to make adequate yearly progress and we’re only one school district out of six in the entire state of Texas that failed to meet adequate yearly progress in our math performance, our reading performance and our graduation rate. We’re among only a handful of school districts in the state of Texas are in Stage 2. Our district has failed to make adequate yearly progress for three years and, if you look at the data, we share company with about only 2 to 4 percent of school districts in the entire state of Texas. Then we have our two high schools which are presently rated unacceptable by the TEA. As far as federal accountability, they’re at Stage 3, which means they failed to make adequate yearly progress for four consecutive years and they are missing performance not just in dropouts but also math and reading. We also last year had three of our middle schools that were rated unacceptable by our state and are failing adequate yearly progress. One of those middle schools is Lake Air Middle School which is my neighborhood school. That’s where my son went to school last year. I can personally testify to the fact that it was a very poor experience. And we are losing families that are important to our community — not just families with children but families with homes. This is an area of town where we want to attract people.

Q Obviously the clock is ticking on these problems. Fast forward: You’re elected. How do you begin to solve these problems?

A First, I think we have to be candid with our community. You have to identify the problems, stop giving excuses. Yes, we have 82 percent socio-economic status but I’m tired of hearing that as an excuse. We have GT kids, artists, musicians, inventors and kids in our district who can be what they want to be without blaming it on poverty. We have to be honest with our community. This community has a wealth of resources. We have MCC, we have Baylor. I honestly do not think that our administration, our board, are communicating well with our partners. The city is set up to do that with the Greater Waco Education Alliance, so the structure is in place to do it. But to engage that vast web of resources, you have to be honest and say, “This is what we think we need and this is where we think you can help.”

Q In that candor, does Superintendent Roland Hernandez need to go?

A I don’t want my campaign to be about one person.

Q But a superintendent isn’t just any person.

A Well, leadership is key. Good leadership is critical. But I’m not privy to what’s going on in those executive sessions. To say changing superintendents is going to solve your problem, I would not feel comfortable saying that. The most important job of a school board is picking a good leader. I’m not privy to his performance evaluation. That’s confidential by law. Certainly if I were to be elected and were part of his evaluation, I would take great issue with many areas that are simply not up to standard.

Q What lesson did you draw from the closure of Wiley Middle School?

A From Wiley, it was a failure to communicate. They did not engage that community. They did not let them know what was coming. They got to a crisis situation where they felt like they didn’t have a choice about keeping it open. The numbers had dropped too low. Because only 171 kids were registered there for next year, they either didn’t have certain programs offered there or the quality was unacceptable. They knew it before and they didn’t engage the community. Had the community been given that information with candidness, I think people would’ve understood it was really in the best interest of the Wiley kids. Those kids at Wiley were not being served in that situation. Yes, it was a neighborhood school and neighborhood schools are the backbone of our community. But when you don’t engage people and all of a sudden it shows up on an agenda and the next thing you know it’s being closed, that’s not good.

Q What is your take on the situation at Alta Vista Montessori Magnet School and the decision to allow a teacher under investigation for sexual assault of a student to continue teaching?

A I think that’s a failure of leadership, period. I represent a school district (in Bell County). That’s what 75 percent of my legal time is spent doing. No community is immune to allegations like this. I have been in situations similar to Alta Vista. When we begin a situation about what we’re going to do, I’m consulted and there is a dialogue that immediately begins with our police department, CPS, with the superintendent and the director of human resources. But the benchmark is what is best for our children. I’m not privy to some facts because of closed sessions, but as an attorney, my advice would be, “Let’s put the man on leave with pay, let’s conduct our investigation and let’s be in constant communication with our police department and our CPS until we’re satisfied our kids are safe.” You have to have open lines of communication.

Q Has the closed campus situation at Waco High worked?

A I think so. My older son is 19 and he was at Waco High and, from what I can tell, he came and went whenever he wanted. As a parent, that was a problem for me. I know from my friends and people I respect who work at Waco High, the closed campus was a concern. I know in the beginning my friends at Waco High said, “You can’t get all those kids in that cafeteria, you just can’t maintain a safe environment.” But I’ve talked with a couple of teachers and they say the climate is improving. They believe the closed campus and standard mode of dress have helped.

Q Board member Pat Atkins and your husband are partners in the same law firm with you. Do you see any potential conflict of interest in that situation?

A I am an independent thinker and will do what I think is in the best interest of our comunity and our children, and if Pat disagrees with me, we’ll have a conflict of interest.

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