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 Why after 12 years on the Waco school board do you want another term?

Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald

A Well, initially, when it was time to decide whether to run for the board again, I did sit back and think, “Do I want to do this?” Because it is a huge time commitment. There are a lot of sacrifices you make of your free time. But this is a passion for me — public education and Waco ISD are my passions. Everyone has a passion, something that makes them feel good, that they’re doing something worthwhile with their time. This is what I do worthwhile with my time. I mean, there is other fluffy stuff I do, community activities, but this to me is a worthwhile use of my time. I have a teaching certificate from Baylor, an education degree, and this is a way I can stay in touch with education and not actually teach. I think that having all this experience on the board also gives me some wisdom and a sense of history.

Q Some might say it’s time for you to step aside, time to inject new blood on the board.

A  I seriously thought about it. Then a lot of community members and parents called and said, “You have got to keep doing this, you have got to keep representing us.” They kept giving a lot of arguments about why I should stay on.

Q  Like what?

A  We’re doing a five-year strategic plan and we have brought in people focused on poverty, childhood development, career technology and college prep. There’s no doubt we need to make some severe improvements in the district. I would like to stay around to see that to fruition. Also, we went to an institute called Reform Governance in Action. We were selected as one of five school boards in Texas to do this intensive school board training. It probably was a hundred hours of training that we just finished. So we did that for 18 months. It was great. It really helped us deal with this Alta Vista issue when we came together as a board trying to figure out ways to come to a conclusion. In fact, during that institute, the first case study was the closing of G.L. Wiley Middle School. They sent reporters to Waco to interview all of us individually, then came back to us and presented it to all the other school boards. Basically, everyone sits around and dissects how we worked that situation out as a board — what you did wrong, what you did right. It was very eye-opening.

Q  So what did we do right and wrong regarding Wiley Middle School? Your opponent suggests there was not enough communication between the board and the community.

A  I was president during a portion of that period. We had town-hall meetings set up in East Waco in various locations. I probably went to four different meetings. It was very disheartening because we would get the word out to the community through church leaders and anybody we thought could gather people together for some good conversation. I mean, there would literally be 10 people there. I would go to these meetings and nobody would come. And they would say, “Well, there was something going on tonight, so plan another one.” So we’d have another one and the same thing would happen. 

Q  There seemed to be a disconnect. Wiley folks talked of potential test scores, school officials talked about the fact the campus didn’t have enough pupils left to justify keeping the school open.

A  Exactly. Sammy Smith was school board representative for kids across the river (in North Waco). I never really understood until that whole situation that the black community on this side of the river, the black community on that side of the river, really don’t get along very well, and (people in North Waco) didn’t like the students there being bused across the river to have enough pupils to keep Wiley open. That’s what we had to do. For years, even when (Superintendent) Jerry Major was here, he wanted to close that campus. We kept saying, “No, you can’t do that.” For four or five years, they wanted to do that. And we kept saying no. But it finally got to the point where the children’s academics were suffering. They were not able to have band and choir that you have in a normal middle school that has the proper number of pupils. It tore my heart out. I wanted to keep it open for that community and those kids. But my brain kept saying, “That is not the best thing for it.” And I had to vote to close it. I do feel good about building a new J.H. Hines campus. To me, it was so important to have something new and vital and wonderful for that community. I don’t know whether you’ve seen it, but it is gorgeous. That should be a real shot in the arm.

Q  What do you think of Superintendent Roland Hernandez’s future?

A  I think the superintendent is doing a good job. That’s not to say he’s doing everything just right. I don’t know if you can find a superintendent that is perfect. He is my third superintendent, so I’ve got others to judge that on. You know, we’re re-evaluating his contract soon and there’ll be some hard questions asked of him. Ultimately, whatever decision happens in the school district, he is the leader and it ends up with him.

Q  Let’s talk about Alta Vista and the district’s handling of a teacher accused of sexual assault involving a student. What went wrong?

A  What outraged me most and was unfathomable was that a teacher was placed back in the classroom when an investigation was still open. That is a no-brainer. I was dumbfounded at the thought this could happen. There were a lot of different circumstances that went on so that it wasn’t that clear-cut because our investigation had ended and we didn’t find anything. That’s when they put him back in the classroom.

Q  Even though a separate police investigation was going on?

A  That’s true. But the police investigator did not even go out to the school until Feb. 3. [The allegation was made in early December.] Yet still it (the investigation) was going to happen. Why didn’t they take him out then? I do not know the answer to that question. It should not have happened. Of all the things, that’s the number one thing we’re going to put into policy. And already Roland has pulled together Child Protective Services personnel, the Waco Police Department, and had a good meeting with them, and is coming up with a procedural flow chart that will not be left up to interpretation by any administrator.

Q  What do you think of the closed campus situation at Waco High School?

A   We should have done it before now. Students not coming back from lunch was a horrendous problem. There were so many absences after lunch that you could tell they were obviously not coming back to school. The children now act better. I think the standard mode of dress they have — it’s like when you put a little boy in a suit on Sundays to go to Sunday school: He acts better than when he’s in his play clothes. So I think the overall atmosphere at Waco High has really gotten a lot better and it was a great decision for us.

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