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Feb. 3, 2020, issue.
(Vol. 37 / Issue 4)


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• Revocation threatened — Waco-area media reported (Jan. 29) that the education commissioner has, for the fifth consecutive year, revoked the accreditation of the 900-student Marlin ISD due to the district’s failure to achieve minimum passing academic accountability ratings for the eighth consecutive year.

  The district has been under the management of a TEA-appointed board of managers and conservator, and an interim superintendent. See next "Info Withheld" below for a related item about the appointed board.

  The district, for the past four years, has been given reprieves from being ordered closed under terms of abatement agreements with the TEA. The district has until Feb. 6 to file a formal appeal, and could be ordered closed in June.

  The city of Marlin hired (Jan. 6) ex-Waco ISD superintendent A. Marcus Nelson for $10,000 as a consultant to study the possibility of creating a city-sponsored charter school if MISD is ordered to close.

• Info withheld — The TEA is reportedly refusing media open records requests to publicly release application info about individuals the TEA is considering or has considered for appointed boards of managers.

  The Houston Chronicle is seeking the application documents of the 243 individuals the TEA identified, by first and last name only, for consideration to be appointed as Houston ISD board members (if the courts allow the TEA to appoint a board of managers to HISD).

  The Texas Monitor is also seeking the application and related documents of Eddie Ellis Jr., who resigned as a TEA-appointed Marlin ISD school board member after the Waco Herald-Tribune reported that he had previously pleaded guilty to a federal theft of property misdemeanor charge and had been ordered to repay nearly $500,000 to the federal government — a detail apparently the TEA overlooked before selecting Ellis for the MISD board.

  The TEA claims that the info sought by the Houston Chronicle and Texas Monitor is protected under public information law provisions that allow governmental entities to not release working papers that are a part of an audit, and has asked the state attorney general to rule that the agency doesn’t have to release the info.