Wilmer-Hutchins' door closes, another opens
07:43 AM CDT on Friday, June 30, 2006
By JOSHUA BENTON / The Dallas Morning News

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The earthly remains of Wilmer-Hutchins were, in the end, few.

DISD locksmith Jesse Dunn checked and locked doors on the Wilmer-Hutchins ISD offices Thursday afternoon. A few broken buildings. Some debts, some indictments. A few thousand kids who learned less than they should have.

Everything that could be put in boxes was Thursday, as the Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District slipped into the past tense. After decades of mismanagement and crisis, Wilmer-Hutchins will legally cease to exist when the clock strikes midnight tonight. Under orders from the state of Texas, it will be absorbed into the Dallas school district.

"It's a sad day for the district, but it's also a new day," said Donnie Foxx, one of the state-appointed managers who have shepherded the district through its declining days.

The district's skeleton staff – down to 10 from more than 400 two years ago – went out for a nice lunch at Truluck's and said their goodbyes Thursday afternoon.

They would have locked the doors one last time. But Dallas staffers were too busy carting off the district's remaining items of value.

"I think in the long run, kids will have a better chance to get a good education – that's the important part," said Ron Rowell, the Texas Education Agency employee who has spent the past few months as acting superintendent.

For decades, his agency was criticized for not doing enough to stop corruption and mismanagement in Wilmer-Hutchins. The district was sick, residents said, and needed immediate attention from TEA.

They got their wish. But most residents hoped the patient could be saved. Instead, state officials chose a mercy killing.

After almost 80 years of educating southern Dallas County students, Wilmer-Hutchins will be absorbed into the Dallas Independent School District.

Long list of problems

The list of Wilmer-Hutchins' problems was long.

For starters, it was broke. Despite being one of the best-funded districts in North Texas – it got more state and federal dollars per student than any other area district – it consistently found ways to fritter money away.

It mostly went to the salaries of its employees; Wilmer-Hutchins had 30 to 40 percent more staff than most districts its size. Many of those employees were hired at the recommendation of board members.

But the raid of district headquarters by the FBI and Texas Rangers in 2004 – and the seizure of many of its financial records – suggests something else may have been at work, too. (An FBI representative confirmed this week that the investigation is still active.)

It was an academic failure. In grades six and up, in every subject, student test scores were dead last (or close to it) among the 1,000-plus school districts in Texas.

In the lower grades, test scores seemed better – until it became clear that teachers were helping students cheat in each of the district's elementary schools. When the cheating was stopped, their scores crashed to the floor, too.

The district's former superintendent, Charles Matthews, has been indicted twice. Prosecutors say that he ordered purchase orders shredded before the FBI could find them and faked attendance data in order to generate more state funding. His trials have been pushed back to November.

DallasNews.com/extra
Wilmer-Hutchins: District in crisis
Race was the not-well-hidden subtext of just about everything about Wilmer-Hutchins, the only black-run district in North Texas. It was run by segregationist whites until the late 1960s and became largely run by blacks around 1980. It was, by most measures, a bad district under each group; state officials threatened to remove its accreditation when it was run by whites, too.

Since 2004, the district has gone through a series of interim superintendents, white and black, and moved through the stages of slow state takeover. The school board was thrown out of office in March 2005 and replaced by state appointees.

When Wilmer-Hutchins didn't have enough money to open its doors last fall, Dallas ISD agreed to take the students for one year. Not long after that, TEA issued its death sentence, effective July 1.

For kids, the result has been daily bus rides to 25 Dallas schools, some an hour long. There have been fights between Wilmer-Hutchins kids and the Dallas natives, and many parents aren't happy with the arrangement.

"They don't know how to discipline students in Dallas," said Doris Roberson, a grandmother of five whose children used to attend Wilmer-Hutchins schools. "I can't stand that new school."

They'll stay on those buses for years. Dallas officials say they have no plans to reopen any of the old Wilmer-Hutchins school buildings. At least one will be leased to a charter school; others may be sold to the highest bidder.

If the population in that part of the county grows, as demographers expect, Dallas may build new schools in the area. But that would have to wait until after the district passes another bond issue, which would be November 2007 at the earliest.

Vandals add insult

Closing a 79-year-old school district is not easy. What to do with the old yearbooks? The championship trophies? The kids' art on the walls?

It's all being boxed up for storage in DISD warehouses. On Thursday, Bill Gaston and his crew of four were in charge of gathering up the district's computer equipment, loading it onto a semi truck backed up to the administration building's side door.

Mr. Gaston has worked at DISD for 14 years. He's a calm, measured man who takes working for a public school district seriously. Over the last year, as he has inventoried district computers, vandals have broken into Wilmer-Hutchins' schools repeatedly.

Usually they'd smash a window to get in. A few times they stole computers. More often they just made a mess.

The worst break-in was a few months ago, at Alta Mesa Elementary. Alta Mesa was one of the schools that community volunteers cleaned up and repaired last year.

The vandals raged against the school library. "They completely destroyed it," Mr. Gaston said. "They pulled down all the bookshelves. They destroyed the computers, the copy machine. They dumped the toner out everywhere, tore up the books. Emptied the fire extinguishers."

Why would people destroy a school library? How enraged would they have to be?

"These schools are places for children to learn," Mr. Gaston said. "I just can't understand someone being that angry."

After the administration building has been gutted of its productive innards, someone from Dallas ISD will come by with a giant padlock and seal it shut, perhaps for decades, like some bad-management time capsule.

Last meeting, last tears

Wednesday night was Wilmer-Hutchins' final board meeting, and it was a sleepy affair – a far sight from the mud fights that used to erupt like Old Faithful.

Only five people turned up for the valedictory. There was Ms. Bonner, the "1" of countless 6-1 board votes and often the only board voice opposing Dr. Matthews. And there was Lionel Churchill, one of the district's first black board members in the 1970s and perhaps the most tactically skilled opponent of the Matthews regime.

"So many things were not working that it was hard to see how it could be fixed," he said. "You could never weed out the whole root cause of the problem without just terminating everybody and starting over."

Those in the audience had one last chance to give the board a piece of their mind. Each had been a prominent critic of the Matthews administration, but – with the exception of Mr. Churchill – each thought dissolving the district was going too far.

"I'm hurt and I'm angry," Ms. Bonner said. "Because as parents ...."

Here she started to cry, something the iron-willed Ms. Bonner is not known for. Her son Jeremy just graduated from A. Maceo Smith High School without missing a single day of school from age 3 on. He's joining the Marine Corps.

"Because as parents, all the love we had for our children was not enough to save the district," Ms. Bonner said. "We didn't have the legal power or the financial power."

The substance of the meeting was perfunctory. There were accounts to be transferred, utilities to be cut, buildings to be rekeyed. Let it be noted that the last official act of the Wilmer-Hutchins board was to approve a $617 legal settlement with a former employee named Letha Green. Hers was one of the 72 lawsuits filed over the district's demise.

At the meeting's close, the district's leaders gave a quick round of thank-yous to each other and to the remaining staff. Then board president Albert Black closed up shop.

"Today is the 28th of June, two thousand and six. The time is 8:52 p.m." Pause. "And with our work being concluded, we are adjourned."

E-mail jbenton@dallasnews.com

THE STORMY HISTORY

The Wilmer-Hutchins school district had problems for decades. But it was a summer storm two years ago that started its death spiral. On Saturday, it will be merged into the Dallas school district. A look back:

1970s: The district begins the decade with its accreditation threatened because of academic troubles. Residents try repeatedly to have the district dissolved. In a racially charged dispute, the mostly white cities of Wilmer and Hutchins try to form their own school systems.

1980s: Board members are caught spending district money on baby-sitting and family trips. The Texas Education Agency threatens the complete loss of accreditation. A court finds 500 of the 872 votes cast in a board election were invalid.

1990s: The TEA takes over the district for two years. FBI and IRS agents seize control of district offices as part of a fraud investigation. State officials investigate allegations of cheating on state tests. The district has four superintendents in four years.

2000s: The state investigates faulty dropout-reporting data. A superintendent resigns after sexual harassment allegations. A state comptroller's report says the district cannot run itself and should request a TEA takeover.

June 2004: A minor storm tears holes in the roof of Wilmer-Hutchins High School, which had been poorly maintained for years. The leak is not fixed for months, filling the school with mold and roaches.

August 2004: The district announces the storm damage is so severe that the high school will not open on time. The finance director testifies in a lawsuit that the district is "pretty much broke right now"; district employees don't get paid.

September 2004: The FBI and Texas Rangers raid district offices. Voters overwhelmingly reject a $68 million bond issue. Community leaders call on the school board to step down.

October 2004: The district begins laying off 20 percent of its staff. State auditors find Superintendent Charles Matthews has received $16,000 in salary illegally. Dr. Matthews is indicted after being accused of ordering a subordinate to shred documents before the FBI can find them; he is later fired.

November 2004: A judge temporarily bans the school board from meeting and returns Dr. Matthews to office. A state team takes over operations. A Dallas Morning News investigation finds evidence that the district's elementary schools are systematically cheating on state tests; a principal resigns in response. The district misses payroll again. A custodian is charged with stealing district laptops.

December 2004: The district closes three schools to cut costs. Officials try to determine how many current and former employees are being paid inappropriately. The district discovers it has been illegally taxing residents for 30 years and faces a drastic budget cut without voter approval.

February 2005: To prevent cheating, monitors oversee state testing in Wilmer-Hutchins schools. Scores plummet.

March 2005: A state investigation concludes that two-thirds of the district's elementary teachers violated state testing rules. Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley says she is throwing the school board out of office and replacing members with state appointees. Dr. Matthews is indicted again, this time on charges of faking attendance data. A judge temporarily removes the state managers.

May 2005: Voters reject a tax increase that would have saved the district's finances.

June 2005: District officials try to merge with Lancaster schools, whose trustees reject the offer after public outrage.

July 2005: Dallas officials agree to accept Wilmer-Hutchins' students for a year.

September 2005: A state audit finds more than $250,000 in federal education funds were spent on things like murals and pizza crispers. Dr. Neeley orders Wilmer-Hutchins shut down permanently on July 1, pending federal approval.

December 2005: The Justice Department approves Wilmer-Hutchins' demise.

Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District (WHISD) was a school district in Texas serving the cities of Wilmer and Hutchins, a large portion of southern Dallas (the administration building was located in Dallas), and a small portion of Lancaster.

The district was historically recognized as one of the poorest-performing school districts in Texas, in terms of both student test scores and managerial oversight. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) had, on several occasions, appointed monitors to oversee the district, with no long-term success. The district's buildings were in poor shape. Large trees grew out of the bleachers of the Wilmer-Hutchins ISD football field. Wilmer-Hutchins High School failed fire inspections twice in a row.

In 2004, deciding that yet another round of oversight would accomplish nothing (and after the district's citizens overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to increase the property tax rate; the district's records were so shoddy that it could not provide evidence that property tax rate increases had ever been approved since the late 1950's), TEA ordered the district closed for the 2005-2006 school year. TEA allowed the Dallas ISD to take over responsibility for educating students in the area for the 2005-2006 school year (Lancaster ISD was given first opportunity, but declined). Dallas ISD elected to close all of the Wilmer-Hutchins schools and sent students to its own schools. The entire senior class of Wilmer-Hutchins High School went on to South Oak Cliff High School. Other students were divided into several different schools.

After WHISD was ranked "academically unacceptable" (the lowest possible ranking of a school district in Texas) for the second consecutive year, TEA exercised its authority to close WHISD and to have DISD absorb it, which it agreed to do. The United States Department of Justice approved the closure on December 13, 2005. The district held its final meeting in June 2006.

One local newspaper, the Dallas Observer, argues that DISD agreed to absorb the district not because of any desire to improve the educational improvement of the students, but because of the significant tax revenue to be gained from the recently-completed US$70 million Union Pacific Dallas Intermodal Terminal, which is located partly in the city of Wilmer and partly in the city of Hutchins, but wholly within the WHISD district boundaries.

As a result of the merger, Dallas ISD will hold title to the former WHISD campus facilities. It is not known at present whether any of the former facilities (primarily the elementary schools) will be reopened; due to WHISD's poor maintenance of the facilities any such reopening may be economically infeasible. Dallas ISD may demolish the old facilities and replace them with new facilities, or sell them all toghether.

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