The superintendent of a public school district that’s 85 miles east of Houston discussed her experiences with intervention from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) on the heels of its decision to seize control of the Houston Independent School District (HISD), the largest in the state.
According to a report from Houston NBC affiliate KPRC, Dr. Shannon Allen was principal at one of the Beaumont Independent School District’s (BISD) three middle schools when a financial emergency prompted the TEA to take over in 2014.
The station reported that BISD employees were accused of stealing more than $4 million, and the district itself faced allegations of cheating on standardized tests, both of which prompted the takeover.
“You had a portion of the community that felt like, ‘Well my voice is no longer being heard, you’re taking away my voice in our community,’” Allen told KPRC. “And then you had a segment of the community that said, ‘Well … I think this is good. We need to start over.’”
HISD’s consistently low academic performance played a role in it falling under state control.
Allen, who assumed her current role in 2019 following the retirement of the state-appointed superintendent at the time, recounted to KPRC how the state replaced BISD’s school board with its own slate of appointed leaders, saying the process wasn’t easy with tough cuts made.
“The district went down really, really quickly academically because of losing teachers, losing resources,” the superintendent said in the report. “I will tell you it was a traumatic experience.”
BISD would eventually be free from TEA control with its financial health restored, which Allen said was a cause for “celebration.”
Looking back, she said BISD wouldn’t be where it is today if it weren’t for the takeover.
“We have learned over the course of several years that we can do hard things, and we can do hard things well,” Allen told KPRC.
She urged HISD, whose leaders will soon be removed, to always prioritize the children.
