As we know, the Houston Independent School District now includes all of the former North Forest ISD. The addition of all that new territory, and especially all those new voters, means that the existing HISD Trustee districts will have to be redrawn. HISD is going through that process now.
The Houston Independent School District will launch a series of four community meetings next week to hear feedback about a draft plan to redraw trustee districts.
The first meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 1, at Shadydale Elementary School, 5905 Tidwell 77028.
With the annexation of North Forest ISD in 2013, 56,000 more people were added to HISD, necessitating the redrawing of all nine trustees’ areas to comply with federal election law mandating that population be distributed evenly throughout the entire school district.
Trustees voted at their last regular meeting to send a draft plan to the community. Three additional meetings will be held in July:
- Pin Oak Middle School (4601 Glenmont, Bellaire 77401) 6:30 p.m., July 8
- Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center (4400 W. 18th St. 77092) 6:30 p.m. July 10
- Austin High School (1700 Dumble St. 77023) 6:30 p.m. July 15
The board will receive feedback from the meetings and is expected to vote on a final redistricting plan at its August meeting.
For more on the redistricting plan, including materials reviewed by the board and the proposed map, click here.
Sorry I didn’t post in time for the first meeting, but there are three others. A draft map is here, and the associated presentation with all the before-and-afters including population mixes is here; both are PDF file download links. Greg has had a look and doesn’t think there will be too much fuss as not to much is changing at a high level. You never know with redistricting, of course, so don’t be surprised if someone expresses unhappiness about this. The one question I don’t see answered is if implementing this plan will require all Trustees to run for re-election in 2015, as members of the Texas Senate and SBOE, both of which have four-year terms, are required to do after the standard decennial redistricting. That wasn’t the case for HISD in 2011, however, so perhaps it will be just the Trustees elected in 2011 on the ballot as usual. Anyone know the answer for sure?
There shouldn’t be anything that requires the entire board to run for election at once. The State Senate and SBOE just spoil us in that regard.