Implicit Biases Affect Alief ISD's Leadership For Their District of Color
Greetings, Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus.
During the April 06, 2021 school board meeting Alief ISD’s Director of Professional Growth and Improvement, Janine Hoke talked about implicit biases within Alief ISD. The districts Risk Load Assessment affirms that there are problems with the leadership in Alief ISD, the districts Equity Audit reinforces those same concerns with the district’s leadership, and Dr. Rayyan Amine, Alief’s Assistant Superintendent of School Improvement and Accountability stated during the January 19, 2021 school board meeting that 17% of Alief ISD’s African American students were an astounding FOUR years behind in their education here in our district, and that the district needs more equity-based initiatives.
Coach Henry David Chambers Jr. (HD Chambers) in baseball they call this three strikes and your leadership is out.
Unfortunately, everyone is failing to address the elephant in the room and what may actually be the root of the inequities of Alief ISD’s leadership and the subject of Dr. Roger Cleveland’s findings in the districts Equity Assessment Audit, this being the fact that Alief ISD has a 58 year old (12/29/1963) white male from Vidor, Texas running our district(Bridge City, Texas), whose claim to fame is being a baseball coach who has never taught in a classroom, only has a master’s degree (Bachelors: Lamar University, Masters: Sam Houston University), has no doctoral degree, and is making over $400,000 per year to be the Superintendent of a district of color, 96.6% (40,299) children of color to be exact. Under Coach HD Chambers 10-year Alief ISD Vidor training our 96.6% children of color are academically failing and leaving the district while Coach HD Chamber’s implicit biases are in charge of who gets hired, who gets promoted, who gets fired, who gets the jobs that he creates in our district, how policies and procedures are implemented, who gets to represent the district and our community to the public, what messages are conveyed to the public and staff, and let’s not forget Coach HD Chambers favorite implicit bias, what programs get tested on our community.
If I were to stick to the proverbial under hand pitch of Aliefs district leaderships implicit biases, one only has to refer back to the March 02, 2021 school board meeting where the Deputy Superintendent of Business Services referred to American citizens coming from Louisiana to Alief as refugees. I will encourage all of you to look up the definition of what a refugee is, then consider the demographics of those American citizens who were called refugees.
During the April 06, 2021 school board meeting it amazed me how Coach HD Chambers, in his usual and customary form, and in great detail was always able to rattle off so much information about legislative bills and data as it related to the state of Texas and what goes on in Austin, yet when questions are asked of information and data relating to Alief ISD the responses are never immediately known and the information is always stated that it will be provided at a later date, in board notes, which the public never gets to see or hear.
To make matters worse, the district makes contradicting statements and assumes that either the public is not listening or that we are not astute enough to make any connections of the lies that are being told to us. During the April 06, 2021 school board meeting while discussing House Bill 1468 regarding virtual learning, Coach HD Chambers passion for politics in Austin caused him to slip a secret out to the public when he stated that children living in Amarillo, Texas were currently attending school virtually here in Alief ISD.
Yet during the January 19, 2021 school board meeting when Coach HD Chambers was discussing the flip side of the senate bill, he and his administrators were attempting to insight panic in our community and among staff by stating that 5,000 Alief ISD students were “MISSING”, as if the students just vanished off of the face of the earth as opposed to those students clearly being enrolled in other school districts, states, or countries because of their access to online learning, and Alief ISD being the only school district that started school early in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. Alief ISD’s leadership forced our kids to come back to school early and then the school board turned around and became scared to meet face to face while approving poor decisions for our kids, poor decisions for our families, and poor decisions for our community. All of which occurred after the district spent our tax money on plexiglass dividers to protect the school board, and the board disregarded the intent of its proper use, while district students, teachers, bus drivers, and custodians remained and still remain unprotected.
Maybe it’s time for our district to get a new head coach and some relief pitchers to close out the season here in Alief.
Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus.