Dozens miss out on Spring graduation
After crisis concerning counseling, about 60 Spring ISD seniors will not have enough credits to get their diplomas
About 60 Spring ISD students won’t have enough credits to earn their diplomas this weekend as a result of widespread scheduling and transcript errors.
Alezia Walker was supposed to be up there on Saturday, walking across the stage in new, black stilettos alongside her Westfield High classmates.
She had it all planned out, down to the pink dress she had picked out from Burlington Coat Factory to match the reams of pink and white streamers and balloons for a big, prom-like graduation party. Her family had booked the hall in north Houston. A family friend was going to make a cake with Walker’s face on it.
But Walker will miss graduation, even though she says she was advised by school officials months ago that she was on track to get her diploma this weekend. Instead, she’ll likely spend the day online, clicking through make-up courses on English, physics and math.
“It makes me feel like I’m alone,” Walker, 18, said.
She’s not. Widespread and systemic scheduling and transcript errors by the Spring Independent School District threatened the graduation plans of hundreds of students in their final months of school. The findings led to the ouster of administrators, a review by the Texas Education Agency and reforms of the counseling and data management systems in the north Harris County district. It also sent administrators scrambling to help seniors obtain the credits they needed to graduate on time through night school, make-up tests and schedule changes.
After an occasionally grueling three months, the vast majority of the nearly 600 affected seniors are poised to graduate Saturday. But Walker is among about 60 students who won’t graduate because the district says they don’t have enough credits to be technically considered seniors, including many who were incorrectly classified.
“I couldn’t make it because I had to make up classes,” Walker said.
The crisis began late last year when the Texas Education Agency flagged missing end-of-course exam data for some students at Spring ISD, a system with about 36,000 students that straddles Interstate 45 north of Houston.
What began as an inquiry into the anomalies mushroomed into a months-long investigation into shoddy counseling and recordkeeping practices, with district officials finding that 592 students — one-third of the
anticipated graduating class — had not met state graduation requirements. The problems were found across the district’s three high schools — Spring, Dekaney and Westfield. Hundreds of other transcripts showed errors all the way down to the middle-school level.
Transcripts showed credit for courses students hadn’t taken and omitted credit for classes they had taken.
Some were given credit for regular courses after failing AP courses. One records-keeping room at Dekaney High School was found in disarray, with student files and personal documents like Social Security cards strewn across the floor.
Walker said the district wasn’t able to transfer credits from her previous school in Austin, the Harmony Science Academy, leaving her with only nine credits, far short of the 22 required to graduate on a minimum graduation plan.
She said her family had brought her transcripts from Austin to prove that she had taken required courses such as English and math. But her Spring ISD transcript never reflected those credits, essentially leaving out her entire sophomore year and parts of her freshman year.
Walker said she wasn’t alerted to the problems until January, even after her transcripts were scrutinized at the end of last semester because she was planning on missing classes for health reasons, which she declined to discuss.
District spokeswoman Karen Garrison said she
“Having fresh eyes provided an opportunity for us to ask questions and ask questions differently than they were asked in the past.” Rodney Watson, Spring Independent School District superintendent
couldn’t comment on Walker’s specific case because of student privacy rules, but she said the district routinely handles transfers.
“Sometimes a student’s transcript may include courses that were failed or incomplete, and understandably, credit can’t be awarded in those instances,” Garrison said.
Walker maintains she completed and passed the classes in question.
‘Fresh eyes’
The fallout from the investigation was widespread.
Ten district officials — ranging from top administrators to principals — resigned during the crisis, including four whom the district moved to fire for their alleged roles in creating the mess.
A fifth targeted employee continues to appeal his termination.
The TEA is reviewing the district’s findings to decide whether or not to open a formal investigation, according to an agency spokeswoman.
No criminal charges have been filed. A spokesman for Harris County’s district attorney said he could not confirm or deny a criminal investigation into Spring ISD’s findings.
The district held four public meetings that drew hundreds of parents and students and often stretched late into the night.
Many parents lamented that the district had uncovered the problems and pleaded that the Class of 2015 not be penalized. Others maintained that the problems had been going on for years.
To Superintendent Rodney Watson, who took the helm of the district in July and spearheaded the district’s investigation, there was only one path: to find and fix the problems.
“Having fresh eyes provided an opportunity for us to ask questions and ask questions differently than they were asked in the past,” Watson said.
The district hired a data consulting firm, iSphere, to shore up the management of its student information system, where schedules, transcripts and other student records are kept.
It hired a state-created regional education organization to help overhaul its counseling practices — blamed by many parents and students for the problems. They cited unavailable counselors or incorrect advice on courses and schedules.
The new organization is helping the district develop guidelines for how counselors spend their time and how many students are allotted per counselor.
Watson also touted the district’s new five-year plan, which was released last week. Parts of that plan include implementing a system allowing parents to review transcripts electronically throughout the school year and conducting random audits of student files.
Watson said the roughly 60 students not graduating did not have enough credits to be considered seniors, though the district has said they may erroneously have been considered seniors based on the number of years they were in school and not on the number of credits.
For the others, the district was able to help them make up the course credits they needed.
They include Richardson Dutervil, a senior at Dekaney High School. In January, Dutervil was called into a large conference room filled with counselors.
He needed another year of foreign language and it was too late to put the 18-year-old in a regular classroom.
“I was nervous,” Dutervil said. “I didn’t know if I was going to meet the deadlines or not.”
Giving district credit
But the district offered him the possibility of taking French online, and after spending hours before, during and after school, including at the principal’s office during lunch breaks, he finished the course in April.
He’s now bound for Tarleton State University to study sports marketing and hopes to play basketball among other sports. They are his “outlet,” he says.
He credits Spring ISD for the help, which he said was always available.
And on Saturday, 10 tickets aren’t enough for all the people Dutervil wants to bring to watch him graduate.