Gonzales focuses BISD on students as new school board begins term

New Dynamic

Hector Gonzales would seem a perfect fit for the Brownsville Independent School District, a superintendent whose school years mirrored those of many BISD's students and who has succeeded smartly.

Gonzales grew up as the youngest child in a farming family in San Benito. His parents spoke little English, and yet, all six brothers and sisters attended college and obtained advanced degrees.

As recently as 2002 BISD was in disarray, having gone through six superintendents in 10 years. Following the work established by his immediate predecessor, Michael Zolkosky, Gonzales brought stability and success to the district. He has been BISD superintendent since November 2006 and last month the district was honored with the Broad Prize for Urban Education, widely considered the nation's top education award.

"Our focus is always going to be on students, and when you make your decisions based on that, you're going to have success," Gonzales says.

In a minority-majority district like BISD, that means paying attention to low-income Hispanics, who make up nearly 95 percent of the district's students.

BISD won the Broad Prize for raising student performance and closing gaps in student achievement among ethnic groups and between high- and low-income students. The award established BISD as the most-improved urban school district in the country and secured $1 million in scholarships for its graduating juniors and seniors.

Not surprisingly, Gonzales regards the day BISD received the award as the pinnacle of his professional career.

"I'm very proud of what this district has done and where we are going," he said. "With 32 of our 33 elementary campuses either exemplary or recognized" by the Texas Education Agency "we're definitely on the right track."

The Broad methodology looks "at closing the gaps, at how well the minority student is doing against the U.S. mainstream," Gonzales said. "The key is treating all students as students - not as Hispanics or any other minority. All students can learn, and we have the same expectations for all students."

Just weeks before Gonzales and the BISD Board of Trustees went to New York for the Broad Prize awards ceremony, the superintendent received his annual evaluation, in which he met or exceeded the benchmarks that are part of his contract.

The board gave him a $20,000 raise, and perhaps foreshadowing things to come, did not extend his contract.

When word got out, some in the community interpreted the move as a slap in the face, saying someone who led BISD to such heights surely deserved a contract extension.

Actually, the raise brought Gonzales' annual salary to $225,000, and he remains under contract for two years, through 2010.

His salary compares to a state average of $220,787 for superintendents of districts with 25,000 to 50,000 students and $272,347 for districts with 50,000 to 100,000, according to the Texas Association of School Boards. BISD's peak enrollment during 2007-2008 was 48,848 students, according to the district, so Gonzales' salary would seem to be in line with other districts.

Still, the dust had hardly settled on winning the Broad Prize when the district held elections that resulted in an apparent new voting alignment on the Board of Trustees.

"It's the political process at work. It's politics at play," said Pat Lehmann, the former Position 2 trustee who lost his seat to Brownsville attorney Rick Zayas by a large margin.

Without coming right out and saying so, Lehmann suggested the vote set up a four-way alliance on the board, with Zayas, Ruben Cortez, Joe Colunga and board President Rolando Aguilar voting together and trustees Dr. Enrique Escobedo, Caty Presas-Garcia and Minerva Peña on the other side. Garcia and Peña are new to the board.

At its first meeting, the new board voted to require a monthly "formative evaluation" of Gonzales, a move Cortez termed an accountability measure to ensure better communication between the superintendent and the board.

"If this makes the board feel more comfortable, I'm certainly ready and willing to work with them," Gonzales said. "If that's the way they want to go, I'll certainly respect that."

At the Texas Association of School Boards, Bill Nemir, a specialist in board-superintendent relations, said state law requires a school board to make at least one formative and one summative evaluation of its superintendent every 12 calendar months.

While he didn't know of any other district conducting monthly formative evaluations, he said he didn't think requiring them was cause for alarm "in and of itself." He said many of the state's larger urban districts have started requiring such evaluations quarterly.

The evaluations provide a formal way for the board to provide direction to the superintendent, to make sure priorities and goals are being addressed, Nemir said.

Lehmann was on the board in 2002 when then superintendent Noe Sauceda was fired for cause.

"The district was almost at meltdown during that tumultuous period," Lehmann said. "The district held together because of the campus staffs and it was kept going by the rank and file."

Eventually, the board hired former superintendent Michael Zolkoski, who departed in 2006, after which Gonzales took over.

The board is a component, Lehmann said. "It hires the superintendent, but inevitably it is the people he has to manage that make this district what it is."

Gonzales was equally complimentary when asked to analyze how the district has moved forward.

"This Broad Prize is going to take us to the next level. We have created a new standard whereby acceptable is no longer acceptable," he said, referring to Texas Education Agency school performance ratings.

Gonzales said BISD's success has to do with being "data-driven" and involving everyone once a curriculum decision is made.

Citing team teaching in the middle schools as an example, he said, "We don't just tell you here's the program. We're going to train you.

"Meet with your staffs, meet with yourselves and then you tell me if you want to do it. If so, fine. Then you're going to have to be trained," he said he tells principals.

"It's not just making a decision. It's following through on that decision and then giving them the resources that they need," Gonzales said.

The result is that everyone feels invested. They have "bought in" and "it's going to be successful because they want it to be successful," he said.

Gonzales graduated from Rio Hondo High School in 1969, received his bachelor's degree in agriculture from Texas A&I University in Kingsville in 1973. He received his master's degree in education from Corpus Christi State University in 1988 and obtained his superintendent's certification from the University of Texas-Pan American.

Gonzales joined BISD in 1998, serving as assistant superintendent of operations before becoming superintendent. He was superintendent of the Santa Maria School District from 1995-1998.

He said other districts approached him after BISD won the Broad Prize, but he intends to stay in Brownsville.

"I have two years left on my contract and I fully intend to work them out," he said, pointing out that growing up in a household where the parents spoke Spanish and the children were learning English gives him a special understanding on the kinds of students that attend classes in BISD.

"My passion is here with this type of student. That's why I'm staying here," he said.

"The Broad Prize is excellent, but my goal is that every child is successful, that every child graduate. ... My biggest day as a professional is standing there and shaking their hands as they walk across the stage."