North Forest, TEA debate order to close district
by Ericka Mellon
AUSTIN – Texas Education Agency officials on Friday made their final case for closing North Forest ISD, while district leaders countered that the school system has improved but is being held to an unfair standard.
The TEA’s chief deputy commissioner, Lizzette Reynolds, will issue a final ruling April 1 on whether to annex the 7,000-student North Forest Independent School District into neighboring Houston ISD.
Chris Tritico, an attorney for North Forest, said he would be surprised if the district won the appeal hearing because a high-ranking TEA official is charged with making the decision, and the agency’s commissioner ordered that North Forest must close at the end of this school year after failing to fix its long history of academic and financial problems.
Tritico said after the four-hour hearing Friday that he will take the case to the courts if the district loses the appeal to the TEA.
TEA officials presented evidence that student test scores in North Forest mostly declined from 2011 to 2012, and the district’s academic performance lags far behind the state average. North Forest High School generally fared
