Houston ISD sent out a letter today saying it is eliminating wraparound specialist services at all its campuses and instead directing all its students and their families to their Sunset Centers. The change was made in an effort to balance their funding demands and because it will be “more effective.”
How families who don’t all have access to a car or other vehicle will get to these soon to be eight centers — the board approved another one Wednesday night — is one question that critics have raised.
Last year, there were massive cuts to the ranks of the wraparound specialists. Fewer than 50 positions remained this year and now they and their department are gone as well. The district dd not say when this would take effect.
Last year, HISD cut more than 210 wraparound specialists and about $14 million from the wraparound services department’s budget due to financial constraints. After the cuts, approximately 48 remaining wraparound specialists have been splitting their time this year between five to 10 campuses each.
The letter, signed by Najah Callander, deputy chief of Family and Community Partnerships, says in part that the wrapround specialist is an outdated model.
“For decades, HISD operated with 273 autonomous campuses, lacking the level of coordination and integration that we have today. Additionally, the model relied heavily on one-time federal funding that is no longer available. Finally, the wraparound model was a one-size-fits-all strategy to address student and family needs. That simply does not reflect the reality of our District. Some of our campuses do not require full-time staff support to meet the needs in their communities, while many more of our school communities need much more support than they were given to meet the complex needs of more vulnerable populations.”
Callander said they found that even though wraparound specialists worked to ascertain students’ needs that often there were gaps in service delivery. And during this downtime “many specialists were often asked to fill other roles, such as lunchroom or car line duty, rather than being able to focus exclusively on supporting students.”
Services to students are not being cut, just the method of delivery, Callander wrote. Work previously handled by the wraparound specialists will now be managed at the school level by nurses, office managers, counselors, at-risk coordinator and parent liaisons.”
At Wednesday night’s board meeting, Community Voices For Public Education co-founder Ruth Kravetz predicted that many wraparound specialists would lose their jobs on Thursday. Turns out, she was right.
The community letter:
