THUMB AWARD DISD: WHEN WILL THEY LEARN?

Thumbs Down to the Dallas Independent School District administration for paying little attention to what it does with our tax dollars. This story is complicated, so stay with us. In 1979 Associate Supt. Yvonne Ewell signed a contract for $47,500 with a company called Gulf Education Systems to do computerized “learning prescription” for kids in East Oak Cliff grade schools. Gulf had been in business for only about three months at the time, and was wholly owned by the Institute for Applied Human Services, a New Jersey firm. The same month Gulf got its Dallas contract, former DISD Supt. Nolan Estes bought a big chunk of the Institute. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that Yvonne Ewell never had authority to sign contracts for DISD. She didn’t have authority to transfer the contract to another company, either, but when Gulf seemed on the verge of defaulting a few months into the deal, she let the Institute take over. She says she never was told that she could not sign contracts. One thumb to her. A second goes to Supt. Linus Wright, who allowed the contract to get through his office without proper authorization, and a third goes to the DISD board, which blindly approved payment on the contract after the fact.