Deseg Monitor: Goodbye To All This?

What does it mean now that the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees has voted to petition Judge Barefoot Sanders for a declaration of “unitary status”-thus ending a thirty-three-year-old battle in the courts over desegregation? No one is quite sure, but one thing does appear certain: Donald E. Hood, court-appointed desegregation monitor since 1976, may be out of a job.

Hood’s involvement in the case has long been the subject of controversy. The role of desegregation monitor was originally given to Educational Testing Service, where Hood worked. In 1984, Hood split off from ETS but kept the contract. The first bill he submitted (Hood is paid out of district funds) was for some $210, 000. “As I recall” says former DISD trustee John Martin, “he included payment for his commuting expenses from Austin where he lives. ” School officials wrote to ETS to learn what Hood had been paid. An official revealed that it was somewhere between $24, 000 and $42, 000. In light of that, district officials balked at paying more than two hundred thousand dollars for what they viewed as essentially the same services. DISD attorney Robert Thomas, of Strasburger & Price, remembers his shock at the size of the contract. “We negotiated it down to the vicinity of $155, 000 a year, and that’s where it’s been ever since. “

Hood’s reporting skills have come under fire as well. DISD staffers complain that the monitor does little more than resub-mit the district’s own internal desegregation monitoring reports-with a change here and there-to the court.

The postpartum plan may include the formation of a multiracial committee that would monitor DISD’s progress outside of court jurisdiction. If that happens, attorney Thomas says Donald Hood will need to look elsewhere for employment.