K-12 Zone

Blogging Houston-area education with the Chronicle staff.

Donations edge HISD toward Apollo fund goal


Two new grants announced today push the Houston Independent School District closer to its private fund-raising goal for its Apollo 20 school reform program.

Over the next three years, HISD’s foundation will receive a $750,000 grant from the Fondren Foundation, while a $50,000 gift from the Simmons Foundation will be paid over the next two years.

The two grants bring private donations for Apollo 20 to $2.37 million, HISD said in a news release. The district’s chief financial officer, Melinda Garrett, said last month that the district was at least $5 million short of raising enough private money to cover the program’s costs this year. The gifts announced today would bring that number down to about $4.2 million.

In February, trustees narrowly approved spending $1.6 million to expand the program to 11 elementary school campuses next year. Apollo 20 started last August at nine middle and high schools.

Categories: Uncategorized
Mike Snyder

16 Responses

  1. HISD parent says:

    Here are three big problems. These gifts from Houston’s top foundations and corporations give apparent endorsement of Grier’s reign of error and terror. It is appalling that these donors have been fooled into supporting anything this destructive superintendent proposes. And when Grier is finally, publicly discredited, HISD may not do so well when returning to these foundations in the future.

  2. Judd Bingle says:

    Harvin Moore, Greg Meyers, Paul Harris, Manuel Rodriguez, and Larry Marshall all betrayed the public’s trust by committing HISD tax payers’ money to bail out this program Grier has totally-obsessed over. Bottom line is funding is still short. Taxpayers should not be paying for something that is nothing more than a Grier resume-builder. Voters need to hold Moore, Meyers, Harris, Rodriguez, and Marshall responsible for their extremely poor judgement in voting to perpetuate an expensive but marginal (at best) experiment.

  3. Judd Bingle says:

    typo correction: Paula Harris

  4. The rest of HISD says:

    These donations will not keep the district from using general funds to pay for this ridiculously named program. In this time of crisis, Dr Grier is unable to provide the leadership necessary to lead the whole district through.

    All carpetbaggers and their enablers should head for the exits now so that people who truly care about this city and its children can provide sound leadership for our communities.

  5. hunter says:

    If a publicly traded company reported its financial the way HISD does, the Board and officers responsible would receive SEC sanctions and be indicted for fraud.

    If HISD keeps a clean set of books, it is one of the best kept secrets in the District.

    Whoever leaned on the Fondrens and Simmons did a heroic job of bail out, but the bottom line is Apollo is still bait and switch.

    How many students could be taught by the $4.2 million shortfall?

    About 1600.

    $4.2 million = about 80 teachers.

    80 Teachers X 20 students = 16000.

    What a scam.

    Shame on Marshall or whoever leaned on the Fondrens and Simmons to pony this up.

  6. jentill says:

    I hope folks have equal outrage for the unique PUA and magnet programs as they do for the apollo program. These schools were on the firing line for being taken over by the state. These schools include some of the poorest kids in Houston, kids most of the adults have already written off or they wouldn’t have allowed these schools to get this bad. I am outraged that money has to be “raised” for these schools and not for the schools that get all of the special funding from the regular HISD budget. The kids in Apollo schools deserve a quality education too and for the life of me I cant nderstand why these schools are treated differently than any other school that needed urgent help. These are not throwaway kids and just because their parents can’t come out in force doesn’t mean society shouldn’t be doing right by them. In fact, because these kids have been denied a quality education thru their elementary and middle school years, they should be given more money to compensate for the incompetence and negligence visited upon them without anyone speaking out in outrage. We have done them a disservice by pretending they are getting a quality education and finally someone is paying attention. And for those Board members who did NOT vote for elementary Apollo — please tell me what YOU would propose to do for these kids to make sure they have an equal chance to be successful. You were elected for all of the kids, not just the kids in your district. If you can’t do that, please find another outlet for your time. Our kids need and deserve better.

  7. liv2teach says:

    I’m proud to be an Apollo teacher, one who taught before and after the program came to our school. I wonder how many of apollo’s critics ever visited any of the apollo schools and can testify to the difference it has made in the lives of some of our neediest students? These students are several grades behind in reading and math. These students don’t have parents who can afford to take off work to take them to museums or other enrichment activiites. In many of these families’ homes, there are no books, no internet access, no place for kids to do their homework. We should be judged by how we help the most vulnerable, not the most privileged, and before Apollo, we were doing a lousy job. The parents of these children should have filed a class action suit for the deficient education these children have gotten. I cannot understand why everyone is not wrapping their arms around these students and doing everything possible to help them catch up after years of substandard schooling. I cannot understand why our schools cannot get HISD funding and have to rely on foundations. Education is a civil right and my students’ civil rights have been denied. Through Apollo, they are getting a fraction of what they deserve to compensate for all they have lost in HISD schools. If you haven’t been to one of our schools, please visit. Please talk to our students and let them tell you how they now have hope, how they now believe that the powers that be care about them, how they believe there is a way out of poverty, and how they believe they can be somebody. Then you tell me if you can look them in the eye and tell them they deserve anything less.

  8. Math Maestro says:

    So Grier has raised 2.37 million of the necessary 20 million?

    If Grier is so sure about Apollo-20, why isn’t Grier spending more time to raise the other 17.63 million instead of spending that time to force out all these principals and hire/re-locate out-of-towners?

    Or spending that time to do his homework on why certain schools magnet programs excel and others do not, instead of re-distributing like a communist dictator?

    There are many things Grier has done wrong since he’s been in HISD, which he could have avoided if Grier spends more time fund-raising for his pet projects and let the teachers/principals do their jobs.

  9. teacher says:

    liv2teach Its great that you see the results first hand, but then again when you look at all the extra money, time, supplies and personel that you have received to get the marginal results (if proven) comes with a price tag to large for such a samll percentage of children within HISD! Sure these kids are now getting and should have been getting all along a quality education,from teachers like you who were already there!?!? But the bigger question now is how can we take this little underfunded experiment to the much needed schools throughout the district and implement it? It is never going to happen because of high cost for such small percentage gains. Greir can’t even fund the Apollo schools in the program let alone add 11 more elementary schools to the mix! And you were one of the lucky teachers that remained at your school while others were tossed out like the vulnerable students they once taught!! In closing, I really think that the only reason we are seeing small improvments is becuase of this being Greir’s pet project and all the extras thrown your way! What happens when Geir, this board, and the funding is gone? Will the Apollo schools be able to retain the teachers who are now getting bonus money to teach there and will the kids progress keep growing without all these outside variables? Remember when HISD used to pay teachers more to go into lower performing schools? I do, and once the extra money was gone so were those “dedicated” teachers to the “better” schools! Seems to me this will be a repeat of that similar situation all to soon!!!

  10. teacher says:

    jentill You are so right but maybe the best thing we can do for many of these children is for the state to start holding the parents of these children more accountable! Any parent who has kids in school and receive ANY aid from the state and is sitting at home daily not working, should be required to report to the school and check to see how and what their children doing and what THEY can do at home to help THEIR children be successful!!! The first teacher(s) in everyone life is their parent(s) and THIS is the missing link to success and failure for many kids today no matter where you go to school! Parental involvment and responsibility are the missing links we MUST get back into educating kids today and UNTIL this is DEMANDED and NOT just asked for by schools, educating all children will continue to be an up hill battle we may never come close to winning any time soon!

  11. hunter says:


    I hear plenty about Apollo, and you are the first to claim to teach there and to not point that it is an unsustainable project, with low-paid tutors putting in 40 hour weeks for $15,000 per year, with a classroom weekly schedule that is unsustainable, and for a price that is nearly as much as the teaching portion of the entire magnet program.

    By the way, plenty of low income kids in Houston get excellent educations.

    But Apollo is not a way to deliver it into the failed schools of Apollo.

    Let us see what the Apollo test results have to say, and if those results are credible and trustworthy.

    As to why we are not pouring all of resources into the failed schools…..you got to be kidding.

    If students get to high school with no get study habits, they are not going to pick them up. This is not ‘Stand and Deliver’. This is the real world.

  12. hunter says:


    I just noticed that when I was showing how many students could be taught for 4.2 million, I stated the number, 1600, then when I was showing the formula, I made a typo and added a zero.

    I apologize for any confusion on that. The correct number is in fact 1600, as I initially stated.

  13. Bob Cook says:

    HFT should stage an Austin style demonstration down on 18th Street in front of the HMW. Come on HFT step up and show me that something comes from my thousands of dollars of dues. Mostly an occaisonal grumble about TG is all I hear..Step up Ms Fallon.

  14. alwaysaneducator says:

    @ jentill and liv2teach…My sentimernts exactly

  15. Bob Cook says:

    Sterling HS? TG we obviously don’t need policemen..welcome to YoutTube.

  16. oztex01 says:


    You want to show me the study that proves trips to museums improve math and reading? How does internet access improve math and reading and what studies show those with do better than those without? The schools they attend don’t have libraries to borrow books from, and they don’t own a kitchen table that they eat from, so they can’t sit at it after school (which is what my three kids do) to complete their homework? My wife and I don’t take time off work to take our kids on “enrichment” trips and I have two HISD Elementary Vanguard and a SBISD GT middle school children.

    Sorry the Apollo program is a joke, you give any student extra tutoring time and their grades will improve, we need a study to prove that?

    How many teachers that Grier plans to cut would still have jobs if his pet science project was canned and the funds used not for extra tutoring but to keep teachers in classrooms?