As the buzz of electric shavers echoes through Beau’s Place in Katy, several men gather around Cameron Campbell’s chair in the back of the barbershop. The regular customer is holding court on football, race, local politics — and eventually, the Katy Independent School District.

Campbell, whose daughter will be a freshman at Katy’s Paetow High School next year, has grown frustrated over the past decade with members of the district’s school board. 

The father of two believes Katy trustees — nearly all of whom live in wealthier neighborhoods south of Interstate 10 — have too often ignored the needs of the diverse, more middle-income population on the north side of the highway. Children on the district’s north side score lower on state tests, get disciplined more and graduate less-prepared for college.

“Having a school board member within proximity, it gives a completely different level of ownership and accountability to your students,” Campbell said. “It says, ‘There’s somebody here to protect or provide for you that is moments away.’”

In Katy and several Houston-area districts, school boards have employed an election system — known as “at-large districts” — that has contributed to most trustees living in wealthier neighborhoods, a Houston Landing review of election records shows. As a result, many families and students in lower-income areas have had no nearby board members representing their interests.

In Pasadena, four of the district’s seven trustees live within 1 ½ miles of each other. In Spring Branch, an overwhelming majority of trustees have lived in wealthier neighborhoods south of Interstate 10 over the past decade. And trustees in Humble have typically lived anywhere but their district’s less-affluent areas. 

School boards have enabled this phenomenon by using at-large districts, in which elected officials are chosen by voters throughout the district. 

While school boards haven’t explicitly tried to exclude candidates from less-affluent areas, the at-large system has had that effect in several districts. That’s largely because voter turnout is typically stronger in higher-income areas, where residents often support their neighbors for elected office.

Other school boards, meanwhile, have embraced an alternative known as “single-member districts,” which breaks up a school district into smaller geographic areas, with one elected official chosen by residents of each area.

The single-member approach doesn’t guarantee a high-functioning school board. Houston ISD, which uses the setup, has been marred for years by trustees from different factions of the city fighting each other.

“I think (geographic representation) is important, but … I really want the best person for the position,” said Shawn Miller, who lives on the historically underrepresented north side of Katy and lost his bid for the school board in 2023. “If that means two people from the same area for the two top candidates, then so be it.”

But supporters of the single-member system argue it produces elected officials who more intimately understand the needs of underrepresented neighborhoods. Campbell said Katy trustees would be better positioned to address student behavior challenges at Paetow High, which reported the most fights and in-school suspensions in the district last school year, if more board members lived near the campus.

“It’s easy to feel isolated,” he said. “Like I want the best for my kid, but am I the only one?”

Reflecting the community?

A lack of geographic representation has persisted for years across several of Houston’s largest school districts.

Katy serves over 90,000 students at 72 campuses across the suburbs west of Houston. The fast-growing, rapidly diversifying district stretches over 180 square miles, with many of its Black, Hispanic and lower-income students attending schools on the north side of Interstate 10.

Yet today, only one of Katy’s seven school board members lives north of the highway. Since 2014, no trustee has lived in the boundaries of three high schools — Paetow, Mayde Creek and Morton Ranch — that rank lower on the state’s academic accountability system.

“The makeup of the board certainly does not reflect or seem to reflect the entire district,” said Scott Martin, who centered his 2018 school board campaign around switching election systems when his neighborhood on the district’s east side lacked a local representative. “If I had a problem or an issue, it wasn’t at all obvious to me who I would have called about it.”

READ MORE: What’s the difference between Hispanic and Latino? Does it matter? Your questions answered.

Pasadena Independent School District covers 85 square miles in southeast Harris County, spanning from the refineries dotting Highway 225 to middle-class subdivisions on the district’s burgeoning west side. Nearly 50,000 students attend the Hispanic-majority district, about 80 percent of whom are considered economically disadvantaged by the state.

Despite Pasadena’s wide expanse, the district’s school board representation has been concentrated in the middle of the district, where every trustee but one has lived within a three-mile radius over the last decade. 

Most strikingly, four current trustees reside within 1 ½ miles of each other. District budgets and county property records show the average home appraisal value in their neighborhoods range from about $325,000 to $350,000 — well above the district-wide average of about $200,000.

“No one takes responsibility in representing you,” said Yen Rabe, a former Pasadena teacher who ran unsuccessfully for the school board in 2019 and 2021. “When people run against that tight-knit group, they don’t win. … When you go to the board meetings, you’ll see everybody votes the same way.”

In western Harris County, the 33,500-student Spring Branch Independent School District is carved into two distinct halves. On the southern side, a whiter and more-affluent student population attends campuses in the Memorial and Stratford high school zones. On the northern side, a largely Hispanic and economically disadvantaged student population goes to schools in the Northbrook and Spring Woods high school zones.

Over the past 10 years, all but one Spring Branch trustee has lived in the Memorial and Stratford zones. The issue has long divided voters and families in the community, a fracture laid bare in a 2021 lawsuit filed by a former school board candidate who argues the at-large election system violates the federal Voting Rights Act and disadvantaged voters of color on the district’s north side. (The lawsuit is pending.)

“There’s this overwhelming force on the south side that you just can’t beat,” said Ed Kaczenski, a former northside trustee candidate who thinks the issue breeds political apathy in his community. “We’re not showing up anymore, because what’s the point of going and showing up if we’re not being listened to?”

A similar pattern has played out in 47,500-student Humble, where most board members have clustered over the past decade in whiter, more affluent sections on the district’s north side.

An uphill battle

In recent elections, candidates who lived in underrepresented neighborhoods have run for office in Pasadena, Spring Branch, Humble and other districts with an at-large system.

Few, however, have emerged victorious, in large part due to voter patterns and the challenges of running districtwide campaigns. 

Election records show voter turnout has historically been higher in wealthier and whiter neighborhoods, where many winning candidates live.

In Katy, the underrepresented areas had around a 2 percent voter turnout rate in the last election, according to precinct-level data. In areas where victorious trustees lived, turnout ranged from roughly 3 to 11 percent. 

In Spring Branch, voter turnout south of Interstate 10 ranged from about 10 to 15 percent in the last trustee election, while it ranged from about 5 to 8 percent in the underrepresented areas north of the interstate. 

The geographic split was seen in Humble, too, with voter turnout in the well-represented Kingwood area hitting 10 to 15 percent and turnout generally ranging from 1 to 5 percent on the south side.

Advocates in all communities have hoped that getting more people politically engaged would produce a more evenly-distributed board — a task that has proved Herculean. 

“That low-income household, which is typically Hispanic, where they're working multiple jobs, just keeping the lights on — they don't have time to spend on all that crap,” Kaczenski said. “It's also cultural. A lot of them don't speak English. A lot of them don't engage with schools the same way that white families engage.”

Unsuccessful candidates also said running a districtwide campaign — and raising the money to do it — can feel like an uphill battle. 

Rabe, the Pasadena candidate, said she struggled to get her message out across the entire district. She thinks she would have fared better if she could focus on her neighbors.

Martin, the one-time Katy candidate, said he labored to reach voters across the expansive district and get people engaged for a May election.

“It's extraordinarily difficult for someone without a lot of resources to run for school board at-large,” Martin said. “If I had unlimited resources, I would have been able to do a much more effective job. I tried my best to knock on doors and all that in my campaign, but knowing that I was gonna have to compete for voters all across the district, not just in my neighborhood … it's very expensive and difficult.”

‘Time for change’?

In other large Houston-area districts using an at-large system, trustees’ residences have been scattered throughout the region. The Cy-Fair, Conroe, Klein and Spring independent school district boards have been geographically diverse in the last decade.

Demographics vary widely in Cy-Fair, the Houston area’s second-largest district, which serves 117,000 students across 185 square miles. And yet, Cy-Fair’s 15 trustees over the past decade have been scattered across the boundaries of the district’s 12 high schools. 

In Klein, most high schools serve similar student demographics, with one exception. About 90 percent of Klein Forest High School students are Black or Hispanic, and 80 percent of students are considered economically disadvantaged by the state. Even still, three of the district’s last 11 trustees lived in the Klein Forest area.

While the at-large system has produced geographic representation in some districts, advocates in other districts continue to fight for a switch to single-member districts. A wave of lawsuits in Texas — similar to that in Spring Branch — have challenged several school districts’ at-large election system in recent years. Several have caused boards to switch to single-member districts.

But Houston-area advocates have yet to see the same success. Spring Branch trustees have voiced their intent to “zealously” defend their at-large system in various public statements. Meanwhile, the lawsuit against the district faces questions about its legality altogether. 

“I love the idea of (single member districts) but I have a basic philosophical problem with saying, ‘That’s the way you have to do it,’” Kaczenski said. “I think (the lawsuit) was incredibly divisive. …  But I also struggle with why we can’t find a way to elect somebody without having to go to a single-member scenario.”

Earlier this year, one Humble trustee, Martina Lemond Dixon, suggested the board discuss switching to a single-member system amid rapid growth in the district, particularly on the less-affluent south side. But Dixon’s colleagues shut down the proposal, which prompted mixed reactions from residents, with little discussion.

A legal fight isn’t necessary for election systems to change. Boards can vote to change their election method, or voters can push them to do so. If 15,000 or 15 percent of registered voters in a district — whichever is less — sign a petition requesting that their trustees implement single-member districts, the measure would appear on the ballot for residents to vote on.

Campbell, the Katy parent, thinks years will pass before the north side of his district becomes politically engaged enough to elect a more representative board.

“It’s time for change,” Campbell said. “It’s going to take stakeholders like myself and a handful of other folks to cobble together the resources to make that change happen. … But I’ll fight like hell.” 

Republish This Story

Republish our articles for free, online or in print.