Following the Apollo 20 Money

Total Expenditures for the Apollo 20 Launch at Nine Secondary Schools in 2010-2011: $19,365,645

Where the money came from:

• $5,966,643 from HISD’s Priority and Unacceptable Schools (Targeted School Assistance) Fund. These funds historically have been appropriated from the district’s general fund on an annual basis to pay for targeted interventions at the district’s lowest-performing campuses. It existed before the creation of Apollo 20 and higherperforming campuses are not eligible for this funding. Past uses of these funds have included school reconstitutions (replacing staff), such as the Sam Houston High School reconstitution in 2008. The fund was supplemented in 2010-2011 with savings from HISD’s renegotiated contract with CEP. In 2010-2011, these funds were used to reconstitute (replace staff) at all nine Apollo 20 secondary schools, which were all among HISD’s lowest-performing campuses. This was a one-time cost at these schools.
• $4,962,160 from the Texas Title I Priority Schools Grant Program. This grant is awarded to a district’s “persistently lowest –achieving” schools that have a high percentage of students from low-income homes. Each of the four Apollo 20 high schools received a three-year grant from this program worth a combined total of $21,642,652.
• $3,600,554 from private funds awarded specifically to the Apollo 20 program from donors.
• $1,806,426 from federal Title I School Improvement Grants. These are federal grants awarded to individual eligible schools. These funds must be used to improve student achievement in high-poverty schools identified for improvement, corrective action, or restructuring so as to enable those schools to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) and exit improvement status. This money could not have been spent at other HISD schools.
• $1,716,273 from federal Title I regular funds. All HISD Title I schools receive an appropriation from the federal government based on the number of low-income children on their campus. Title I regular funds to the Apollo 20 schools were based on this formula and these schools would have received this money regardless of whether they participated in the Apollo 20 program.
• $892,328 from Title I, School Improvement Stimulus funds. These are additional Title I School Improvement Grant funds allocated to individual eligible schools through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Other eligible, non-Apollo 20 HISD schools also received Title I, School Improvement Stimulus funds.
• $322,161 from Title I Stimulus funds. These are funds every high-poverty campus in HISD receives, including non-Apollo 20 schools. All HISD Title I schools, including non-Apollo schools, also received Title I Stimulus funds.
• $99,100 from Title II, Part A funds. These federal funds are designated for programs that aim to increase student achievement by improving the quality of teachers and principals. All HISD schools received Title II, Part A funds.

SUMMARY: Funding for the Apollo 20 program comes primarily from sources that require the money be spent on programs that serve low-income students and schools that are persistently under-performing. These schools would be receiving much of this funding regardless of their participation Apollo 20 program. In 2010-2011, HISD spent less than $6 million replacing teachers and principals at the original nine Apollo 20 schools. This is a onetime cost and is roughly the same amount spent in 2008 when HISD reconstituted the staff at Sam Houston High School.