Jason Bernal, who recently resigned as chief executive officer of the YES Prep charter school network in Houston, has taken a job with HISD, a former competitor of sorts. Superintendent Terry Grier announced Monday that Bernal would serve as one of HISD's new chief school officers, overseeing some of the district's lowest-performing middle and high schools.

Bernal, who started his education career as a teacher at YES Prep in 1997, has never worked for a traditional school district, but YES has proven successful at educating a similar population of mostly low-income and minority students in Houston.

The new job will put Bernal's skills to the test. The YES model involves starting schools from scratch, and critics like to say that charter schools benefit from having students with especially motivated parents. In HISD, Bernal will oversee the district's neediest middle and high schools, where many students leave for charter or magnet schools.

Bernal's resignation from YES came after he recommended that the charter not expand to Memphis. That decision prompted criticism from YES founder Chris Barbic, who runs the special state-run district in Tennessee that YES was supposed to join. - from -------Houston Chronicle