I hereby call this board meeting, special board meeting of the Board of Trustees of
Katy ISD · Special Meeting
Katy ISD Special Meeting, January 3, 2017
Find something in this meeting
Search every word of the automated transcript. A result moves the recording to the moment the words were spoken.
In this meeting
- 0:00 to 3:16:49 The recording
Full transcript
Automated transcript, not human verified. It is a way to find a passage, not a quotation.
The recording
Katy Independent School District to order.
Today is Tuesday, January 3, 2017, and the time is 5.31 p.m.
This meeting is being recorded for board policy.
When talking, please speak into the microphone in front of you so the recording will accurately
reflect the discussion.
Dr. Hitt, will you verify that we are in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings
Act with regard to notice for this meeting?
Board President Klaus, we are in compliance with provisions for this meeting.
Okay. Good evening. Thank you, everyone, for being here.
I will say, I'm sorry, I have to check in attendance.
Henry DeBrell, Courtney Doyle, Rebecca Fox, Brian Mahalski, George Scott, Ashley Vann, Charles Griffin is not present.
At this time, we have asked Dr. Bill Rutherford to come and conduct, facilitate for us a team-building session
where we have two posted agenda items. So the first one is 3.1 board members. We're
going to discuss and consider board operating procedures. You have in your
packets the what it was and some suggestions for what we might consider
going forward and so this is a time for us to just to have open dialogue. This
new one is more simple more more simple to read and anyway let's let's talk
about them and feedback dr. Redford I'll let you get us to all right Thank You
Rebecca board members my pleasure to be with you once again tonight as you know
you and I have a long history together so I hesitate to do too much of an
introduction seems awfully loud but maybe that's what's supposed to be but I
know George is new to us so for the benefit of George and new superintendent
let me remind you board members that I'm a former board member myself I'm not a
former superintendent unfortunately or perhaps fortunately what either way I
never wanted to be never intended to be my academic background is in the higher
education I taught at Odessa College and had an opportunity to run for the board
in odessa i ran for the board served nine years most of those were good times i will say that
most of those are very good times i then had an opportunity to change and my wife and i made a
career decision we'd relocate if you have two children uh both of them attend the university
of texas from west texas the likelihood of them coming back to odessa right is about as much as
I'm Henry and I are gonna grow hair okay ain't gonna happen I'm not like it like
it is so my wife and I made a decision to relocate and thankfully TASB opened
up and I've been working for the Association now going on 11 years I do
work with leadership TASB that is my primary position and then also work with
boards around safe Texas so a little bit about my background and I visit most of
all of you and George and I had a chance to visit prior to dinner so we'll
dispense with any kind of introduction on your part back to me as I understand
that this is your team building training session in which we are going to do two
things we're going to first of all look at the board operating procedures and
have time to discuss and lies go over those and then also have time for you to
share with your colleagues on the board what your goals aspirations might be
excuse me for the district I'm gonna remind you that this is a workshop
setting we are under the guidelines of the open meetings act and by the same
token that we cannot take an action on this none of this is next item anything
dealing with a change in the board operating procedures by consensus and
on by vote and at some later point then board president fox will bring these to
the board for final adoption so that being said let me start first of all
with obligatory paperwork that I have to do in regarding quote unquote tier two
team building training session so as you know even we've been down this road many
times, haven't we? By law, I am required to hand to you a copy of the framework for
school board development. And before I do that, let me let me verify
something. Madam President, I'm understanding that Charles Griffin was
called away on an emergency or could not be here because of scheduling conflict,
which allows team building training to be be held law says that all seven
members eight members must be present and participating unless one has a
scheduling conflict that denies otherwise wanted to certify that so
what we're looking for dr. Rutherford have a question about that all school
board trainings are required because we've done the one that is required this
is an additional the team building training then you don't need this well
Well, we need the facilitation.
We do not need the requirement.
Heck with that.
Throw that stuff away.
Let's get into the meeting session.
We had all seven of us here for the last one.
Take the handcuffs off.
Cool, cool.
I will point out to you before we shelve this document too thoroughly into the back corners of your mind,
the State Board of Education is looking at a major revision of the framework.
work I don't know to what degree it's going to be radically different I do
know they've looked at three or four different versions of the document what
you're looking at what I handed to you is the law and it was the law the
document was first of all written in 1996 and then it was codified in 1997 by
the Texas legislature I'm sorry 2007 by the Texas legislature so any kind of
major revision or striking or changes in this is going to require an act of the
legislature I will also point to you that board members we need to understand
that the current environment in Texas is such that this is likely certainly
possible there's also been a great deal of talk during the interim session about
increasing the number of training requirements for board members there's
some dissatisfaction among members of the ledge and also state board of
education that board members are not getting enough training and I will step
out and say from from their perspective what they're looking at is those boards
that find themselves under the judicial line and those boards that find
themselves in the receiving end of justice and they tend to in my opinion
they tend to cast a blanket upon all boards and say this is the way all
boards in Texas must be behaving and you couple that with any kind of study you
want to look at on our achievement rate
we would not be talking about this if every study had Texas students in the
the top 5% across the board but you look at one and has us in the top 3% you
look at another has us in the bottom 43% you know it's all over the place the
fact that it's all over the place tells me that we're not in that top tier so
you take that and give that to the Texas ledge and they can't help perhaps the
draw the conclusion that there's something wrong with Charles make Charles
right here there's something wrong with the seven of you and therefore that
something wrong is related to the need for more training okay I don't know
where this is going to go I'm just pointing out the fact that these are
some of the clouds on the horizon that we may see coming forth in the in the
next session so anyway I want to bring that up to your attention so what I want
to do now is let's spend some time gang going over your board operating
procedures that group that that's that set that's revised let's understand
going forth that you're not looking at a legal document okay you're not going to
to be held accountable in a court of law for compliance or non-compliance of board operating
procedures. That's not the case. We never encourage boards to adopt this as part of policy.
That's not the case because this document that we're about to go over can be changed as easily
as we're going to look at tonight. What you're talking about is a civilian
document. It's a document about how you, the seven of you, the eight of you,
including the superintendent, how you decide to agree, how you agree to work
together as a body and likewise equally as important is how you agree to act
independently as a board member acting any other way is contrary to your
agreed-upon operating procedures which does nothing besides drive inefficiencies
in the district if the seven of you can agree to a simple agreement of yes
Yes, this is how we're going to behave, individually and collectively.
That sends a signal to the administration that the board is together.
Anything short of that, gang, creates inefficiencies in the system that I'll say here in KDISD, you simply don't need.
You don't need them.
remember I work with a lot of districts over Texas and some of those districts the board's
role is a totally different role because the needs of the district are totally different
not so here in Katy absolutely not and then I'm not saying gang I'm not saying roll over and play
dead I'm not saying take everything super new has to say and roll over play that I'm not saying that
I'm talking about the seven of you coming together with an agreement and
how we're going to respond up here on the dais and likewise how we're gonna
respond out here in the public whether it's the HEP or the post office the
church or wherever happens to be or even the parking lot which I will suggest to
you there are more infractions made in the parking lot than are there any other
place so this is not a legal document it doesn't it doesn't have enforcement
enforcement power based on law, but rather it's an agreement on how we choose to operate.
Okay.
So let's go through this document.
And once again, I'm using the revised part.
And I want to spend about half of our time on this, or as much as you want to spend,
but I do want to allocate a certain amount of time for the discussion of the goals that
that you have and a discussion on what goals you have aspirations you have for
the district too so and once again what I'm going to do is I'm going to go
through it and if you have a question or comment or a hesitation or I now came by
that it's your obligation to stand us to speak up otherwise I'm going to turn the
page we're going to go right on Dr. Rutherford you might find that we're
gifted and we go through it much more quickly than you anticipate very good
see how how things go with the changes that have been made with our board okay
we'll guys don't do you want to stand erupt you as sure sure sure Rebecca is
most important that you talk with more so than me just pontificate this I got
I'll get bored to tears on something like that one
our preface I'm assuming that's okay hallelujah past page one ethics that is
your local policy that's in compliant with tasking recommended policy on
ethics organization of the board first meeting after each election the board
shall that board members recognize the fact that when you insert the word shall
that means that's a that's a mandate that's not a you will there's a
difference in those two it outlines the duties and responsibilities of those
offices that you're going to elect we okay on those or do we need his like
yeah sure okay I think historically I think historically that each one of
these offices have except for president have been somewhat symbolic and and
Through my travels with you with leadership TASB with being part of TASB board
I see other boards function in a manner where these different offices have certain responsibilities
So that when you're electing someone you're electing someone to that office knowing that these are going to be their responsibilities
maybe they're set over a certain committee that the that the board has standing or
They're more than just
THERE. THERE IS SOME FUNCTIONALITY TO THEM.
I WOULD LIKE FOR US TO DISCUSS A LITTLE BIT WHAT WOULD POSSIBLY
SOME GOOD FUNCTIONALITY FOR US. I BELIEVE THAT THIS IS NOT ONLY A
WAY TO GIVE BOARD MEMBERS RESPONSIBILITY, BUT TO
CONSTANTLY BE DOING TRAINING FOR A REASONABLE AND POINTED LINE OF
SUCCESSION SO THAT WHEN PEOPLE SIT IN THE SEAT OF THE
the president, when people sit in other seats, they're aware of all of those duties because
they've had different responsibilities over the years.
I know, Dr. Hinch, you've had the privilege of serving many districts, and I would like
to maybe hear some of your thoughts on that.
Yeah.
I understand what you're saying symbolically.
I mean, typically, you know, in the two districts I served, I served three, but only two as superintendent, you know, Stafford and Allen prior to this.
And they were similar to this.
Actually, they actually had less Olympic positions, board, president, vice president, and secretary, typically what I saw in the other two districts.
But as far as additional duties that are included, Katie, I remember during the interview process, you guys wanted to initiate some committees, process of committees in the district.
And I don't know if what you're saying is you'd like to tie those committee leads to your position.
That's what I'm thinking.
If we, for instance, initiated a finance committee, it would make sense that the treasurer each year would be over the finance committee.
IF YOU, IF WE INITIATED, BASED AROUND SOME OF OUR GOALS, IF WE INITIATED A COMMITTEE FOR
COMMUNITY OUTREACH OR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, MAYBE ONE POSITION IS IN, YOU'RE THE POINT
PERSON FOR THAT.
SO THAT WHEN WE'RE VOTING ON THOSE OFFICER POSITIONS EACH YEAR AND WE'RE LOOKING AT WHAT'S
COMING UP, WE'RE LOOKING FOR A PERSON THAT WILL BE ABLE TO BEST FULFILL THOSE DUTIES.
I know many districts have standing committees. I just want to throw it out
for discussion because I know for some groups it works very well.
It provides that extra training mechanism as well.
As I look at your officer assignments in the operating procedure,
they are all somewhat perfunctory in that they are set up to serve as a
vacancy assuming there's a vacancy in in the presidency position we all know is
as a board officer as a board member there's certain a number of paper
there's certain there's a certain amount of paperwork that sounds like it is
developed by a position like the treasurer's position but we all know and
especially in a district like this you have staff that provide those and so the
the position simply signs off on those things as required by law.
Henry, I really and truly hear what you're saying.
And what I want to do tonight is get you to understand my job is not to take one side or the other,
but to yet but rather to lend what little or great amount of credence I
have to a discussion based on one what I'm hearing around the state on to what
I'm experiencing in the state a lot of districts I will tell you Henry are
getting away from committees because that in that that tends to be a double
meeting of the board and that the board feels and I'm not saying it's a bad idea
I'm just saying this is what I'm hearing is that the board feels if this is
brought to the board by committee and a member of the board is chair of that
committee it's almost felt by the board that this is a a tacit statement that we
need to approve this because this has gone through board review and that may
may or may not be the case.
Brian?
Yeah, just to add to that a little bit.
I mean, I get what you're saying as well,
but we really don't have any standing committees.
One thing I would guard against in this document,
at least, is getting too rigid with it, right?
Where you've got something pre-prescribed necessarily
that may not make the most sense at the moment.
We've stood up some board committees for,
I don't know, what I would say special projects,
naming type committees, things like that,
but we really don't have standing committees.
Now, if we were to bring in an internal audit function here and that was reporting directly
to the board, I could see an audit committee type situation where you don't want, or where
you may want to have some committee meetings that aren't, you know, don't have the full
board and all of that.
But I would guard against, I think, getting too prescriptive, I guess, in the procedures
for that specific purpose.
That's just my two cents.
I agree with Brian. Where I can see where we have special committees and it makes sense
some people should step up based on their position. But one thing I've seen through
our two and a half years, the Secretary has taken on more of a role. And I think as you're
saying when you're considering a person for a position, they need to be able to be willing
to say not just have a position after their name, but follow through with some of the
things that Secretary's been doing that hasn't been done before.
Sergeant of Arms, one thing that's noticed here is act as parliamentarian for the board.
I've been parliamentarian a few times over in my different organizations and that's understanding
Robert's rules and understanding your operating procedures.
That's something I would like to see that position do because there's times where there's
questions either back in closed or out and open about about procedures or about
you know is this are we stepping off open meetings act or something and that
would be a time where a sergeant in arms would be that needs to speak to it and
that's listed as as part of your job and I don't think we do I don't think that
position is you know I think that's something that that we as a body
the body corporate would help us out a little bit if that position tightened up
a little bit on acting as yeah I think it's a matter actually of the board
recognizing that that position has if you will the voice of authority and if
if the board is willing to acquiesce to the sergeant of arms that that is out of
order then that has authority by the same token you know if your legal
council is here with every meeting you don't have that okay then then yet we've
started it okay when I was when I was on the warden Odessa our general counsel
was there at every meeting and so the need to quote-unquote have a part of a
sergeant of arms is not needed because he let us know very quickly when we were
and we're out of order but I think your points were taken that the sergeant of
arms could be that position that person who has a complete understanding of this
document and the recognized authority to speak on behalf of the document well
that's what you were saying right yes you turn this off side of cold and I
don't think anyone's to hear me sniffling and and then maybe the wording
needs to be slightly different or yes or just understand what you're saying have
the authority I just wanted to speak to that what's the will of the board as far
as having we may be jumping ahead as far as assigning committees are concerned it
may be one of those things that you hold back on and say as committees evolve
they are naturally assigned to one of these officer positions when that's kind
of what Henry's talking about I'm thinking and I'm not tied to this I'm
throwing this out for discussion I would like to see us move in a direction where
we really as a board focus on governance focus on goals focus on on what we want our community
to look like five or ten years down the road and governance is the breeding grounds for that
so i think that that's why i want to have this discussion about what do these positions mean
What is the reason that they're even there?
You know, is it simply symbolic?
Is it simply in case of an absence?
If it's simply in case of one person being absent, do we need so many?
You know, so those are things I want to throw out there.
Yeah, good conversation.
I have a problem with committees on the board that are not special target.
You and Ashley worked on the naming rights, great committee, legislative, great committee.
I think that what I've observed is that when you get committees involved, you mitigate against the corporate body.
I think it's more reasonable to say that if the board wants a board member to be a liaison on a specific issue, Henry, would you go work with the superintendent and help get this information facilitated?
That in no way implies that this has gone through the board process. It strictly is information gathering.
Your committee ended up functioning perfectly in terms of how a committee should function.
The board got to be on everything. I'm afraid, just in my observation, that when you institutionalize committees,
you institutionalize predetermination of decisions, and I have a problem with that.
I like the notion of individual board members
maybe being assigned a task or a committee being assigned a task and
Going into that, you know, whether you have to post it, you know, whether you want to post it, you know, you have a charter
You know, and I'm more comfortable with that than standing committees. I guess I've watched Houston ISD too long
Yeah, I think at this point you have no standing committees
No, no, no
None.
So the fact that you have none, I mean this kind of is the cart before the horse.
Assigning officer positions to committees that don't exist.
Perhaps the thing to do is, and I'm suggesting, Board Members, and back me up if I need to,
leave it as it is and as committees, if committees percolate up, then the will of the Board,
you assign a Board Member to that committee.
If I may, I agree with Mr. Scott on that.
We don't have any standing committees.
The only one I can even think of that we would want to have is already kind of gave us an example.
And, yeah, so with that, and given that we're also going to have council present in future board meetings,
I mean, do we even want all these officers moving forward, or do we want to not even put that on the table?
Trim back, yeah.
Or do we want to trim back?
I mean, that may be.
I agree.
the ones that are necessary. I think you do need a president, you need a vice president in case the president's not there.
Secretary for legal. You need a secretary and beyond that I don't know that any of the rest are necessary.
You need a parliamentarian to police me.
Well, but if there's a general counsel here that takes that role. It can be an administrative role.
Yeah, but you're right. We do need that.
And a secretary could sign, too.
So Brian, your recommendation is that we strike
Mike, Treasurer and Sergeant of Arms?
I think it's work discussion.
I mean, I've...
If you call the time, the President runs the meeting.
The President can do it.
The Secretary could do it, for that matter.
Neither of these positions you've listed that are under question are required by law.
I'll point that out.
I'd kind of say keep it simple.
You can.
Yes, the question of what I've been used to, what we're talking about in the previous two districts, we had the three positions.
The secretary kept the time for the grievance purposes.
I mean, I think streamlining is also a valid point.
I think that's kind of what we've done here is we took some of the fluff or some of the non-board operating type of stuff out of that and just made it true operating procedure.
Yeah.
I have no problem striking the two positions and having just three officers.
Courtney, are you okay with that?
Okay.
Hearing no discussion, I think the will of the Board is to strike Treasurer and strike
Sergeant at Arms.
That's great.
All right.
Let's look at evaluation.
Is that effective immediately upon taking action or at the end of the term?
No, what I'm going to do is bring this back after this meeting and then we'll take action
on the board operating procedures, although it's just a civilian document.
Right.
It's not policy or procedure.
All right, then look at the next page that deals with evaluation of the board.
It's part of your local policy.
The board must continually measure the results of policy, blah, blah, blah.
blah and with the board must assess their development needs as a corporate
body to gain blah blah blah our board members this is saying that you will
evaluate yourself annually nothing unusual in that I find in that the only
thing I would encourage you to consider and this is just as a is a best practice
is that the timing of the evaluation of the board,
I recommend to precede the evaluation of the superintendent
so that you, the board members,
have an opportunity to discuss among yourselves
the essential question, and that is,
did we, obviously you know what's coming next, right?
The big daddy, okay?
But did we as a board uphold our agreement
to make everything work?
did we as a board do everything humanly possible to make superintendent's job work?
That's why I like to recommend that in the self-evaluation, you do it previous to the evaluation of the superintendent.
It kind of puts you in the mood. It also kind of puts you in the kind of reflective time period of,
did we, you know, did we make it possible or did we put up roadblocks?
Mr. Scott?
Just make the comment I actually disagree with that.
evaluation of programs in the board tends to be subjective, episodic, non-empirical.
I think the best way for the board to evaluate itself is to evaluate how it has evaluated the superintendent.
And so you put objective standards, the part B of the contract, into place,
and then you go through the process of evaluating the superintendent and when
you've done the board has done its number one major function evaluating the
superintendent on performance then you ask yourself well how did we do and
there's an empirical basis to that George I don't disagree with you but
point B in your policy clearly state refers back to the document I handed to
you the framework and it says that the board is to assess their development
needs as a core body to get an understanding of each of these five
pillars understand goes beyond does not that does not demand that you don't
evaluate yourself on empirical terms after you evaluate the superintendent
there's nothing in that language that says thou shalt not yeah but your
request for empirical language is not altogether appropriate for the board nor is it mandated
for the board when you're talking about evaluating yourselves you're talking about the evaluation of
the seven of you which a great part of that is getting along together not that you have to lock
each other but do we respect each other's rights and attitudes and positions on this as a board
and that cannot be empirically verified. Well I didn't I really don't want to
extend this discussion more because we can have it at different times. I have
suggested five or six things that should be in Part B of the superintendent's
contract. Okay and that's not part of here that's not part of this. Brian?
No that's fine keep going. No I'm just gonna say the superintendent's contract is not in
part be here we know what we're talking okay Brian I and I'm responding to what
you said you can evaluate this and you can do what you're saying but you can
put empirical standards I've suggested I've empirical things and I'm sure other
board members could suggest five empirical things or one and together we
we might come up with three or seven.
Then how do we hold the superintendent accountable?
You're talking about an instrument.
This talks about a practice, which is not an instrument.
You know, I'm not too much into the atmospherics
of accountability.
I actually kind of believe that accountability
is an old fashioned word.
You set goals.
We certainly have a contractual authority, a legal authority,
to set specific empirical based things for superintendent of schools to do and
part of our report to our citizens can be did we accomplish that now that's
that's really I'm not going to get into an argument I made my position I do not
agree with the TASB philosophy here it's not the first time it won't be the last
no and I'm certainly sure of that but my what I'm saying to you George is that
Your point is not the discussion at hand.
The discussion at hand is evaluation of the board, not the evaluation of the certificate.
I don't accept your interpretation.
Okay, that's fine.
That's cool.
That's cool.
That's cool.
Board members, the rest of you, any changes you want to see to operating procedures, BAA local?
It simply says that you're going to do it.
My recommendation was to insert a win.
That's just a recommendation on my part.
Any changes the board members want to see to this?
None appearing.
Let's go on.
Powers and duties.
This is both legal and local policy.
BAA, the board provides direction and control for the district.
The board operates as a policy.
This is legal, gang.
There's not an awful lot we can do about this one.
Agreed?
Committing the board, it's also legal.
I'm turning through these unless you find anything you want to discuss.
Developing board agendas is where you are?
No, sir, I'm on committing the board.
Developing board meetings?
No, sir, committing the board.
Before or after?
After powers and duties.
Go back.
Go back.
You probably turned too fast.
Thank you.
Right after.
Thank you.
Okay.
Okay.
So yours looks very different from mine.
Are you in the old one or the new one?
You're in the old one, I think, George.
Yeah.
This is where I am.
Let's see what that one says.
We're in the same one.
No, you're on the same one.
One that says revised.
Let's see, let's start here.
Let's see right there.
Ethics, powers and do good.
There we go.
We found it.
You're good.
I thought I was in trouble there. I thought I was the wrong one. I looked at George's copy and had a whole page full of stuff and mine is what y'all are looking at. Very brief.
Alright, this is legal policy. Anybody want to comment?
And appearing. Next page, board member standards of behavior and code of conduct. This is both legal and local.
This is the document that talks about Open Meetings Act for members of the board or president.
You constitute a quorum that you acknowledge your knowledge of and abide by the code of ethics.
That you're presented with a copy of the operating procedures by the president.
that you as a board member will share, you are empowered to share with the
superintendent anything you learn in a training session, that you will sign an
annual statement of disclosure, and point F that you are authorizing the board
president to communicate with the board's attorney as needed unless
otherwise determined by the entire board. I think that's an important one for us
to acknowledge gang what you're saying your operating procedures is that the
role an additional role of the board president is the board president is the
person who will be in contact with your legal counsel that does not mean that
you board members do not have the right to call TASB legal regardless of how
jaded you think that may be for free legal counsel but remember anytime you
call your own in-house counsel, it's a billable hour. And so if all six of you
called on the exact same issue, you're costing KDISD money. What this says is
that you're authorizing the president to be the spokesperson to legal counsel.
Okay. Any questions, comments, concerns? I wonder if maybe, maybe in that case it
It could be board president or designee.
And the reason I say that is we just had that example on the committee that we just did on the naming rights where I was chairing that committee.
And obviously, as we were negotiating a contract, I did have to talk to counsel a couple of times.
But it was basically designated to do that through that position.
So I don't know.
So insert after board president, Brian's suggestion is to insert.
Or Brian.
Brian.
Board President or Brian.
Or Brian.
Or Brian.
No, I didn't say that.
Don't you think that unless otherwise determined by the entire.
Yeah, I think that covers it.
I really do.
That covers it.
Okay.
Because you guys adopt the charter typically or something like that.
And that gives you that level.
Okay.
The charter does, yeah.
Might there be a time where it would be safe?
See, I think that the superintendent should actually control access to the attorney.
We're going to have an in-house attorney.
And I would think that there would be a multiple if the superintendent is comfortable with the board committee chair or someone.
I really think that should be guided by the superintendent, not the board president.
I think the board president should be able to call the attorney, but other than that I think it should actually go to the superintendent.
I think it's mostly just there to mean that everybody doesn't just pick up the phone and call just every time they have a question.
But it's a great idea to have an in-house counsel.
It's going to make life a whole lot simpler.
Yes, it is.
We can just find the right one.
But I also recognize the fact, and I think the board needs to recognize the fact,
that it's important that you understand that you have an access to legal counsel
beyond going through the central office.
That would be the question.
The perfect example would be in the superintendent search process.
You had a superintendent who had already resigned,
and I think that Charles and Rebecca had a split time doing that and talking with the search firm and the attorney involved.
Yeah. Alright, board members okay on that?
Alright, board training and orientation, this is legal.
This is the document that is stated by law about how many hours you have to have, yada yada yada.
Not an awful lot you can do a change on that one.
Team building, which is the next document, which is also a legal document.
Not an awful lot we can say or do about that.
It's legal.
Next page is developing the board meeting agendas.
I think this is the one that George had referenced earlier that he wanted to talk about.
Yeah, part B, and again, no arguments.
I'm just going to state that I think this is really excessive.
I think I am personally uncomfortable, and we've had that discussion.
I'm personally uncomfortable.
I do not think a vote is the only trigger on the Open Meetings Act.
I think requiring three board members to put something on the agenda virtually necessitates that you're going to be talking to a fourth.
I'm not personally comfortable with that.
I think that two board members should be able to put something on the agenda. I
think the authority and the protection for the board in reducing that is that
you have parliamentary rules and you can say madam madam president mr. president
I move that item XYZ be tabled. Second all in favor yes all opposed no. The
fact that you allow two members to put something on the agenda recognizes that
everybody on this board was elected by the people and that we have different
viewpoints and different perspectives and different priorities and we should
be able to with with less onerous circumstances be able to get something
on the agenda and then the board and the board majority if it so chooses can
exercise its authority under Robert rules of order to say no we're not going
to talk about that. Has it been a problem in the past to have three members and
your operating procedure clearly says that the president may be one of the
three. Has it been a problem in the past? It's not a problem Dr. Rutherford
because we don't get anywhere near violating OMA by doing that. A person who
who would like to discuss something simply calls another board member and said, I'd like
to discuss XYZ and put it on the agenda. Would you agree to request this item on the agenda?
We don't need, the person doesn't need to give their opinions. We don't need to tell,
will you support me on it? You never asked. Do you agree? Do you agree? Will you vote
with me on it? It's just, I would like to discuss community education. Would you agree
to put it on the absolutely I will and they tell the board president and it's on there.
That is still a matter of discretion. I think that the discretion to require three is an
excessive discretion. I think two members of the board should be able to put something on
the agenda. The board has the institutional parliamentary power to say no, but it should not be
at will at discretion I think discretion a level of discretion should be removed
from this that's my position I think the only reason you want to be cautious of
that Georgia and I hear your point is that once it gets on the agenda you are
or you are asking staff to develop reports, prepare for, yada, yada, yada.
And while two may be an appropriate number, okay,
I'm just saying that the idea of having three members of the board saying that,
it implies to staff that this is an issue that merits more than just merely a passing fancy.
That's the reason a lot of boards have, you know, and by the same token, I've seen boards,
George, that will say one person can get something on the agenda.
And you know, it's whatever works for KDISD is what works.
My question is, if, as it's written, if it's not a problem, why make it one?
Well, the interpretation of whether it is a problem is like modern art.
It's the eye of the beholder.
So have you had problems getting something on the agenda?
I'm not here to get into arguments or do that.
I'm here to state a position.
I believe that two should be able to do it.
I've given you an outlet, and your assertion that this automatically requires staff work
is not necessarily correct because you could make that a discussion item and not an action item
so that you could bring something to the attention of the board,
you could bring something to the attention of the public,
you could prohibit it from being an action item and that's that's your plenty
of but if you really want it to be a true discussion item George I think it
would behoove the board to have the knowledge provided by staff on the topic
as opposed to seven lay members of the board merely talking about what they
think you know mr. Rutherford or is it doctor I'm sorry like it's okay whatever
you want it to be. I've covered school board meetings since 1973 so I was here
when dinosaurs roamed the countryside and I actually remember a time when a
single board member could get something on and I could remember a time when two
board members could get something on and rarely rarely have I seen the dip into
into chaos that you seem to be envisioning or the disruption to the processes.
Here's the deal.
Should two elected members of the board be able to say, we want to put this item on the
agenda, we want it guaranteed to be there, you can make it an item for discussion, you're
not telling the board that you have to do this.
You're not instructing the administration to create reports. You're
creating an independent avenue to bring public issues to the table. That's it.
That's what I believe in. Board members, we've heard that. How do the rest of you feel?
You want to change it to two or would you rather leave it at three? I would say
if it's something for just discussion only and you're not requiring any action
of the superintendent or his staff, then I think two is fine. But if you're going to
to require action by the staff to spend money then I think you would a higher
bar would be would be appropriate so I mean if you just want to put something
out there for discussion and it's you and one other person you want to throw
it out there yeah let's talk about the carpet in this room because I know yeah
um and to Rebecca's point to be honest you know there's nothing that you want
to discuss that Rebecca's not going to put on the agenda. But again, looking at it from a governance
standpoint, Rebecca's not going to always be president and we're not going to always be the
seven people sitting around this table. So what is better for governance moving forward
from that standpoint? If you're talking about discussion only,
I think an argument for just two people would make a whole lot of sense. Now, if it requires
requires action, I would think you need a much higher bar before you start spending
staff time and public dollars.
I don't believe your staff should be overwhelmed, but if two members of the board want to use
the opportunity to present some information and lead a discussion that the staff and the
administration can hear, the board still has the authority to come back and say, dead end.
there's no mandate here other than facilitating public attention public discussion I mean but
it's all means to the board it's up to the board I understand what members for you think talk about
this from time to time about the three and the threshold of three is to make sure that the time
that seven volunteer board members spend on business of the district is
time well spent efficient it's impactful the things that we have to do we are we
spend a lot of time doing this job and we are grateful to be able that our
community has given that to us but time well spent and so every time we look at
at this we talked about it and and it has not been a problem things that are
important things that have our vital nature things that have been things that
are important to the district as a whole and to board members have made it to the
agenda not caused a concern in the past
all right board members anybody else I'm sensing no real move to change short of
George's very very wisely spoken comments so the end if we were inclined
to change that that's really a policy change anyway all right this is this is
directly from the right that would be a policy change anything else on that you
want to look at
Just semantics on F. It says matters which do not appear on the work study meeting agenda
will not appear for action.
Okay, that's fine.
Except in emergency situations.
How do you define emergency?
I think that, Brian, I don't know for sure.
Something time sensitive that came up.
And I think it's defined by law as to what constitutes an emergency action.
hurricane. You don't want to restrict us from being able to do the business we need to
conduct. Right. I agree with you Mr. Mahal-Scadler.
We don't normally do. We almost never do that. I mean this this document kind of
governs our practices. Yeah. And that is our practice. What it can mean... There are
exceptions. What it can mean, Brian, is that if you have a, if central office
receives a late-minute decision by an attorney after work packets have already
gone out, after the work study meeting has already occurred, there's simply not
time, physical time, to get this information to the board. It's going to
be shared to the board during the, during the regular meeting. I think that's what
what that allows for. Contract just came through on the purchase of land. That's
a good example. Yeah. Those that could come between right? Yeah. That simply
happened that don't happen in a very nicely neat packet. I'm just saying maybe
emergency isn't the best word to indicate there. It's more time sensitive
or something else. Something a little more gives a little more latitude there.
Yeah, I would defer to what what legal counsel defines that to be
Word emergency is what I believe the word emergency
Is it on?
Could you put it closer?
You're on.
Oh, you're on.
Thank you.
Check, check.
I like the word emergency.
So let me look at local policy.
Local policy can be changed with this board.
And my interpretation is that when we bring the board operating procedures to the board,
if we want to bring this local policy to revise that emergency, just let me look into it.
I think that's the word that we've got questions on.
Yeah, a better word would be . . .
Emergency . . .
That implies hurricane.
interpretation yeah absolutely but you know versus a late-breaking contract
sign all right next page is consent agenda which once again is local policy
I don't routine I'm script together no problem
rules following discussion followed just during board meetings this is a local
policy. You'll observe Robert Ruhl's order, voice vote, discussions will be
addressed to the board president, discussions will be directed solely to
the item of interest, the board president will halt you if you go off, and that
that you're going to video and record these meetings.
Neither?
Good.
Perfect.
My brand new legal assistant back here,
who just got her, what is it you got recently?
Paralegal.
Paralegal.
She sent me a text that says, emergency
has been determined by will of the superintendent
and president as identified in our local policy.
So yeah, given if emergency covers that, then I think we're good.
So emergency covers time sensitive.
Okay.
And a perfect example of that is, and we've used this before, we have a work study and
then we've got an employee that's being recruited by other districts and we want to get them
under contract.
We weren't able to get it on the work study.
We'll bring it to the board and now we bring all principles and above for single action.
Those are things you might see.
which is not our lay interpretation of what emergency means to us right but it
is from the standpoint of somebody else in the district HR in this case I think
the emergency that you're thinking about is we can call a meeting outside of the
required 72 hours that's an emergency hurricane tornado
I just thought we could call it within X number of meetings.
Are we okay on rules followed during board meetings?
I had a question on E, but I need to try to...
Board President shall halt discussion if the board has agreed to a time limit for discussion of an item.
That time limit is expired aside from these limitations.
Board President should not interfere.
So therefore the Vice President speaks in her absence?
I wanted to ask a question but I need her to be.
On E, where it says the board has agreed to a time limitation for discussion of an item,
in my time on this board, that's never been a practice of this board that a time limitation
has been set.
In your time on this board, has that been a practice?
A time limitation has been set?
On your time on any of your boards, has that been a practice,
that a time limitation has been set?
That has been a practice in previous districts.
I've seen where a discussion item has come up
and a board member would recommend a time,
two minutes for discussion, three minutes for discussion.
Yeah, and this clearly says if the board has agreed.
It's not saying that before we go in we have to sit down and pick out...
Each item, 10 minutes only.
Right.
But I'm just saying that's not something in my almost three years of service that we've
ever done.
Sure did.
When we were interviewing Dr. Hint, we could have sat and talked to him all day, but we
had another candidate coming in, so we had to cut it.
He wanted to stay, remember?
So I was just wondering if that, it's in this, it's going forward.
I think it allows you actually to have a time period situation where you say
Here's the motion here's the second the board president says and we will allocate
Make it up ten minutes total time to this item
I'm confused because on the other one that has the scratch outs on page eight
Yes
You have a very detailed description of two questions or five minutes.
At regular meetings on Monday night, the board president will limit each trustee wishing to comment on an action to one minute.
Is this or is this not the standing board procedure?
It was the standing board procedure, but it was never followed.
What is it today?
That's what's currently in the board operating procedure.
procedure.
So this is kind of a, it's like the left hand is saying this and the right hand is saying
you have an automatic time limit.
That was going to be the next part of my question.
Thank you, George.
I knew the two questions and the five minutes were in here, but I didn't see where it was
in the new version.
I knew this existed previously, what you just said.
I think the new version to me allows the board president to and the motion also
to determine if there's going to be a time limit versus instructing a time
limit on this question. So here we're talking policy policy and here we're
having procedure the policy is not compatible with the procedure and the
the procedure is just draconian and foolish.
But if the board chooses to include a time in the –
what we did was we cleaned this up so it was exactly as policy.
I understand.
You've removed a lot of law.
If you want to take out some of the –
if you want to add it back in,
then I'll add it back in and come back with a revised local policy.
This is still left.
No, that was in – this is – yes.
This is still the current operating plan.
That is it.
Dr. Carbell, would you explain future grade level?
Time's up.
Dr. Carbell, would you explain the difference between the passing standard
and the recommended grade level on the Algebra I end-of-course STAAR Test?
Time's up.
That's what we have.
That's not what it means.
That's not necessarily the practice.
But that is what we have.
Not the response is two minutes.
It's the board member gets two minutes.
I understand, but that question, you get one question.
Five minutes.
Five minutes, two questions.
Which is the reason why the suggested change is if the board decides.
If the board doesn't decide, let it go on for three hours.
I don't like arbitrariness being
in one document and discretion being in another document.
I think the point is the one we're talking about tonight will replace the one you're
talking about in yellow.
You've just heard our superintendent of schools say that this is still the law of KDISD.
This is the law.
It's y'all's local policy.
I mean it's what we go by.
It is now policy.
And it is standing.
It is prescriptive. It says at regular board meetings the board president will
limit each trustee to one minute. So what you're doing is...
That's wishing to comment on an action item. That's not the discussion portion, right?
What you're doing is if a administrator dances for seven minutes
on a question and I've seen a few administrators dance. If an administrator dances for seven
minutes and does a filibuster, time's up. Now, all I'm saying is, the board majority
decides, and I'm not, this is not being argumentative. I don't, except for a second, that a review
of this videotape is going to say George Scott's being argumentative. This is a clear-cut policy
practice, procedure, and I would like to leave this meeting knowing if the prescriptive is
what's going to happen or the discretion is what's going to happen.
I believe the Board President and the Board should have the discretion to say, Madam President,
we don't use Robert Rules of Order.
We say we use Robert Rules of Order, but you could say, Madam President, I call the question.
You don't need something that is mandatory when you have the ability to use the power
of the majority of the board.
I'm looking at the board majority and I'm saying it's the board's majority to write
to shut her down.
I think that's what the revised is trying to do.
Don't blow me off, George.
I'm telling you that's exactly what I think the revised is trying to do.
I may have misspoken. I apologize. The document with the yellow highlights, that what was left there is actually, that's not in policy.
It's procedure.
Yes, sir. That's the procedure of the practice.
But that's what, it is a will procedure.
Absolutely. This over here is exactly as it is in policy.
I understand, but this policy rules follow during board meetings.
English language.
Rules followed during board meetings.
English language.
The board, the president will.
The president will.
So what I'm saying is please make up your mind.
Whatever your mind is, whatever the will of the majority is,
do board members automatically, by board procedure,
subject to the filibuster of administrative answers,
or does it get to do follow-up questions at the discretion of the board majority?
We shouldn't go in and say, well, we're going to enforce the board procedure this Monday,
but next week we're not going to enforce the board procedure.
It should be, Madam President, I call a question.
A second.
Take ownership of your decisions.
That's all I'm saying.
Take ownership.
All right, Board, are you satisfied with the BE local rules followed during Board meetings
as part of your operating procedure?
The BE local does have about the agreed, if there's an agreement for a time limitation,
the president shall halt it. That's what the policy says. I have seen in former
districts where there was a topic that prior to the topic even coming before a
board member would make a recommendation for the time limitation. They would get a second.
If that occurred then on that item that was the time limitation. I think that's really what this is.
That's exactly how I read it.
So the other way to do it, so that's doing that on the front end, right,
if you anticipate and you want to limit it.
You're saying, call the question, if it's getting out of hand,
they kind of have the same effect almost.
Well, but it's an individual decision.
It's not sort of like a pocket veto on free speech.
This is what I would call sort of a pocket veto that you can pull out.
And I've seen it happen during a discussion
Right.
Because of the length of the discussion, a board member makes a recommended time limit
at that point.
Like ten more minutes?
Five more minutes, a second.
Especially if it's the third time you've discussed it.
Yes, sir.
So I do think, George, that this policy does address that.
Then it gives you the, it basically tells you to use procedure to...
This?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Yes.
But then do away with this.
Well, that's what we're talking about, right?
That's what I'm saying.
Go away with that.
Okay.
We're saying the same thing.
And I have no problems.
I literally have no problems in principle or philosophy if the board wants to say we're not going to talk about this.
But I want you to make a decision that you're not going to do it.
The power to be the majority is the power to accept accountability for the majority's decisions.
Correct.
all right then let's go on non-agenda items be be the local any questions or concerns
got that? All right, let's go to the open forum, BED local. At the work study meeting,
the board shall allot 30 minutes to hear persons. Persons who wish to participate must sign
Sign up.
Speakers who do not provide the first and last name shall not be allowed to speak.
Time allotted 30 minutes.
Delegations of more than five are encouraged to find one spokesperson.
Question on that one.
Sure.
Just more question of how does that happen?
I mean people are signing up outside the door there.
Is someone actually approaching people that are...
Okay.
Yes.
Okay, I just never knew.
I know, but I'm encouraging five people to appoint one person to present. Does that happen?
happen okay no it is not no no it's when they sorry excuse me what I understand
is that it's when people are signing up to speak about maybe I'm a little
freaky in them right and it's all from one neighborhood if you have 20 people
coming and they all want to speak from one neighborhood they would ask if
there are five or more of you choose a spokesperson so that you have the full
three minutes instead of everybody having just one minute or something.
So it happens there with the communications person because it's kind of
organically developed. Only 20 slips are given to the board president. Yeah.
And that's if they come in together though. But as they're coming in and
they're all signing like this neighborhood, this neighborhood, this
neighborhood, I think what used to happen is the communications person
would approach them and say, you know.
Right.
They are asked, they are offered, would you like to consolidate and choose one?
And they can say, no, I want to speak to the board.
And every person, the first people who come are allowed to speak.
And those who aren't are given the opportunity to communicate with us in a variety of ways.
George had a question.
Again, this is board policy, BED local, not procedure, but I believe that any time the
board meets in a work session or a formal meeting, that citizens of this community should
be able to address the board at that meeting.
Harris County, unless they've changed, also does this.
Because if you're there to address an item that is on the agenda, you get to speak up
front, up close, up early.
And if you're there to speak on something that is not an agenda item, you stick it out.
I think it is highly disrespectful for the citizens that have come up more recently on
a topic to make them sit to the very last of the meeting to make their comments.
I believe that we should either do one of two things.
A, allow citizens who are there for a posted item on the agenda to speak at the front end of the meeting,
or when that posted item is under discussion,
because they might hear something from the administration that they want to respond to.
And we voted to do it, or we voted to move it to the consent agenda,
and retroactively, past tense, time quarter, whatever phrase you want to use,
the citizens get to come up and say,
oh, by the way, I wish I could have said this when it mattered.
Look at the attendance boundary issue.
I'm not dredging up anything.
I'm just talking about this as a matter of process.
The fact of the matter is citizens got it pretty late in the game.
That's the way it worked.
They were able to come to the workshop.
There were changes in the workshop.
We have our regular meeting and the citizens are not given any opportunity to say anything.
Two principles that I think should be here.
One, anytime we're at a meeting where action is going to be taken or can be taken, a citizen
should be able to address the board.
And two, we should be more user friendly to allow those citizens who are there on an agenda
item to be heard before the board actually takes an action or a decision
on the posted item. That's what I believe. Rebecca when does open forum which is
George's point when does open forum occur in the agenda? Okay Mr. Scott so I'll
answer this in my answer to Mr. Scott. I agree with what you're saying it's
exactly why we moved prior to last year maybe. We had open forum at the beginning
beginning of the regular board meeting.
So that gave our community time to hear all of our discussions and work studies,
what are we talking about, what were the presentations from the administration,
what questions and things, what are the thoughts of the board.
And then they could come and speak at the beginning of the regular meeting before
we took action on any items.
But when they would speak to us then, it gave us little time to think it through or to do.
So we moved the open forum to the end of the work study for the same reason.
We want them to hear the presentations from administration.
We want them to hear what board members are thinking.
If something is moved to a consent agenda, it can be removed from consent agenda before we ever leave the dais or during the week.
So I think it actually gives them more opportunity to hear the discussions and
as we saw during the ABM, people who signed up to speak about the ABM then
heard the changes that had that we talked about during the discussion and
when they came to speak they said yeah I like what you did. So had they spoken
first they would have said I wish you're going to do this and this which we did.
We made changes. So it actually works very well to what you just said.
And also a lot of times when they spoke, hold on, Mr. Scott.
Go ahead.
A lot of times they would speak and leave.
A lot of times they would speak and leave and not even listen.
They would speak and then leave.
And they didn't go watch the video and they didn't even, I mean, so having them sit and listen to the reports, they heard things.
And they might change the things they said.
They might take things out.
or they might ask for things and then we would hear things like with the Nottingham country.
We asked for changes.
We said we're not ready to make a decision because of facts that residents brought to
us.
That's kind of when this discussion started when Charles was president and we made these
changes.
Residents brought us facts and we listened and we're like wait, we're not ready to vote
on that.
And they brought us stuff that the administration didn't bring us and we made a big change on
on the recommendation and we said you need to make some changes and bring it
back and that's when we changed it so we wanted them to hear the presentation and
then we wanted to hear from the residents and taxpayers and the parents
and community members who are going to be impacted by decisions we were making
I don't totally disagree with you I don't I wish there was a excuse me I
wish there was a perfect spot for open forum but we want the community to be
be informed and we want to hear from an informed community. That's anecdotal and
I understand that there can be successes when citizens bring it but I'm talking
about a policy. The policy I gave sort of an A-B on this. We could allow
citizens to speak during the posted item after the administration has made its
presentation if they hear something. But it still doesn't address that we have a meeting
where people can talk, they hear stuff, and then when we're at the regular meeting, we
don't listen to them. There should never be a meeting where this board makes a decision
or is authorized to make a decision and moving something to the consent agenda is a decision.
There should never be a meeting where a citizen of this community cannot express their viewpoint.
And there is a way.
There's no perfect magic beam, okay, but allowing citizens to come into the agenda posting.
I've heard what Peter McElwain, I've listened to that interesting survey.
I've heard this at the time to be able to say at the end
I just think that that is not a lie. That is a lack of respect the citizens
Every every meeting they should be able to say something. Yeah, we should asking for open forum at both meetings
I'm sure you're asking for an open form. You're asking or stinker should be an open forum at both meetings
every meeting
I WANT TO KIND OF SPEAK TO THAT.
ACTUALLY, I ADVOCATED FOR MOVING IT A LONG TIME AGO.
I THINK MY SECOND YEAR ON THE BOARD, I ADVOCATED FOR MOVING IT
TO THE WORK STUDY.
THE REASON BEING, AND I'M NOT GOING TO NAME THE PLAYERS OF
THE INCIDENT, BUT SOMEONE CAME UP TO SPEAK BEFORE ONE OF OUR
REGULAR BOARD MEETINGS, LIKE THEY NORMALLY DID, BEFORE THE
REGULAR SCHEDULED BOARD MEETING.
THEY HAD SOME INFORMATION ON A TOPIC WE WERE ABOUT TO VOTE ON.
and the information was not actually correct,
but because the person was someone that many of us at the time had a lot of respect for,
it literally stopped the work of the board, and that motion died for lack of a second.
And from there, the whole idea is after the work study, that's when we're getting our information,
and we have an entire week to do research before we have to vote.
So if the public actually has something credible, if they actually have something
that they have something that we need to consider in our decision-making process,
the best time to do that is during that work study so we have time as trustees
to get our questions answered. You know, Dr. Hint, is this something we should
consider? Is this is this something we should look at? Because for when they're
coming up there prior to us voting I know how I'm gonna vote when I walk up
on the dais unless someone brings something that's just outrageous but if
they do I would like an opportunity to have that week to research it to find
out exactly what's going on that's why I really advocated for in the first place
so you're the position that the ways but your weight the way it is now I do
understand what you're saying George as far as respect to the public having to
to sit through a board meeting and there is no perfect I wish that they could
come in here listen to everything get through quickly and then and then get
home early but again if they speak to us before they hear something it may be
redundant they're changing there's you know I just think they need to hear what
has to we need to say and then they can speak now if we want to divide it up by
topic, if it's an agenda item, I think that's a lot of back and forth, but you
know I'm certainly open to having a conversation, but I think that we have to
listen to the public during our work study so we have time to think about, to
research, and to find out exactly what they're saying and the validity of it.
Which is pretty much what this local policy says. Brian go ahead.
I'm still collecting my thoughts. Okay. There seems to be a
suggestion here that I'm that opening up both meetings somehow protects the
institution of the board from making bad decisions this is real simple democracy
can be messy and people can be wrong but you know what they're the voters they're
the citizens they were right to be wrong it's our job to do our due diligence I'm
talking about a basic thing we meet with a with a 15 items on the agenda and we
should we should have to hear what the citizens say within the fairly
restricted rules that we put in place and then when we come to meet again and
we're meeting they may have heard something and they may have gone to do
their own independent research they may have heard they may have come to the
the meeting at the workshop and not been fully prepared, heard something and needed another
week to go do it.
Ms. Scott, but we, they have other ways to contact us.
They don't have to wait until they're standing at a microphone in front of us to contact
us.
We have emails, we have phones, we have all kinds of ways they can find us or the administration
and bring their concerns to them to have a valid discussion.
I don't think that citizens should be restricted to going into private session with me or someone else.
If a citizen...
No, they should contact all of us.
They have access to all of us to bring information.
It shouldn't be restricted to three minutes in front of a microphone to only have the only time they can communicate with the board.
There's nothing I'm suggesting that wants to restrict their total input to three minutes.
What I'm saying is...
public posted meeting they're not restricted to one time to speak to us
especially if there are a lot of people who want to speak and they're not able
to they have access to us at all times Courtney what were you about to say
here's here's a fact let's open it Courtney I thought she said no here we
have it we have a meeting and people can talk and we have a meeting and we're
coming up with all kinds of rationalizations why people can't talk.
They can do this, they can do that, they can go under the table, they can go over
the table, they can send us an email. So George, they can't talk in public.
Let me cut the chase. Your recommendation would be under A, which is at
work-study meetings you would recommend insert and regular board meetings. Is
that what you're advocating for? At all action available meetings, all meetings,
not this one. This is not an actual one.
Okay, we're talking the same thing.
So the point is, the discussion is to add open forum to regular meetings.
Yes.
Either way is fine with me.
I think we have to have the one doing work study,
if it's the will of the Board, to add another one.
Board members, what do you want to do?
Do you want to add one to the regular meeting or keep it work study only?
If we add one back to the regular, which is where we also do recognitions, where we have
the room filled with students and children and students and families and teachers, do
we do it at the beginning like we did practice before?
Or do we put it at the, I mean, because at the end, there's no point.
I think it would need to be at the beginning.
a concern we had and out of just out of respect for we are here before doing it
at the beginning there are some times where you have a very packed room full
of you know children and and they're excited to be there and get their awards
and then you have people coming up in spitting venomous not very and just gets
sometimes it gets yeah I would recommend if that's what I'm going to be after the
you under the recognitions let the kids go home with the parents go home or stay
if they want to as long as it's after the recognitions because that's not
that was not practice before it was Courtney did you did you want to join
in the conversation. If it's been both, Mrs. Vann. I think that the reason why we changed the open
forum from our open meeting to work study is because we all agreed that we
we were finding that we were getting very valid information from the patrons
that were taking the time to come and speak and that we wanted the time to
process what was being said. We wanted to review the information that they were
they were taking the time to come to our meetings to speak. They were also
bringing packets of information that we wanted to review on those particular
items and we moved it to the work-study meetings so that we could review that
information before we voted on an item and I think to then open this back up
and have not that I don't want to hear what the patrons have to say but the
patrons that want to speak come to the work study it's the same items on the
agenda and when they're passionate about it and they want to speak about it and
they've taken the time to come to a meeting they come to the work study and
and that's where their voices are really heard and that's where they've taken the
time to show up to develop packets to give us the information and then we can
review it during the week and with regard to different situations and
then we can communicate back and we can go to the to the staff or Dr. Hinton
say hey can you look at this this was a valid point and then we can make those
decisions before votes are had. It ended up becoming very futile for us to hear
them literally seconds before we had to make a vote and it was uncomfortable and
And it was disheartening because we had to make decisions, and a lot of times decisions that we did not want to have to make because we had just been presented with information that needed to be looked at.
And so it kind of started into a tailspin, and that's when we stepped back and said, wait a minute.
We're doing this a little bit backwards.
Let's move this open forum.
So I don't think that we're really doing our patrons any justice by opening up an open forum back into the open meeting.
meeting.
Ms. Doyle, what I also remember, another reason we moved it was because people would come
to the regular board meeting, present something that was their perspective to us and cause
us to change our minds or change our votes or make a change, but then the people who
had the other viewpoint never had an opportunity to tell us anything before we took action.
That's why we moved it to the work study, is so that if one group of people shows up
and has something to say there's an opportunity for other people to give us
another viewpoint right so where we maybe made one group of community
members very happy that they were able to speak we really hurt another group of
community members that were that had no idea what was going on I'm not actually
for changing our open forum from what we have right now let me also add to the
discussion let's keep in mind board members based on the law the meeting
that you have the regular meeting is very different from a work study work
study is much more information gathering the regular meeting you have we flip
flop the terms back and forth but by law gang it is a meeting in the open it's
not an open meeting by law I'm sorry George or by law an interesting play on
words no it's not sir no it's not the play on words you are referring to is by
law you can only discuss items that are posted on the agenda 72 hours in advance
by law sir by law and therefore it is a meeting in the open where you open it up
to the public but it is not a public meeting there is a very legal and
correct difference in those terms are you suggesting that it is against the
the law for a school board to allow public comment.
No, sir, I never said that.
I never said that, George.
No, sir, I never said that.
No, I never said that.
I never said that.
The law does not require you to have open forum
in a regular meeting.
If you want to allow it, you allow it.
By the same token, board members are not to...
interject themselves into discussion of the public during that time period.
Check with your legal counsel, sir, if you disagree with me.
I don't need to check with the legal counsel on Rudimentary 101.
This is real simple.
We meet and do the citizens of this community have a right to address this board?
Do they have an expectation that they should be able to address the board?
Nothing, zero that I have said, nothing that I have said has suggested subtraction of the workshop and all the advantages that moving the workshop in the way that it is done.
I have not subtracted anything. I am simply proposing to add a perfectly legal access for the board to have yet one more opportunity for the public to say something to us every time we meet.
Got it.
I have a question, and this is really just a question because we know how people are.
Let's say we add an extra.
Let's say we add another open forum and Ashley I agree 100% with you. It would have to be after the recognitions particularly because of what some people have come up and said but it's very offensive to young people.
If we did that, would a member of the public choose to come and sit through an entire work
study meeting and possibly speak at 10 o'clock at night or sit through a few recognitions
and possibly speak at 7?
I think my goal is to actually hear what they have to say.
and I take more from being able to listen to them at a work study and make
a decision then hear them at seven o'clock after recognitions at a board
meeting so I'm not saying I mind having both George I don't want you to hear
that my question is what would the average citizen do I think
your point is having both could have diminishing returns yeah that's my point
where people choose are we going to go to the regular board meeting because
we'll be in and out before 730 rather than sit through one of their entire
meetings and speak at 930 10 o'clock so it's my opinion gang that is we move
forward on this George is the only one and correct me if I'm wrong I'm wanting
either way. And Henry's halfway wanting to change your VED local to
insert open form at a regular meeting. If that is the case then I suggest you stay
it remains as it is. So this this particular policy I think was a year ago
this month that we actually did change make that change from the regular
meeting to the work study and I will say that I believe it's better definitely
better than it was previous. I think so the question is yeah.
Okay.
I have a little question on this.
Sure.
It has absolutely nothing to do with open forum. I mean, no, it has something to do with open forum and not placement of where it is. We had a question last time about sharing time.
about someone got up there they maybe get a little nervous like say a wife
signs up but then her husband comes and she chickens out he says I'll speak for
you I'll speak and she stands up and says I would like to give my husband my
time and we disallowed that it doesn't speak to this in this I don't know if it
does in procedures I don't know if that needs to policy that they gave me
because I allowed it and I was scolded because I didn't follow policy.
Speakers must provide their first and last names before they're allowed to speak and
only the first 20 speakers who sign up shall be allowed to speak and you must sign up at
least 15 minutes before the meeting begins.
So the decision of who speaks happens 15 minutes before our meeting begins.
You can't change it in the process of the meeting.
That's what this...
You can't give your time...
No, because the person you're trying to give it to did not sign up 15 minutes before and did not fill out the form.
That's what I was told.
If Mr. and Mrs. or Sally and John Wilson signed up, Sally or John could speak.
That's how she'd have to fill it out.
But it was people saying, oh, somebody came in late and I want to give it to my neighbor.
You know, they didn't know they were coming and I'd rather them speak than me.
And you can either not.
I was being in a nightmare.
You can end in a nightmare.
Either way, I just want to make sure there's a...
I was following policy.
To me, the time is the time.
If somebody wants to yield their time...
I'm with you.
I'm with you if that's not what the policy says.
I know.
Well, I'd be willing to really look at that one.
Okay.
So how do you determine who can speak?
Well, I think it is the person that signed up who does have to approach the podium and...
Say, I'm giving my time to someone else?
Another person needs to announce themselves.
And that can be a decision made by the president.
No, they can't, not according to this.
But the person who approached the podium is the person who signed up.
But once that person is there, can they give their time away without us putting it in here?
That's what we have.
And we would have to just change this, that they can do that.
Can one person, can you have multiple people get up and give their time away to the same person?
Oh, yeah, so one person has 40 minutes.
It's like an escalator of people.
time is time it's still one minute or three minutes I'd like to get the most
relevant information and if one person can deliver that then and they want to
yield to that person I'm okay with that
I'm with mr. Mahal skin that one I think time is time if you have three people
give their three minutes and one person gets nine you get nine minutes go for it
you know it doesn't wait but then you could have but you still are limited to
ten people sign up people you're still 30 minutes one person I don't think one
person and I don't think 20 people one person can get 20 people's time right
thank you you got to have some limitation there but probably but the
way it reads now is the way it reads now so we need to change it if you want to
allow that then we need to change this i tend to think it's at the president but i know others
disagree yeah see i do too i i think it's the discretion of the president president is presiding
over me if if i stand up and i my my knees are quaking and i'm on the list i kind of agree with
ashley i'm too nervous to talk is it okay if my son talks for me like i've done all the research
I've written it down.
Yeah.
I'm just going to read what I wrote.
But you better be consistent.
If the President's going to make that call, they need to be consistent.
It goes back to what is the problem.
I mean, are we trying to create an answer for a problem that doesn't exist?
And if it does exist, then we need to work on it.
Well, a question I would have is what happened last time.
They wanted to give their time to someone who didn't sign up.
That's totally different than giving your time to someone who signed up.
I think those are two different issues there.
Because then someone, you can get into a situation with that,
I'm going to just go in and sign my name, you get there whenever you want to,
so you can speak.
And that's something I think that we need to consider.
And then people want to give away their, they only used four minutes instead of,
or two minutes instead of three minutes.
Yeah, they didn't come up.
I'm keeping that in mind.
Well, my general feeling is, though,
that we need to be less restrictive on people that want to come speak to us
than more than to try to hide behind policy to not let them speak because
that's that's whether that's whether that is what happening or not that's the
way people hear it and see it question bill says this isn't as you said before
this is an illegal document it's just how we're gonna can we add something
that it would be at the discretion of the president to make those type of
decision. Sure, Henry, this is your local policy. I would be totally opposed to
that, pure discretion. Mr. Scott. Doesn't have anything to do with you, Madam
President. It's, it's, you may not always be president. I know, believe me. You know, and
and so you have green eyes and that's my secret bias and you know I've had a run
in with you on five issues before I did a policy or procedure has to govern what
your practice is and it just needs to be consistency all right let me ask you
this on number C letter C second sentence only the first 20 speakers or
their designees only the first 20 speakers or their designees who sign up
should be allowed to speak only the first on the letter C only the first 20
speakers or their designees who sign up shall be allowed to speak it allows me
me to say I'm too nervous I'm designated I'm designating my wife as my speaker I
think it's responsive to our community okay I don't it doesn't happen often
dr. Rutherford doesn't happen often there's little to happen twice last
month yeah which makes it fresh doesn't it that's why from the last two minutes
right so I'm even just the chicken out and just like so on letter C we want to
insert or their designees after 20 speakers. Okay. Does that cover the question?
No, it would be designees would come up after sign up. It wouldn't come 20
speakers or designees who sign up. It would be 20 speakers who sign up or
their designees. Correct. Right. Again, I have a question with that. How does that
designee, as you said, some people get nervous and leave. If they say I'm
nervous and leave, Brian you go ahead and speak for me. Does he come up and say I'm
speaking for Ashley? Does Ashley have to stay and say I'm giving my time? I mean we
got to work out the details on that. But here's for example, somebody that was in the
room a few minutes ago but looks like they left, had come to speak at I think
the last month's board meeting but was not one of the first 20, so never got a
chance. However, if we had that flexibility in here, it's possible some of
of those others that were saying the same things may have yielded to him and
let him in he had a different topic he want to talk about so he did he did he
says Nemo okay okay dr. Rutherford at 7 o'clock at 7 10 let's take a short
weekend okay we will reconvene at 7 we will reconvene mrs. Nowak at 7 18 okay
Okay, we're on closed meetings or did we move past that?
Referring complaints.
Referring complaints.
Referring complaints.
Okay, here we are.
Is everybody on the same page?
No.
Referring complaints.
Anybody see anything?
We skipped closed meeting because it's legal policy.
That's correct.
Referring complaints is a local policy.
It says any complaint brought to any individual board will be referred to the superintendent.
Is this legal or something?
This is local.
Generally, don't we, I mean, a lot of times we'll refer to the parent and patron assistance center or whatever.
Or to their campus or to the assistant principal.
Well, we know how to do that.
It just means that we don't handle it.
But refer to the appropriate chain of command.
Which is letter C.
When you're referring them to the chain of command.
Right, and that's what we do.
We tell them about the process.
And you say that anonymous will not be addressed.
Bring concerns or complaints to an individual board member.
We do not send them to the superintendent.
That's not good use of our superintendent's time.
We've asked him to do a lot of really big things.
We have 75,000 children we need him to attend to.
I don't even care about that.
When we get those emails of complaints like we all get on our KISD email,
can we assume that that has gone to the attention of administration?
Yes.
And we don't?
No, I don't see that.
I try not to even reach out.
Those that go to the Board.
Unless we tell you.
Unless you refer it to.
The Board President generally.
Well, it just depends if it goes to every board member sometimes he gets it three times
So do you want to be copied that I mean that's a I've just never forwarded them
anyone
I have a question in that
And dr. Ann this is for you. I don't believe every individual complaint we get or email
we need to give them a call. But I think there is a level at which we hear a
number of people, or we get a number of emails on the same topic. Maybe, I know
some of them are cut and paste, they're really the same email sent by 15 people.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when we're hearing similar
things from a number of people, particularly people of influence in our
our own circles, I think that should rise to the level of giving the superintendent
a heads up. Because I know I don't like to be surprised and I don't take you as a man
that like to be surprised either. And I would hate for something to hit his desk and I knew
it two weeks before and I just said, well, I told him call patrons and partners or whatever.
And the five or 10 people not related to each other said the exact same thing.
Yeah, and I think we all recognize the fact that there's a difference between a complaint
That is a complaint
versus an
allegation of illegality
If there's an allegation of illegality by law
We have to bring that to the attention of the superintendent. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about just
Complaining bus number two is late. Yeah, but if bus number 302 is late
every day for a month and 20 different parents have contacted me about it, then maybe that rises to the level.
But 20 different people unrelated to each other have contacted me.
Let me tell you my preference.
And I said this to you guys when I interviewed.
If I don't know what's going on out there, you refer it to somebody else and that somebody else doesn't act on it, it reflects bad on me.
I do like to know if there's a pattern of issues, a similar issue,
then I would prefer that either you all communicate it to the board president,
communicate it to me, or communicate it to me that there's an issue.
And I think you've done a good job of that,
and I think you guys are pretty smart at filtering through, as you indicated.
Yeah.
That one generic email that they get all their neighbors and everybody else to send that same email.
I think you guys do do a good job.
because i mean i'm of the opinion that we have a community of 181 square miles over 300 000 people
it is literally impossible for dr lance hand as much as he enjoys driving around to wrap his arms
around the entire community and know what's going on with 75 000 kids their parents and everybody
else that's related to it. Yeah. And I don't like for our
superintendent to be shocked by stuff. I kind of like to bring it down to
specifics. We get emails and they say really bad things. Okay. About the
superintendent? No, no, not about you. I would definitely talk you up. But we've got one just recently.
And we're not, it's totally confidential and be totally grossly inappropriate to even refer to it except we get this.
Now, do we have any burden under no individual board member, I'm sorry, I have to switch to the next one, that we should report to the superintendent?
I mean, I'm assuming that when I get it, the board president is getting it and that kicks in.
And so I ignored it.
But you can't assume that we all got it right because you don't know. It's not the manner in which we get those. It doesn't show all the receipt recipients. So you can hear your point. The same thing popped in my head when we got to this. And, you know, I think that particular one.
Just ask the board president if she forwarded it or he forwarded it.
Or you could.
I mean, I.
Now that we're talking about it.
on those kind of things though i mean especially an email right if you feel like it's to the level
where the superintendent i mean i mean generally i think i would just send it to sharon sure and
i send my emails to sharon and say please forward to the appropriate person that's what i do i send
it to sharon okay because i don't email them to the superintendent at every level i think that
really but you don't want to sending you every email you like like my child
didn't get to I think that implies that you're going to send it to Sharon when
you say we don't need to change that to be like okay and it's through the chain
of command we've all sent it to Sharon and he's seen it Sharon does a good job
and I think it goes back to Henry's point to of knowing when does it rise to
the threshold so we'll leave it as it's written and that's for practice mr scott send it to
sharon and she'll know if you've gotten it one time or none and sometimes but just remember
or shall refer them to the superintendent sharon's referring them to the superintendent
and then you'll tell her what okay okay let's go to request for reports information access to
records no individual member shall director or require district police
repair reports directors the superintendent or other custodians the
record require shall be about board action if a board member is not acting
in his or official passage board member has no greater right than remember the
public and there's a board member acting his or fish capacity shall have the
the right to seek public information from the district of Irvine an individual
board member shall not have access to confidential student records an
individual board member shall seek access to records or requests copies
from the superintendent at the time of board member is provided access to
confidential records or reports super initial advise the board member of the
responsibility to comply with confidentiality requests in accordance
courts with the law the district shall track and report any requests under this
provision so forth district information provided the board shall be used the
district purposes only if a more information press by the board man shall
be provided to all board members and finally all requests for information
from staff shag with the superintendent okay I haven't been able to find any
case law on the matter but I am of the opinion that as a public officer that
that anything I want is my official capacity,
is my official capacity, subject to FERPA,
subject to other cleaning, other regulations.
So I think there's some contradictory
interpretation language in this,
but so long as Chapter 11.1512 is the controlling authority,
and I don't have any problems with the ambiguity.
you a team two things and maybe it's in here and I just didn't get it and again
it information comes from dr. hand has been excellent never had a problem at
all so this by no means has anything to do I think anything that's that you can
get through a public information request that doesn't cost money that's readily
available and a board member should get upon request I think that there should
be a threshold if it costs staff time or a certain amount of dollars then maybe
one maybe two or three board members may have that request and sometimes and this
has happened before where two board members request the same information and
they haven't even talked to each other I think at that point that information
should be sent to every board member because obviously this is something on
the board's mind I think that's Jay ever maker information request about board
members shall be provided to all board members yeah Henry here's a problem and
I'm not an attorney don't even play one in real life but eleven point one five
one two is the controlling law that's it and it doesn't say that two or three
have to acquiesce to the provision of documents.
I can think of documents that I would like to have.
I hope the board gets it going forward over the next two and a half years.
So the issue is really a legal issue as it relates to three,
the intent of three board members doing something,
or does 11.512.1512 literally say that a board member in his official capacity,
legal opinion is, is a public officer wanting information that deals with
due diligence matters of the school district, is that a legitimate official
capacity? And it may be that one of these days we have to figure that out, but I'm
of the belief right now that 11.1512 says that if a board says what it says and that
the cost that you've made reference to says, you will put a little clicker on in X number
of pages and they'll post the cost.
That's the response of the law.
So going forward, I'm going to be guided by what the law says, not policy or not procedure.
I will try to respect procedure and I will try to respect law. I mean respect
policy but if push comes to shove I'm going to be guided by the Texas
Education Code and I agree Dr. Hint has been beyond belief in terms of providing
information but now that we're into this going through policies and the procedures I
I want to make it very clear.
I think the Texas Education Code says public officer, when he wants something, that is his official capacity.
All right.
Is there any other comment on request for information, access to records?
All right.
Then let's go on.
Visit to schools.
Encouraged to visit schools.
All board members are encouraged to visit schools and attend school events.
Board members?
I shall inform the principal.
So are we saying we should inform the principals individually or through the superintendent's office?
You know what, it doesn't necessarily, you can do either or in my opinion.
I think notifying the principal, it can be through my office or you've notified the principal, even as you appear on here.
I mean, I've told my principals, I want you guys in my schools.
Okay.
That's the value of this conversation, too, to hear the superintendent's call on it.
I wouldn't have given you badges.
Those stinking badges.
Stinking badges.
Stinking badges.
And I'll tell you, I think the principals appreciate it all.
All right.
So this is very much an open door.
from what yeah that's very nice yes they they do appreciate it and it's very nice to be invited
and included when the superintendent comes and uh dodgeball games erupt it's all very nice
all right then shall we go on to dealing with the media
president or designee is official spokesperson for the board uh designee shall make statements
of action or positions upon which the board has taken official action.
I'd like to highlight this real quick. This is a policy, this is a new procedure, new to the
district. As you can see at the bottom it says need to be updated. The reason why
did we put this in here. There had been some discussion about this in the past.
We felt like this was a revision that needed to be made so I want to make sure
everybody knows. Okay so let's spend some more time on this than just a cursory
look at it except that we just did right did we did we look at this was this
spelled out for us like we've got this from another neighboring school district
something you want to go line by line all right a the board president
designation be the official spokesperson for the board to the media on issues of
media attention be the board president designee may only make statements on
actions or positions upon which the board has taken official action press
releases issued by the board should be approved by the board prior to release
unless an emergency or public necessity exists super new designated staff
members shall be the official spokesperson for the district on issues
of media attention that relate to district operations board members who
receive a call for the media request information comments or an interview
regarding district business will direct the caller to the appropriate staff
person in charge of public information who will notify the superintendent of
the call super new will notify the board to the weekly information packet of any
media requests if that matter is urgent super to will notify the board president
who will notify each member via phone or email whichever is more practical
statements shall not be made to the media regarding personnel or other
matters protected by law or member retains the right to speak to the media
as an individual but must understand that any comments should likely be
interpreted by viewers readers as an official statement of the board in
speaking as an individual the board member should clarify the issue or she
speak them as an individual remind the media that official statements of the
board only made by the board president can remind the media of positions or
or actions of the board of trustees related to the issue of questions.
I think this is a better policy, much better,
because it specifically protects the right of a board member to speak to the media.
I think B and E are somewhat ambiguous, contradictory.
I think B should say either eliminate B or say the board president or Dorsey
may only make official statements on actions or positions because if it let
read literally it actually contradicts a you could read it to contradict day
policy e says board members who receive a call from the media requesting
information comments or an interview those are three apples oranges and come
some quat kinds of category. Information is one thing, comments is another thing, or an
interview is yet a third thing. And so Policy H says if I get a call from Sebastian or the
Chronicle or the KD Times or someone, Policy H guarantees that I can make comments on positions
are things taken by the board but I can't make official comments so I just
think while it is a 99.9 to 5% good perfect policy I think there is
ambiguity there that could create consternation in the future I just would
like the language he cleaned up but it's a good policy I should that and speaking
as an individual board member should should be changed to will or shall which
which letter you time now right I last word there instead of should show yeah
Yeah, should is a suggestion.
Shall is a suggestion.
Oh, shall.
Now it's 99.957%.
Getting closer.
Glad I could enhance it for you.
I'll ask a question on the shall.
How do we, you know, we talk a lot about accountability.
How do we hold each other accountable to that?
Because I seriously doubt that any media outlet will print and or say that statement.
I got it.
You know, they're not going to they're not going to
Well in regards whether they regardless of whether they printed or not the public is going to read exactly that
Or it's gonna come out of the 40s of the KDIs T border trustee member
Yeah, well, let's how do we police that you're saying shell if you were not a trustee
They wouldn't be calling you.
So you are not an individual.
There's no way they're interviewing you as an individual.
So all of this is, you know, they wouldn't call you if you weren't.
Yeah, and if Donald Trump wasn't the President of the United States,
they wouldn't be calling him on North Korea or Iran or Russia.
But if you're speaking as an individual.
If Mike Schofield wasn't a member of the Texas legislature, they wouldn't be calling him.
Yes.
That's the point.
We are elected public officials.
We have an obligation and a constitutional right to talk to the media.
Absolutely.
And I actually, as a longtime reporter, I actually have a higher respect perhaps for the IQ of readers who understand that if you're speaking and you're not pretending to be speaking for the board, that most people can work their way through that.
Further, I've been quoted several times by Sebastian.
I've been quoted several times by other reporters, and I don't think one time
I think it would take the Hubble telescope to find any connection to me having appeared to speak for the district.
So I just reject what you're saying that because I opened my mouth Lance Hintz lips are moving. Mr. Scott. I think Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. I
think you misunderstood. I agree completely what you just said. That's what I was saying.
They wouldn't call us if we were, you know.
Becky from the block, you know, and I'm just a parent on the street.
They wouldn't call me.
They're calling me because I'm on the Board of Trustees.
So our words carry weight.
I'm not saying we're not speaking for all of us, but they wouldn't even interview us if we weren't on the board.
I was more responding to his comment.
Yeah, he was disagreeing with what I had to say once again.
I think that's right.
I was taking it very personally.
I just have a concern that when a decision is made, we as a board respect the decision.
Even if you had a no vote or I had a no vote, we can't give that out in the community.
The decision was made, and we have to respect the decision.
My concern that I, I guess if you're speaking as an individual, you could say individually, as a citizen,
I don't agree with the board's decision, but it just makes us as a board seem a little weaker.
Well, that's a good point.
I think there are times where there's certainly value in a dissenting opinion,
but it doesn't need to be portrayed in a respectful way.
I mean, the decision of the board is the decision of the board.
And I think Ashley's comment was taking the high ground.
Yeah, you saw by the you heard my comment and
Understand I will support the action of the board which is the high that's in your comment is all you need for the quote
One thing I would
Caution against and I do think that this is a better policy
But you know we have that week between work-study and the board vote on things
if you're kind this is I'm not saying this is the going policy this is just
you know you said sergeant of arms thing so this I'm trying to play that role
here if you telegraph during your comments how you're going to vote and
the rest of us can read that now we got a problem no get an attorney general's
opinion on that tomorrow because I don't I don't even think that's theoretical
theoretical. George Scott says, you know, these are the reasons that I think that the
school district should pay attention to the recommended grade level, and I'm disappointed
that we haven't done that. Just pick out the topic, and the consequence of that is by communicating
to readers and taxpayers and parents and patrons that I am somehow scheming to violate the
Open Meetings Act. I just don't think you can...
That's not the type of comment I'm looking at. I'm talking about a comment, let's take
take this ABM for instance. If someone had came to us in between that and I said, you know,
as an individual, I'm against how the current lines are drawn. And this is just something that
I can't support. How do you think, how would you feel if you read that, then I'm going to vote on
the ABM? So I'm not saying that we, I'm just saying we need to be cautious in what we say
so we don't telegraph in that gap between talking about it and taking a
vote how we're going to vote. Any time that a discussion is coming and a vote
will be taken right on any matter like before we voted on the naming of the
stadium had we told anyone anything I mean the complex sorry the complex and
we told anyone how we were going to vote on that before it happened all other
board members would hear how we were going to vote, how I was going to vote. I
can see what you're saying. I think Henry's comment is there's a fine line between
asking questions for clarification, asking questions for more information,
which may imply my intent of a vote versus my opinion on a matter. George, what you're
saying does not imply to me how you're going to vote on a matter. It just says
how you feel about something. I'm talking about, and I'm not saying change is
policy, what I want to be very careful in doing is that as we speak to the media
that we don't begin to telegraph our votes through that process because that
that's the flip side of this and that's that's the practice that I think we you
know because people can then start polling you. You know Ashley Vann says
she's not supporting it. How do you feel Mr. Marlowe? Oh you mean the future
You're talking about future votes.
Yeah.
Future votes.
Future votes.
By telling it to the media.
Along those lines, B and H on this seem to have maybe potentially have a little conflict.
Yeah.
Because it talks about the board president or designee may only make statements on actions or positions upon which the board has taken official action.
But on H, as an individual, that limitation doesn't exist.
So there is a little bit of a conflict.
Yeah, because suppose the board's president's the one that, as an individual, I don't feel
that this is the direction we should go.
Board president just told everybody where they are.
But look, okay, here's the deal.
You know, I've quasi burned some bridges.
We understand that.
There was a couple of meetings where I've been a real jerk.
Okay.
Okay.
Really?
But I'm not deliberately trying to be a jerk just to be a jerk.
So let me translate that to this issue.
If we have an important issue next February and we know what's coming up,
and I'm opposed to that, then I have no compulsion whatsoever in if he wants to interview
or someone else wants to interview and say, look, here's the deal.
I believe this and this and this, and this is the reason I support this initiative.
That's just democracy.
That's the way the real world works.
If I go too far in public, and I think this board will have to understand that most of my jerkiness has been in executive session.
I don't even think tonight has been jerk on parade.
I think it's been pretty straightforward.
forward. But if something is important to me, if we're going to talk about, are we going to get the correlation, are we going to get the data so we can do correlation analysis so that we understand academics and programs? And if the decision of the board is, no, I'm going to do that, okay, then I'm going to have a choice to make. I'm going to have a choice to make.
I don't think that's what we're talking about here.
And so, yeah, it is, because what Henry has done,
he has put free speech in a finite timeline between Monday of August.
No, that's not what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is that we have to be careful, because, okay,
we have an Open Meetings Act that we talk about all the time, okay?
If four of us cannot sit around a table and discuss how we're going to vote
on a matter because obviously that's against the law right we can't do a
rolling quorum where I call Ashley and say Ashley I support this Ashley calls
Brian Brian calls Rebecca and we get not as called rolling collection that's a
violation couldn't and since he's here use Sebastian as an example Sebastian
asked George Courtney Rebecca and Brian and report their view or all seven of us
on an issue that we're about to vote on, we just, is that, I'm just trying to figure out where,
why, if we're going to do that, then what is the Open Meetings Act all about in the first place?
Yes.
We could go back and review the video.
When Henry made that comment, my immediate reaction was, let's go get an attorney general's
opinion, because that was the crux of his argument. It was about a rolling corn. And I'm
saying if the Attorney General of the United States, I mean of the State of
Texas I mean, if the Attorney General of the State of Texas says it is against
the law for an individual board member to state a position on a public policy
issue because it perchance might create a rolling quorum, then let the Attorney
General of Texas say that and I'll keep my mouth shut. But the Attorney General
The General of Texas, I don't believe on his craziest day, is going to make that determination.
So we need to be real here.
You were talking about a fear of a rolling quorum, which you've now verbalized.
And free speech is not a rolling quorum.
Mr. Scott, I think that Mr. DeBrell is really just trying to keep our integrity at a high level
and to make sure that we stay away from any accusation of anything that might appear to be a violation of our claim.
I'm quite comfortable for the superauthorizing.
In fact, I'm going to ask to be on the agenda.
I'll ask for it to be on the agenda.
And you all can decide.
I am perfectly content for the superintendent of schools to ask for a formal attorney general's opinion
if a board member giving an interview showing his right.
Let me speak to that.
Go right ahead.
I'm not trying to get there.
okay and excuse me for you a little passionate here that's not what i'm looking for all i'm
saying is we for integrity's sake need to be careful if you want to go out there and telegraph
how you're going to vote on every meeting there is nothing in this document that legally we cannot
stop you from doing no that's not a problem i'm just saying if that's how we want to operate
i for one i'm willing to speak to sebastian or anybody as much as policy allows but i am not
going to telegraph how i vote to him and i would and i would suggest that the rest of us do the
same thing because then we open up a pandora's box now if you want to be the one that does then fine
i'll talk how i feel about an item i'll speak why something is important i'll
i don't have a problem with any of that but i am no way personally since we're saying personal here
going to telegraph how I'm going to vote on an issue. And I would suggest that we
have a gentleman's agreement because really it's all the ladies and
gentlemen's agreement. So we're just not going to telegraph how we're voting
on an upcoming item in order for people to start trying to pick off votes. Let me
me go back to Brian's comment or concerns about B&H. I think Brian if we
can put it in the context of what B is saying is board members you have a
safety valve that safety valve is the board president. Refer back to the board
president as much as you want to on official actions of the board comma
semicolon that being said absolute at no time does a board member lose his or her
First Amendment rights yeah that's that's kind to have it yeah and I
absolutely okay and you're right including the board president yeah which
okay shall we go on are we through this one just one final comment on that
here's the problem when you put something in procedure and policy if
you're not careful and you don't work out the contradictions you can be a
piling one portion of it and being subject to interpretation and that's the
reason I'm drawing the line I've been on board six and a half months now I don't
think there's one comment that I've made in the public that has been critical of
the board except at the board table. I'm not giving a private interview.
Which ones of these?
But you have to reserve, you can't put in policy that you can't talk about how you're going to vote.
And I'm not suggesting that we do. I'm not suggesting that we put in policy,
you don't talk about how we vote. I'm suggesting that we're just very careful
in our comments to the media not to send a message about how we're gonna vote. Now
if you want to do that then that's that's up to you as an individual but I
know that's something I'm gonna be careful about.
I think we're good here. You're still 99.95 on this one.
You're still 99.95% here on this one?
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, guys.
It's all right.
You said you were like 99.95% there on that one.
You're good.
There's nothing in here that intimidates me like the other one did.
Okay.
Okay.
I like it.
All right.
I thought we were going to be gifted, Dr. Rutherford,
and get through this in record time.
I was obviously wrong.
Yeah, we've got another hour left to go.
We have 30 minutes left to go.
30 minutes left.
And we want to get to the goals that you have.
Board and Superintendent Communications, this is BEB local.
Board shall communicate with the board as a whole or as an individual of the board,
members of the board.
Board will communicate with the board as soon as possible on emergencies.
May communicate with the board present and present communicates with the board.
Board will communicate with the community through public hearings, presentations, civic
clubs. Individual board members cannot speak in an official capacity as the board outside
of the board meeting. The superintendent and the board president shall communicate information
in a timely fashion to all members of the board.
I think it's an A plus on all of that.
Any concerns on that one?
All right, very good. Let's get into the evaluation process. This is both legal and local BJC Dean.
Document evaluated and superintended is confidential. Most of this is by fact legal.
An instrument used to evaluate the superintendent based on the superintendent's job description and
performance goals shall be adopted by the board. Board shall furnish the superintendent with a copy
the completed evaluation and she have discussed the conclusions in a closed
meeting clarify the super news or bro assume by the board clarified to board
members super nits role foster an early understanding of my board members
evaluation process developed a sustained harmonious working relationship
insurance administrative let's the leadership and excellence in the
district the board made any time conducted communicate oral evaluations
to augment its written evaluations.
Board's contract and salary adjustments shall be reviewed
and considered at the same time as the evaluation is done.
Do you think most of that's legal?
It should be compliant with the contract?
There's been a change in the commissioner's recommendation on this,
and I draw your attention to B.
and I when is when is your evaluation next week but let me tell you I know
what you're referring to the commissioners report this board is so GT
that they beat the Commissioner to the punch and they did approve an evaluation
of mine that removed the commissioners report before the commissioner even
removed his report and said it was no longer a valid process. Yeah and you know
now he says now the ruling is if you've done that that's cool and then going
forward which would be two weeks from now after that evaluation I think B as
in boy needs to be worked on because it says the the commission's recommendation
now is the instrument shall be to evaluate the superintendent shall be
be based on job description and essentially test scores.
Takes goals out of it.
It allows the board to add to that,
but as the minimum requirement, it
says the commission recommendation is that job
description and student achievement.
There's no end to the depravity of the Texas Education
Registry.
yeah it's a bottomless pit of disaster yeah and i i understand what you're saying
and that's not a criticism of the board
in the very real future after we get past the bulk of the action cycle
Michael is going to give more clarification.
Student achievement, though, can be deemed student achievement in multiple ways,
which can influence test scores.
Sure, sure.
The evaluation from this board is not going to be about test scores and only test scores.
It's going to be multiple measures of student achievement.
SAT, PSAT, ACT, AP classes, dual credit, those type of things, which all are an influencer.
Yeah, and all that's fine.
All that's fine.
I just I that just jumped out at me because I'm up to my eyeballs with this right now and vacillating back and forth from
What I got the six different report. Yeah
Yeah
Okay, dr. Hemp why don't you give us a little bit of an update this is coming board members
next week
As you know in my contract you guys have I'll be real quick you guys are evaluated me in January
I've only been here six months, so there's not a lot.
We didn't set a lot of performance goals in the beginning.
I'm looking forward to tonight and the evaluation to move forward on a year's process.
But on the 9th, you will receive the evaluation similar to what I did when we did the quarterly.
You'll have some information that I provide.
I'm going to, and please bear with me, I'm going to provide you with quite a bit of data.
all those key points I just spoke to because I think we have to have a
starting point right and this will be in a document so that you have it you will
evaluate me you will receive it on the 9th you'll return it to Rebecca on the
13th so that she can do in a cumulative then at the workshop on the 17th you
You guys will have time alone to compare all of your stuff.
In closed session, this is an extra time,
to come up with a summative that you will then
present to me at the regular board meeting on the 30th.
So it gives you guys a little bit of time.
You receive it on the 9th.
You return it.
Rebecca puts it all in one document.
Pretty amazing.
You have a conversation about that document,
Because all of you may come up with stuff, but I want you to narrow it down to what's
most important to you for me to work on, and then you'll present my evaluation and what
you want me to do for this next coming year.
Believe me.
As individuals, and then it will come to a cumulative.
Yes, sir.
Correct.
Yes, sir.
It is a process that has worked extremely well for me in previous years.
We would turn it on Friday the 13th.
And part of that has, you know, we've got strategic planning that's coming up that's going to be a part that we can.
What I'm finding out here, and I'm probably speaking too much.
No, you're fine.
We've got a lot of the stuff that's being recommended, but we don't have a mechanism to report it to the board.
I mean, we don't.
We don't have a mechanism that says, hey, in October we're going to report this.
So I want something that formalizes that. A strategic plan, a document that says these are the data points.
And a matrix that shows what's happening when.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think that when you see the stuff I send you, the document that I have, the instructions, it's a work in progress.
Really, it's a blessing that we're doing this on a six-month thing, that we can really get a good head start now coming up after this evaluation from the next evaluation year.
All right.
Okay on that, board members?
Cool.
Let's turn the page.
Violations.
Board operating procedures.
This is your local policy.
Letter A, individual board members are encouraged to express their concerns about another board member's performance directly to that board member.
If addressing this directly with the board member does not resolve the concern, then
the discussion with the board president is appropriate.
The board president shall discuss the concern with the individual in question on behalf
of the reporting board member or shall moderate a discussion between the members.
Board members shall remind the board member whose behavior is in question about the code
of conduct.
If the board member in question does not believe his or her behavior is in conflict with the
code of ethics or an agenda I am specifying, I may list on the agenda for an upcoming board
meeting.
The matter will be discussed by the full board in closed session.
And then if the concern involves the board president, the board member may discuss his
concerned with the DP all right so is this what you're saying is you got a
problem with somebody taking that with person then you take it to the board
president for press it takes it to that person that didn't help you got a closed
session that's him hey the board president's the problem in the VP VP
falls in all right you felt they can stay focused on me all right we got 28
minutes left 3.2 board discussion on goals for the district
Okay, so we have not enough time to talk about this to the depth that we want to, but I want
to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to talk about goals that they have for the
district and be able to articulate those to the superintendent so that he can, you know,
he's talked about that strategic planning and all the things he wants to do.
So I want everybody to have an opportunity to do that.
and I have given Mr. Scott my promise that we will give time for him to talk about the
document that he presented last time we didn't get a chance to even get to. And do we have copies of those?
Thank you. Sharon, do we have copies of the document from Mr. Scott for all board members?
Oh, sorry, they're on my desk.
It's my, it's my, the pink folder, you know.
Yeah, okay, so if you'll, so begin and let's talk about some of those things knowing that
we have 28 minutes for seven people.
I don't want to hurry you.
I didn't expect that we would spend so much time on board procedures, but once you get
into that and you have contradictory language, there was really some important issues there
that had to be dealt.
Here's my, here's the only reason that I really wanted to be on the board, academic accountability.
Now I have shared with Dr. Hinn a much more detailed document of the kind of data that I think.
I can really summarize this pretty quickly.
This KDISD that the district put out for 2014-15, talking about student achievement, star, end of course, and grades 3-8, this document is everything that has gone wrong in public education accountability in the state of Texas.
No, it wasn't in that one, but I'm going to get to that.
This is where this district, like every school district in the state of Texas,
likes to tout the passing records on the star and the end of course.
And it doesn't tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
about what students do and do not know.
And this is rooted historically back into 1989-90 from the TAS and every testing regime that the state of Texas has had since 1990, since we developed a constitutional test, has been based on two principles.
Actually, three.
One, we're going to have grossly underleveled student academic measurement.
or two, we're going to have ridiculously low standards on a criterion test.
The third one is, or both at the same time.
And in TAS, it was both at the same time.
In TACS, it was somewhat both at the same time.
And in STAR, it is mostly ridiculously low standards.
And here's the reason that that's the case.
In the early 90s, as we were leading up to, the TEA has always been in the courthouse,
just coming out of the courthouse, and on its way back to the courthouse.
That's the way it's been.
But 1993, 94, 95 was different.
And what made that different was that the TAS became a constitutional measure
of student academic performance at grade level. And at that point in time, from TAWS to TAX to STAR, we have created a testing regime that does not tell the truth about what students do and do not know.
If you look at this, and Katie's no different, 89% passed Algebra I, 96% passed Biology, 97% U.S. History, etc., etc. That's 37 to 45% content mastery.
You don't have to be a psychometrician to understand, to come to understand that a criterion
test with that cut score as the passing standard was deliberately, willfully designed from
1989 through this day so that school districts that had mediocre performance could pass or
mostly pass the state's accountability test.
test. That's what it's about. And so when we look at statistics like this, we don't understand that
at KDISD, for instance, that yes, 91% of our kids passed the end of course algebra test.
91% got 37% correct, but 46% fewer blacks achieved the recommended grade level than the passing level.
37% fewer Hispanics achieved the recommended grade level than the passing standard.
29% fewer of all students are at risk students.
students. Between the at risk and the not at risk, there was only a 21% equity gap,
and that's what's driving this, the equity gap. There was a 21% equity gap between non-at
risk students and at risk students and of course algebra. When it got to the recommended
grade level, the gap grew to 51%. We've got to start telling the truth about what's going
going on. So rather than go into all of the information, I have a lot of confidence and
a lot of trust, and I've said that publicly and I've said it privately, I have a lot of
confidence and a lot of trust that Dr. Hinn is trying to get his administration in place
to begin this process. Here's the deal. This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth. If you don't pull the student by student database in a
classroom by classroom environment with special education and at-risk and
non-at-risk and GT, if you don't do it in that way then you cannot analyze the
data. I have put out in my career, I have bid reports. Two of them beat the Ram
corporation by two years okay I spent twenty twenty thousand dollars they
spent two hundred thousand dollars they concurred two years after I put my
reports out on that. You have to pull data in a specific way so that we can say, well,
is the writer's workshop working at our Title I campuses? And believe me, we have curriculum
administrators that are pushing writer's workshop on Title I and other teachers. We don't have
have a stick of evidence. We don't have a nano-mounce of evidence that allows the board
to look at how the programs that we're paying millions of dollars for literally are working
in different environments. We don't know if the Reader's Workshop is working. We don't
have any accountability over staff development. My position is that we tell the superintendent
once we work through this collaborative process, which I support, we want you to hold.
The only person we hold accountable is him.
We want you to hold.
We want a report from you on how is this program working.
What is the empirical standards that you're doing?
And I wish I could make this easier,
But there is one and only one way to connect the dots to get past the misrepresentations that are imposed by the state of Texas on accountability.
There's only one way.
We have teachers at Title I campuses who are getting inundated.
It is so unfair to be a teacher at a Title I campus.
They get the short end of the stick.
But we have schools, even at our high performing school campuses, secondary, we have 30 and
40 point equity gaps with at risk students and not at risk students at even some of our
high performing.
We've never looked at the correlation between PSAT and college entrance.
We've never looked at the correlation between STAR and AP or STAR and PSAT.
We've been giving the DLA for six or seven years.
Not one single report has ever come to the board.
I've done independent research and I think the DLA is of minimal use, but I can't assert
that until I get the data.
So what I'm saying is rather than me go through, what I've given him is like a doctoral dissertation,
but it's not as hard to pull the data as it appears. But until we get the data, the theory of accountability is just that. It's hypothetical.
And so my goal is over the next two and a half years, I want this board to establish a culture of actual accountability based on real data,
based upon performance indicators.
And the truth of the matter is,
every piece of data that KDISD and this board needs
is in the computers of KDISD.
Why do we have 90%?
We have over 2,000 kids who are at the advanced level in KDISD
on the Algebra I test as an example.
over 2,000 scored advanced. We have something like three or four hundred that matriculate
to making a five, four or three on AP Calculus, AB Calculus. Now, here's what I'm saying.
What does passing mean? What does the recommended grade level mean? What does advanced mean?
Me, if you can have 2,100 students making advanced scores on Algebra I
and have 300 to 400 making 5, 4, 3 downstream in AP calculus, AB calculus,
we've lost control of correlation.
And I want to establish correlations.
I want to help the superintendent establish correlations.
And unfortunately, I've been around this town for a long time,
And I have great confidence in Dr. Hinn. I have minimal confidence. I know that he needs help in this curriculum department. We need to bring rigorous, empirical-driven accountability to what's happening in our curriculum department.
It's not I'm not a philosophical crazy. I'm not driven by ideology
I'm driven by data and numbers and analysis and and finally here's this as a reformer
All the numbers are on my side. I've seen all the numbers in their different components and
We owe it to parents if we tell them your kid is advanced in algebra
or advanced in biology, then we need to understand why do 23% of the graduates from Martin Ranch
High School get a baccalaureate degree in six years on the last report for the Texas
Higher Education Coordinating Board?
Why is that?
Why do 40 plus percent of students at certain schools have a GPA under 2.5 at four-year
universities and two-year universities. There is a correlation to be understood.
We just leave the data in the computer and in the process we don't hold our
curriculum administrators accountable for the success or failure of programs. I
don't want to be deputy superintendent for curriculum. I don't want to be deputy
superintendent for accountability. I want the superintendent to drive that. In a
perfect world the only person that I talk to are you and the superintendent.
And if I get frustrated when a 110 or 115 thousand dollar a year curriculum
person comes and talks and I want to try to spend would you talk about the future
grade level, the recommended grade level, what does that mean? And we can't
even get past an acknowledgement that there's something other than the passing
rate. It's not going to happen if the superintendent of schools doesn't do it.
I'm not stupid. I understand that. If the superintendent doesn't drive this train
then it's not going to happen. But if the board doesn't want it to happen then
he's not going to have the support he needs in his transition in this
administration. I'm willing to help anyone understand anything. I'm not going to apologize
that I spent the last 40 years of my life actually understanding public education accountability.
And I'll be glad to help in any way I can, but the bottom line is this. If we don't get data
out of that computer and if that data is not honestly evaluated if necessary by
outside independent sources independent consultants who have no vested interest
in what the answer is concern I have right now is we have people within the
administration who have a vested interest in the answer I don't care what
what the answer is as long as it's truthful and it's honest and it's empirically driven
and it's statistically valid and reliable.
That's where I'm coming from for the next two and a half years.
I don't want to ever see this kind of report ever go public again without at least a master
system.
Thank you.
I'll take this one. Conceptually there are a lot of things I can't disagree with there. I actually
believe and have believed this since I made a trip to Santa Fe after my first year on the board,
that we are, KDASD is actually in a position to close that equity gap if we
make that a focus. And that's something I think as we get into strategic planning
we need to determine what is our focus, where are our goals and where where
should we go. When you start saying things like there's only one way until I
get the data. That concerns me a little bit, right, because you're a
trustee. We are going to work with the superintendent on our goals and I
believe you said it correctly, it takes the superintendent to make this happen,
right, or whatever. I also take a little exception to the 23% six-year graduation
rate from Wharton Ranch High School because we know we can't rely
rely on that number. Why? Well for one reason we have a tremendous amount of
students that go to school out of state. How many? I'll ask you the same question
how many? Well if you want to, this is kind of sidetracked, the Higher Education
Board does not report out-of-state students. If you look at the actual
enrollment where kids go which is available in the Higher Education
Coordinating Board. You look at the PSAT distributions. You look at the SAT
distributions. You look at the percentage of kids who are below the 1070 success
initiative. You look at the number of kids that are below the 1110 criterion
on PSAT. You can make, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to say that Seven
Lakes may be 15 to 18 percent and Martin Ranch may be 4 to 5 percent. I'm not
picking on more ranch no understand but here's the deal one way you can pull if
you pull data and that's not me saying that that's actually dr. Paul Clopton
that's dr. Omar Lopez that's dr. David Klein that's dr. Sandra Stotsky people
that I've worked with if you pull data and you go for mediums and means and 25
and 75 percent that is very superficial analysis when I say one way you've got
to have FERPA clean student by student data you've got to put it into the
classroom units and then that's the basis that's statistical Brian that's
not George Scott's subjunctive tense
well I mean and that's that's the point that's one little point that I make and
we go three minutes to talk about the statistical analysis of it and that's
not really what I was getting at. It's just, look, I think there are ways we can
get there and I think we're moving in the right direction, but I am concerned
when I have a single trustee that's talking about, I need this data, I need
this data, like you're the research analyst on it and I have concerns with
Well, here's the deal then. I want this board to get the data. I want Dr. Hint to get the data. I want to use my influence that the board will get this data. I can't make the board get the data.
So if I use the pronoun I, then maybe I should say mistaken personal pronoun.
I can't make policy.
I understand that.
But what I'm saying is if we don't get the actual raw data in a very research-based format,
I'll be more precise.
If you don't get the research-based data so that it can be appropriately psychometrically
– I tried not to use that word – psychometrically analyzed, if you can't do regression studies,
if you can't do correlation analysis, if you can't do all of the statistical functions
with that data, you might as well not pull it.
So when I say there is one way, there are many ways to evaluate the data, but to pull
the data to make it psychometrically sound and to be able to be statistically valid analysis,
there is a fairly narrow lane of pulling the data. I'm sorry, but that's the real world
of statistical science.
And I get it. And I know, and I get, and I, yeah, and very data-driven on this, but, you
you know i'm looking at this probably more thirty thousand feet where i'm
saying look we've got to come together as a board and administration and decide
where we're going as a district
and i i get you have an honest assessment of where you are
as well
and set our goals
determine what
our objectives are
uh... and how to measure those and that's where the accountability comes in
and i know that data has a
a huge role in that. I just, but I see that as a process that I believe we're all on board
for going through that process. It will become clear. It will become clear as to whether
or not this board is on that path. Mr. DeBrett. Just to step in a little bit because I think
the question was what are our goals so we as individuals so we can kind of
bring them together as our goals as a board and Brian I too my second year as
a board member I went to Santa Fe and that week was eye-opening and the
importance of closing the achievement gap and I've been talking about that for
for since I got here.
I mean, Bill, no, I've been talking about that.
I mean, I had a former Secretary of Education
look at me and say, if anybody can do it, Katie can do it.
And I believe that we can.
But I do believe that we need to look at it as an overall,
we need to get the data, but we need to look at it
as an overall plan through a strategic plan.
I mean the things that I would like us to begin to see and and I'll step back
a little bit and at this time last year I was not gonna run for reelection
because I had hit my head up against the wall so much about these issues that I
was just I was moving on and when we hired dr. hint that changed my mind
because I believe now we actually have a chance to make a difference in the lives
of young people and stop talking about things that really don't matter and I
believe what we need to work on this upcoming year is getting some solid
district goals and I think our strategic plan definitely needs to be a part of
that and until we get solid district goals then we come up with
superintendent goals and they need to align. In other words, whatever our district goals,
our superintendent goals need to align with those so that they're moving in that direction.
Closing the achievement gap definitely has to be part of that. When we get the reports on that,
definitely has to be part of that. But we have to look at it, I believe, even more as a whole.
You know, we need to look at how do we achieve more, say in the area of opportunities for
young people.
Because we say a lot that not every child is going to college.
But let's be honest, when we say that, we're not talking about my child, we're talking
about your child.
You know, we're talking about our neighbor's child because we honestly believe our child
is going to college.
But if we're serious about that, then I think we would expand some programs that help those children.
You know, like our ROTC programs.
I mean, ROTC, military service, is a path out of poverty.
It's a sure path out of poverty.
We would expand things like dual credit.
We would look at things like early college high school.
because I firmly believe and I was one of those kids at risk so this isn't
theory for me this is real life when I was exposed to college-level work and I
realized that I could do it it gave me the confidence to go if we don't expose
kids to college-level work who don't have the confidence to go they're not
even going to think that they can go we have to take steps like that we have to
to begin to give these young people opportunities and that's why we're here.
And we also have to begin to expand programs that keep them engaged, like our fine arts
programs and our athletic, I mean we all know about our athletic programs, but our fine
arts programs and demand a higher level of excellence. Not simply so they can play their
drum better or toot their horn but I know that when they're engaged those
coaches those band directors those dance line directors I don't even know what
you call them actually the dance director person the description we got
they become mentors to these young people and they help them sometimes
through these difficult times of transition in high school when they're
making decisions as 15 and 16 year olds that will affect the rest of their lives.
We have to begin to focus on things like that so that we can close the gap.
You know, we have to also, I believe part of that strategic plan and part of our goals
is to communicate better with our public. We have to have more two-way conversation,
not just with one sector of our public, not just the sector that agrees with us,
but the sector that disagrees with us as well. And we have to begin to get our
entire community behind these goals, but we have to hear what's important to them
as well. And as part of that strategic plan and as part of our plan, we have to
put steps in place to make sure we get there not just for the district but for
the superintendent and then then it's time to evaluate you but until we get
those things in place you're doing a great job and I believe you and I
I believe you will and that's why I'm going to even run again.
So, with that, I'll...
Ms. Vance?
Yeah, I'm just shooting lights on my phone.
Sorry.
Share your goals with us.
I have the ice in my mouth.
No, I think I'm good.
It's almost 8.30 and I'm sick as a dog.
I meet with engage to learn who's driving the strategic planning process and you know what
I'm gonna make engage to learn do they're gonna sit down and watch board meetings they're gonna
watch this meeting then I'm going to share with engage to learn what came out of my evaluation
and those are things that I'm going to share with them as we go into strategic planning because they
need to know what's important to this board as much as we need to know what's important to the
community so we can bring those things collectively together to drive exactly what you're saying where
we want to be a year from now three years from now six years from now ten years from now and
And there are going to be those data pieces.
They're going to see this information.
I can't do, you know, I told you all this in the board, in the interview process.
We can come up with a hundred things to do.
We really can, but we won't do them very well.
I need you guys to come together on what are these real things that are impactful.
And I do believe closing the achievement gap, to sum up what you said,
is providing multiple opportunities for kids to be successful in our schools.
Sometimes it's not how well they do in Algebra 1, but have an opportunity to be in JROTC
because then that keeps them coming to school and doing well in Algebra 1 because they've got that.
So I'm there. I get it. And I do.
And I think we saw it in the most recent release.
I'm just going to say it right now.
We've got some work to do with our African-American population,
which is probably a lot of the kids at Morton Ranch or May Creek. We've got a specific population.
Single Ranch.
Hispanic, yes, absolutely.
Katie.
But if we look at it by numbers.
By numbers.
So I look at data that sometimes is punitive, but you can get some good information out of it.
So, you know, been here six months and I will tell you this, in six months, I think we've gotten quite a bit done.
done. We just need to take that next step now and get a strategic plan in place, not
be a compliant school district. We need to get a mechanism in place to report this information
to you guys so you can expect it, not only to you guys but in this room so the community
sees it as well. Be honest with our data. As much as we tout how good we are here, I
said it right when I got here. I think I said it to Sebastian. We can't get complacent with
this because there are areas in every school district that we can find to do better and i
think sometimes we overlook those areas and we try and mask it with this stuff here i'm not denying
that katie's got areas to improve and nor am i denying that we are a showcase school district
i mean we really are although the standards that we are being showcased on across the state of
Texas, a lot of people may not agree that 32% mastering the Algebra I standards for
the STAAR Test is a good indication.
I get it.
And I understand that we have to show just it's not about STAR, it's about our PSAT,
our SAT, our ACT, our dual credit, our CT enrollment, our vocational enrollment and
some programs that we can bring into place that will provide multiple opportunities.
But let me put a downer on that.
With all of these things we're talking about, we also have to worry about budget constraints,
all right, because things cost money.
Absolutely.
We need to make sure that we're making wise decisions.
It's easy.
I've been there and seen boards do it.
I want this, I want this, I want this.
And then I bring it back to them and say this is going to be about an $8 million reoccurring expense
to the school district to do all that you want.
And that's when some real thought process goes into it.
So we'll get there.
I don't want to be the Debbie Downer, but while I was hearing a couple of people talk, I kind of jotted some notes.
And one of the things was, you know, what's the timeline to look at the data that Mr. Scott was referring to?
And the next question was, what's going to be the cost?
And are we going to hire a team or a person that will specifically run that data?
And that will be their sole job is to dig into that specific data to find out where are the gaps and things like that.
because I don't from what I'm gathering I don't know that we necessarily have
the people to do their jobs that they're currently doing and dig in and get the
specific data that we need because something will suffer I don't know that
we can do it concurrently with what we're doing right now and not have and
maybe I'm wrong but would something would would something suffer if we said
okay you know what you're doing this job right now but we want you to do this job
and now dig into this data. So I know that's not something you can
necessarily answer right now, but I guess the timeline on, you know, that's
I guess that needs to be part of our goals. What kind of timeline are we
looking at to see what is the data, where are the weaknesses,
how and then so where are the weaknesses, what is the timeline, what is the cost
going to be and then of course like you said strategically planning out how do
we how do we fix it and to bounce off of what you were saying with this the ROTC
and all the different opportunities you know there are kids like you said that
we're not gonna go to college I have one in my house and and she very possibly
may not go to college because she her goal is to be a professional dancer and
in whether she ever steps foot in a college is yet to be seen she talks of
maybe doing it one day because a professional dancer's career is very
short but there are students in this district that flock to Houston because
they're going to the performing arts school there God what it would be like
to one day build a performing arts school in Katy to where we're not having
to send these kids that are super talented that are going into HISD to
their performing arts school but we could keep them here you know parents
driving into Houston, kids driving into Houston to go to HSPBA, we could keep
them right here in this district and and send them to a performing arts school
right here. That would be amazing if you know if that were a goal for us and
that's not gonna happen in a year but it could be a long-term goal that that's
something that we could offer them here. Part of strategic planning would be if
that's something that the community and the board plugs in then the first thing
is to investigate the possibility of doing these things and bring these cost analysis
to you.
Right.
Back to what you were saying, though, I get it.
It's, you know, I brought to you guys a reassignment, a realignment.
I think that we can get a little leaner.
I think we can do things a little bit more efficient and we're slowly going to work our
way through that.
It takes time to do that because you work off of retirements, resignations and things
like that.
All right?
But the same thing goes into evaluation of programs.
You know, you don't want to keep on doing things that you're not getting things out of that are costing money.
So program evaluations is just as important as, you know, structuring your people as well.
But they take time.
I'll tell you, things in public ed work at a snail's pace.
Once the school year starts, man, you're almost locked into that year.
I think, Courtney, that's a fair question.
You're asking cost and time.
I want to give you my best estimate on what I've handed you.
This stuff.
I have put in requests to the Texas Education Agency and the Higher Education Board that are of similar complexity.
It cost me about $1,200.
Due to inflation, I think that if I were to put in, going back to newspaper days,
if I were to put in a public information request,
I'd probably take you to court if you wanted to charge me more than $5,000.
So $5,000 is what I think it takes to pull all that data because the retrieval is actually very simple.
And I agree with you, Courtney.
I don't have a lot of confidence that the internal staff has the psychometric and the statistical background to evaluate it.
So I think that you could get the basic statistical correlation, regression analysis, and all of that for about $15,000 to $20,000.
So I think that what I've handed you, a worst-case scenario, is about a $20,000 to $25,000 exercise.
What would you get for that?
What you would get is you don't have to do it immediately.
from that data you can say wow we're spending this many millions of dollars
on the DLA and we're seeing a correlation analysis between classroom
grades and STAAR Test that is absolutely totally contradictory to the STAAR Test
make a decision do we want to keep spending millions of dollars in
and allocated resources to do the DLA program.
The DLA program is not a validated test.
What does the data show?
So I'm saying you could get to decision points probably for,
you know, I'd get paid, I'd pay $5,000.
I don't know how you allocate that internally because that,
but to me that's a 20 to 25,000.
retrieval and professionally statistically validated correlation analysis that would say,
issue one, here's what the data shows.
Issue two, here's what the data shows.
Issue three, here's what the data shows.
And then from that, from that, okay, then you make policy decisions.
That's where the cost is.
The cost is not the data and the initial analysis.
The cost is what do you feel compelled to do when you've got that data.
So my answer is, I could be wrong,
but I've put in a ton of public information requests to Houston ISD, Dallas,
Fire Ed, University, I mean, all across the fruited plain.
And my best guess is, if I were doing that, it'd be a $25,000 process.
Period.
Now, I do remember saying at my first board meeting that I'm not going to get into line
items here, but I envision maybe up to $250,000 that I would like to see manipulated in the
budget.
You've already done one in-house counsel, even though I didn't say it.
That was one of them, okay?
And I remember telling you very early on, don't think that when I say $250,000 that
this project is a 250 000 i i think i estimated back then it was about a 20 25 000. uh mrs van
you had something to say yes i did have a thought um um um i agree with henry's importance of
closing the achievement gap and um one and one thing that i would like to speak to that i see
already happening in the six months you've been here that I think is
important to keep as we grow is the importance and our goal of keeping
communication strong that's something that has changed drastically in the six
months that you have been our superintendent our district before
communicated but it was kind of a minimal kind of need to know not you
know now it's a it's just so open and it's friendly and it's it's communicative
and aren't really kept in the dark about a lot of things and and I still think
you're we're finding out as a board because you communicate and you're
finding out as a leader of this district what parents want to find out about and
what the community wants to know about so I think that's something as we grow
as a district we need to always keep in mind that we communicate because we're
only going to get bigger and whenever I show people the district everyone thinks
that the southwest quadrant where my neighbors and friends live is just so
so huge and the traffic is so busy. When I show them the map and they see how much more
we have to grow up north, they're like, oh yeah, we're just a tiny little corner. As
we grow and we change and we just need to always keep in mind and keep in our goals
that communication needs to be strong from the campus level to the feeder-patter level
to the district-wide level and from board president down and superintendent down. That
That for me is something that I've noticed a sharp change
in just six months, whether it's from you to us
or from you to the district or you to your administration.
And it's quick, it's prompt, it's concise,
it's not filled with rhetoric, it's straight to the point
and it's very respectful, so I appreciate that.
I wanna say probably my last thing here.
Kind of back on that achievement gap deal.
And again, for me, it's real because I was one of those kids, okay?
And my friends were some other ones.
The Bible says in Proverbs that where there is no vision, the people perish.
In the New American Standard Version, it kind of opens that up a little bit,
and it says where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.
When I was a ninth grader in high school,
I thought an engineer was a guy that drove a train.
And you should laugh.
No, I did too.
But a lot of those kids aren't exposed to what's available to them.
So what do they do?
They cast off restraint.
They cast off restraint because they don't have a vision for their lives.
So as we go through this process, we have to make sure that we give these young African-American kids,
these young Hispanic kids, these kids from at-risk backgrounds, a vision for
their lives so that they put restraint in because no matter what we do if they
don't engage they don't receive. And I would say that that same verse applies
to us as a board. We need a vision that's clearly spelled out on the direction
we're going so we can put in restraint so we can say this is something we're
going to do and this is something we're not going to do because there are a lot
of good ideas out there but the question is does that good idea reach our overall
goals that's the restraint that proverbs is talking about that we have to have a
vision for what we want to be five, ten years down the road and put ourselves on that path
now so Dr. Hint can put the restraint in the administration to put us on that path.
And that's not a bad word. Restraint is a negative thing. It's just a discipline to
go in the direction that you determine is correct. The restraint for a young man or
young woman who wants to be an engineer is algebra one in eighth grade. That's
the good restraint for them and I think that we need to remember that as we go
through this process for both us and for those young people that are in that are
in the gap.
to say this, but if you ain't got data, you ain't got the ability to evaluate.
So I'll do it grammatically.
If you don't pull the data, you're talking about the theory of accountability.
If you pull the data, you can pick and choose from that the priorities that you want to impose.
Okay.
Okay. And you know, you're right, when you say there's one way, it's kind of like Curly in the, you know, Curly.
But honest to God, Brian, you've got to pull the data so that the gurus who do statistics can manipulate the data and do the analysis.
So when I say one way, I'm not saying like A&M, you know, Highway 6 runs both ways.
It is the data has to be in a spreadsheet, an access program,
multiple spreadsheets that can be dropped
into a statistical database.
And then it becomes, that's the reason it's only
going to cost about $15,000 to the whole project, $25,000.
Because to write what I've put on there
is a lot more complicated than analyzing it.
It really is.
I mean, it's not. It's not. What you do with it is the complication. How you evaluate it is the value choice. But if you don't have it and it can't be credibly evaluated, you don't even have the chance to start asking the questions.
What can we do to improve the academic opportunities for at-risk minority kids in this district?
Right now we don't have the data.
And I'm not saying that the curriculum department is not doing anything good.
I'm saying this board simply has no basis, no foundation, no...
And the superintendent doesn't either.
To be able to say, okay, I'm going to drive by empirical analysis, at least to start with,
and then professional judgment, experience, cunning, intuition, all those other personal factors.
But we've got African American and Hispanic kids in this district that we've got to do more for.
And we've got to figure out how to do it.
I agree with you Mr. Scott and I'm so appreciative of this board and the visions that you have
and as I listen to each one of you speak, I hear your hearts and where you want to be
and what your experiences are and our backgrounds and our children and our neighborhoods and
all of that.
And Mr. Scott, your many years of background with data, I feel that passion from you and
I know that you have a lot of experience there and you can help us with that.
and I appreciate you very much but in sharing some of our goals I wanted to
share a couple of things that I mean I hear a common theme here and that's you
know our students and what we want for them and we want opportunities for them
we want them to do better they can do better we're doing really good but we
can't I love what dr. Hintz said we cannot be complacent we must improve we
We owe it to our students.
And the at-risk babies are the ones, you know, I just have a heart for them.
You know, I've mentored at Main Creek High School since the time I came on the board
because I miss students, and that's where I plug in.
And I go over there and mentor girls every week.
And so I get to know a lot of different kiddos.
I too love so my my passions my goals if I could just say well you know if I could
make them happen is the early college high school I agree with mr. deBrell I
grew up in a family never talked about college parents hoped I would graduate
from high school and get a job at the factory where my dad worked that was
was their goal for me. And in the meantime, the dual credit might be an avenue to that. A lady from my youth group asked me what my career was going to be and where I was going to go to college. And I was like, what do you mean career? What's a career? Right? She saw potential in me. And I'm the only member of my family to have a college degree. Because someone cared enough to point me in the direction and to believe in me and to
to talk to me about things where I started asking my high school counselor, what does
that mean? Could that happen? So I, I, um, that early college high school, if I had an
opportunity like that where I had college credits coming out of high school, if I knew
I was capable, right, Mr. Durbrill, the same thing. If you have the exposure to that while
While you're getting a high school diploma, you're also getting an associate degree?
You already are a college student.
Of course I'm going to go on to university because I'm already a college student.
Thank you.
So I don't know what that looks like, if we do it, how much it costs.
The dual credit is absolutely an avenue toward that.
So, yes, we have some of that in place, but we don't have enough.
Rebecca, one of the things I've asked Dr. Kent to get, you'll go back in and you'll
prove this is, who are our kids that are in dual credit?
Right, okay, so if...
How close are 700 or 1,000 or 1,500 other kids, if you move them just a little bit,
they can move into that dual credit.
Right, but we have...
That's what data does.
But we have other examples in neighboring districts around us who are doing things like
this. So we have that. My other passion is family engagement.
Family engagement, that's very hard to measure. There's not data that won't
measure a family engagement. It cannot be legislated for that very reason. I'm not
talking about PTA. I'm not talking about the incredible volunteer hours we have.
I'm talking about reaching out to those families and helping them understand the
the opportunities their kids can have.
And it starts with a classroom teacher,
because the families who just don't understand,
you know, there is opportunities, more things,
the vocational tech kind of classes that we could have.
There's so many things about that.
So it's hard.
Dr. Hint, to be sitting in your chair,
when you hear that there's someone who loves data,
someone who loves performing arts,
and has a gifted child and there are many many many of those and you have
someone who wants who cares about family engagement which is very different
expensive and difficult to to measure and implement and and you have everyone
over here who has other things we have ROTC and early college high school how
are you gonna get all those done right six months so here we are with a very
many goals and all of them focused on our students being very successful. So I
appreciate as board president the opportunity to visit with Dr. Hint and
hear where kind of where he's coming. He's bringing us the evaluation, the
things that we've done. There is so much data in this folder right here. It's
coming to you on January, coming to us on January 9th. This, you'll need a
magnifying glass and you'll need many hours to go through this and this is a portion of what he will
show us where we are and then he has a vision for where we're going you were exactly right george
this man can get us there and his desire for a strategic plan that's coming will get us where
every one of us wants to go i believe it and he can do it it it's going to take a little time
but I wanted him to hear from all of us kind of where our passions are where our
goals are he can't fulfill them all but he can hear from us and then we can go
with his plan is to take what he's hearing tonight and build that in and
see here's here's what I heard and we represent diverse the diverse community
And I think we represent the values of the community.
So now it becomes the time, the plan, and we have to give him some patience, I think,
to get there.
Mr. Hanson?
Thank you.
Well said.
You know.
We've gotten more data since he's been here than the history of some of us have.
have been on here and and he's that like we love the friday info things you know so if it's it's
relevant this week we get it this week and if it's yeah and so i was on break last week all right
i was wondering where was the party
so um socks yeah anyway so dr rutherford thank you so much for joining us this evening we
We appreciate you helping us through this.
It's tedious and those kinds of things.
And you see school districts all over the state,
and you've had a long relationship with Katie,
and we're so glad that you bring the perspective that you bring to us,
and thank you so much.
So are we good?
Okay, there being no further business, this meeting is adjourned at 8.56.
Official documents
Motions and votes
Recorded actions
The motions and votes for this meeting have not been recorded here yet. Whether any were taken is not stated either way. The agenda and the recording above are the primary sources.