Joe Adams Named Director of GCAASB?

Katy Citizen Watchdog$

We’re Taxpayers. It’s Our Money.

Joe Adams Named Director of GCAASB?

Back To “Watchdog Archives (Commentary)”

NOTE TO OUR READERS: The following news story appeared as an online story for the Houston Chronicle on May 18, 2006. The story was written by Helen Eriksen of the Chronicle and was entitled “Veteran Katy ISD Trustee Tapped For Regional Post.” At the end of the story you will find a commentary by Mary McGarr. The following is that news story:

The Gulf Coast Area Association of School Boards recently announced that Katy school district trustee Joe Adams was selected to serve as a director on the board for the 2006-07 academic year.

The GCAASB is a voluntary association of more than 50 school boards in the greater Houston area. The group's stated mission is to improve the quality of public education for all children in the Texas Gulf Coast area.

The 53-year-old trustee said in an interview when he ran for re-election two years ago that the most important work a board member can do is to help build support and understanding of public education and lead the public in demanding better education.

I have served on this board (GCAASB) for many years, Adams said, who has worked as a corporate development consultant in the oil and gas industry. It is a great way to network with other trustees and administrators to compare notes on what the hot topics are at the time.

School board president Jackie Birkel said Adams appointment to the board is a benefit to Katy ISD:

Mr. Adams has served on the Gulf Coast board for several years, having served in every officer position and as president twice. This is a great honor and opportunity for Mr. Adams to network with other board members across the greater Houston area which of course benefits our district.

Adams has lived in Katy for 19 years and has served as a Katy trustee since 1989. His board positions have included president from 1993-94 and 2000-01, vice-president from 1991-93, secretary 1996-2000, treasurer 2002-04, and sergeant-at-arms 2001-02. He has two grown children who were educated in the Katy school district.

COMMENTARY BY MARY MCGARR, KATY CITIZEN WATCHDOG$:

With regard to Mr. Adams service as a “director” on the Gulf Coast Association of School Boards, I can tell you because I was there, Mr. Adams rarely attended the meetings of this association until a friend he had who was a Cy Fair ISD board member who was active in the GCA, recruited him to run for office. So without much historical background of service or meeting attendance, for political reasons, Mr. Adams was made an officer of the GCAAASB and has continued to serve as a director. He did not earn the position; it was just dropped in his lap.

The fact that Mr. Adams has anything to do with the Gulf Coast AASB or that Mrs. Birkel thinks his being there is "of benefit" to the Katy ISD is amazing if one knows what this organization is about. Take a gander at some of this organization's issues:

In a recent copy of “The Wave,” the newsletter of the Gulf Coast Area Association of School Boards, the current president, Sarah Winkler, had this to say (and I assume her comments meet favorably with her Board of Directors and Mr. Adams since they‘ve been posted on line for three months), “Area districts are very concerned about retaining local control [see paragraph below] over elections and governance issues. Most favor supporting current law allowing May or November elections and three or four year terms. If the Legislature is determined to mandate November elections, most attendees want TASB to advocate that the elections be held in odd-numbered years. Districts also want TASB to continue to support adding another date for bond elections (September or February), and allowing school boards to bypass the November or May dates if a new school finance bill mandates that a local election be held to raise local revenue or set the tax rate. This area [Gulf Coast group] continues to oppose recall, and legislation requiring trustees to file financial disclosure statements.”

Doesn’t sound like advocacy for openness in government to ME!!

Using the TASB to lobby the legislature for issues opposed by the majority of residents of Katy ISD is something Mr. Adams and our school board should not be doing, and yet they continue to do it at every opportunity. Many of us have worked very hard to get school board elections held on the normal election day in November. We believe that having more people vote creates openness, interest in issues, and curtails the ability of the school district’s administration to control the outcome of the election. The Katy ISD school board could change the date of the school district's election to November at their next meeting if they wanted to! Separating bond initiatives to be held in months other than in connection with the school board race would be simply another attempt to keep very many people from voting thus favoring approval of the bond.

And for sure, school board members, like every other State elected official, need to file financial disclosure statements. How else will the public know if they are selling things to the school district, whether they even have a job, or who is paying them for things that we should know about? What is it that they have to hide?

And just for the record “local control” was taken away from school boards in 1995 by the State Legislature in Senate Bill 1. School boards formerly were charged with “managing and governing the school district” and had total control of the budget. After Senator Radcliff and Rep. Sadler got through with things, we discovered that School Boards no longer had “local control.” The “local control” had been shifted to the superintendent and his administrators when the language of the law was changed to read “govern and OVERSEE the management of the school district,” and when control of the budget was given to the Superintendent! So it is incorrect to say that school boards have “control” of anything locally.

Mr. Adams has had a clear hand in undermining the academic education of public school students. He needs to grow a spine and stand up for the values he constantly espouses at his church and as a Republican and cease his double dealing when it comes to issues of importance to his constituents.

Mary McGarr

Mary McGarr, Katy Citizen Watchdog$

Date: 05/18/2006