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Katy Citizen Watchdog$ |
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We’re Taxpayers. It’s Our Money. |
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School Board Committees |
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In the last fifteen years, school boards, and specifically the Katy ISD School Board, have utilized an ever broadening power granted to it in the Texas Education Code (11.061(c)(3) and some Attorney General opinions. The power I speak of is the use of Board Committees to “advise” them on matters of policy or business. The fine line between these committees being able to exercise supervisory control over public policy and just being a “merely advisory body” should make anyone wary of hidden governmental activities, just cringe. When I was a member of the Katy ISD Board, the use of these committees was already occurring. Board policy at that time had this to say about such committees: BDB The authority for the policy in 1989 was Education Code 23.19(d)(5) and an Attorney As the only member of the Board in the 1990’s who ever read Board policy and who knew it backwards and forwards, I questioned the use by the Board of committees to do the work that should have been being done by the Board members. I cited the fact that any Board committee was subject to the Open Meetings Act if even ONE BOARD MEMBER attended the committee meeting. Please check the current Board policy (http://www.tasb.org/policy/pol/private/101914/) to see specifically how the TASB has enabled Boards to get around the original intent of this specification in the Education Code. More than likely no one has challenged the policy since I left in 1996. Katy ISD’s most flagrant abuse of the Board Committee occurs when they need to rezone school attendance zones or float a bond issue. The COMMITTEE is a means of taking the heat off of the Board and the Superintendent so that if the issue is a hot one, or if things don’t work out quite as planned, the Board can simply say, “A committee of your fellow citizens, parents and taxpayers received input, discussed the matter fully and made a decision based upon the best interests of the children.” The truth is these Board committees are a subterfuge. The deceptiveness of the whole matter besmirches the Board. The usual routine begins with Board members being asked to submit names of people they wish to have on the committee. Depending upon one’s power (translate friends) on the Board, one’s nominees may or may not get picked. The list of these submissions includes those who helped to get the Board member elected, those who attend the same church as the Board member, and other such unrelated reasons for selecting someone to decide on matters of public importance. In addition to the Board’s picks, the Superintendent, some other administrators, and principals are allowed submissions. Most of this bunch consist of the “YES PEOPLE” with whom we all become familiar as our children progress through the years of public school. They all can be counted on to either do as they are told and help to facilitate the others or to be just plain dumb enough to vote yes on everything placed in front of them. They have been vetted, and they are all easily fooled by the process. If they are not fooled and ask too many questions, they will not be placed on another committee, and their child will not be selected as Queen of the May back at her elementary school. Often the people chosen for the committee, and especially the chairmen, have an agenda of their own. They usually are employed by a company that is deeply entrenched in the education reform movement that drives the direction of our public schools. Committees are never formed with just plain old interested, intelligent tax-paying citizens who care about the academic education of children. Often, the Board and/or the Superintendent will proclaim that the members are “just parents” as they did one time when the Board was trying to decide whether to establish Fifth Grade Centers. Quite the contrary is usually the case. “Just parents” are often the spouse of an employee of the District, or they have some other direct and vested interest in the outcome of the committee’s decision and advice Anyone chosen for these committees, if not in on the deal, should think of themselves as a Class A Fool. Once the committee begins to meet, the agenda becomes clear. It is not the agenda of the committee, but instead is that of the Board and the Administration. The committee is “facilitated” in true Total Quality Management style, and the “outcome” is what the Board would have done at the direction of the superintendent had there been no committee. I’m always amazed when talking to committee members that they have been so easily hornswoggled. Deception is easily pulled off because the leaders who are placed on the committee use the Delphi system to elicit control. *Refer to “Being Easily Managed” elsewhere on this site for an explanation of the Delphi Technique. Why are the Watchdog$ concerned about the use of Board Committees? We believe that the use of these committees subverts the Board’s authority to make decisions in a public manner. Discussions, opinions, questions, and thought processes are either non-existent by the Board members or are hidden away from public view. The ability of the public to hear these matters, review them and to offer input is undermined by the use of Board Committees. We ask that the Board start exercising its authority, make decisions on all matters in public, and eliminate this manipulative administrative tool. Board members who do not have opinions, who are unable to discuss matters of public importance and make reasoned decisions in public at the board meetings have no place on the Katy ISD School Board.
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Mary McGarr, Katy Citizen Watchdog$ |
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Date: 10/18/2005 |
