Granbury ISD School Board Meeting - June 13, 2022

001[Music] the time is now 5 pm i call this meeting the granby independent school district to order let the records show that a quorum of board members is present that this meeting has been duly called that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the texas open meetings act texas government code chapter 551 this board is now adjourned into executive session pursuant to the following section 551.8 discussion of officers employees and personnel matters the time is now here yes [Music] yes [Music] y'all got quiet you knew it was six o'clock all right we now are reconvened in the obsession and we will begin with an invocation led by mike moore the time is 601 please pray with me um father god i'm so thankful for everybody here tonight and lord please help us

002to remember our common goal of supporting our our children our teachers our administrators and our staff and lord i pray that you'll keep all of them safe this summer and that they will return refreshed and ready for the fall lord we pray for your guidance and wisdom tonight throughout this meeting that we may make the right decisions for granberry isd lord we pray all of these things in the name of jesus amen led by melanie [Music] for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with a liberty and justice for all our pledges to the best all right even though it is summer we have some student achievement spotlights and the first one is going to be brought to us by jody brown [Music] thank you guys for allowing us to be here or not

003and recognize our kids i'm going to first turn it over to amber ward and to andy holly they're the girls coaches and the girls are here so i think they need to go hello thank you all so much for having us i am amber ward the girls excuse me high school track coach and we're here to recognize our 4x2 relay that broke the school record this year these girls did an amazing job not only were they at the after school practice but they were coming in early in the mornings to work on handoffs they're multi-sport athletes so they were doing volleyball and basketball also during that time off season stuff so they really worked hard just stand forward and wave when i say her name landry basil she was also these girls are also great

004in the classroom she was one of our academic all-state senior recognized for that so great job there [Applause] then we have kylie moody [Applause] and bailey goodman uh we are missing tristan huddleston she was our fourth relay girl they are out of town um also right now i'm going to turn it over to andy hawley she was our relay coach for the girls and boys so i'm going to let her talk so not sorry so not only did the girls break the school record but the boys did as well the boys record stood for 10 years and i think the girls was 22 years that it stood um these kids i never had to worry a moment about them in practice they were always so reliable sometimes they were late you had to yell them

005a little bit but they are the best group of kids in the world because you can yell at them they're like oh mama i'm sorry and then you know all is well with the world um they have been just such a great group to work with um and it breaks my heart because we're leaving greenberry and so leaving these kids i know some of them are graduating but leaving these kids is just agonizing for me because they have been such a blessing to me and it's such a gift that they gave that they broke the school record the year that i'm leaving so they're a great kid i'll introduce the guys real quick here hey amber kind of mentioned this um these boys set a record that had been 10 years uh prior broke i

006think 2012 and then prior to that the furthest i could go back was 2002 so 10 years in between two cents of breaking this school record so it's a big accomplishment for these kids and just like coach ward said they these kids they just put a hard soul into the sport and they come in the mornings they stay after school do all the work and they're just such such good kids to be around and not only just breaking a record but they are the best kids just to be around on a daily basis it's uh these kids have grown into young men and and i know these young ladies have grown into young women and and uh we're just so proud of them and so happy for them and and they're just so so much

007fun to be around i wanna introduce you guys first guy good way uh first guys jaime martinez next is derek lacey next is ethan klingskill and the last one down there is jayden rogers and i want to thank real quick here coach holly she is the one that's like coach amber ward said she is the one that really works with these guys every day i just kind of put them in a spot make sure they get on the bus make sure they're entered into athletic.net and she does all the work with them and she deserves all the credit along with these young men and women thank you that way [Music] okay [Music] so do we have any proud parents out there in the audience [Music] one two three i got it thank you all so

008much some of you guys we're never gonna see you again we wish you the best of luck after your time with granberry isd and those of you who get to come back i can't wait to see how well you do next year all right next we have the preliminary report for the 2022 district star scores and i am excited thank you madam president um so star scores are coming in and we have all of them except for a few of the three through five math scores and so the top page that i provided to you that's the white packet is the straight comparison from 2019 pre coven 2021 last year and then this year's 2022 scores so some of the highlights you can definitely tell that we've been working on our reading initiative and having

009targeted interventions for reading as we have double-digit increases um for a lot of our grade levels and a lot of double-digit increases from approaches to meats so getting more children on grade level a couple of highlights the bless you the targeted improvement plan at backus focusing on tier 1 instruction you had gains across the board for math reading and science and significant gains which is very very exciting elementary reading had gains on approaches meats and masters at every single level as well as our eoc numbers are increasing and biology and u.s history are holding strong meeting with our esser funded people have been yielding some pretty good results so these are preliminary exalt results there will be some shifting especially in grades three through five math but pretty exciting news and really want to give

010our our admin and our teachers a lot of credit for a job well done this year yeah absolutely yeah thank you miss clark uh you and you and mr dawson both for your leadership many of whom are at uh a conference so they are not with us tonight but uh i think this is uh for those of you in the audience you don't get to see these scores we have them for you if you want to come look at them tea will make them official in the in the coming weeks and we will publish them everywhere because as a district we've seen huge academic gains and it's truly a result of us being intentional in putting in uh in place strong academic and instructional uh systems just across the district uh more importantly it's the

011the partnership with with parents in our community and the truly the result of hard work by our students our staff and so excited about these numbers look forward to the final uh publication from tea but miss clark thank you very much for presenting tonight for all you do for gisd i'd like to speak into that just a little bit tammy great job you guys with these we just put our eyes on this tonight and it is outstanding and that means that every single teacher throughout this district stepped up in a huge way from a we came off of having we have 18 so we are going to set it up for two minutes per and we'll just go ahead madam president i would ask since we represent the people the voters that we give them

012their full time to speak even if it takes extra time because i think we represent these people we should give them the full time for them to speak and that we need to listen to them we serve them madam president uh if uh if we want to give them the the full time i would recommend that we uh hear those firsts that are on agenda items that are speaking to agenda items and then at the end of the meeting give those folks their full five minutes i don't have a problem with that so let me look through these real quick so that i put the uh agenda items first that one's agenda that one's agenda and give me just one moment that's not evaluation [Music] i just want to clarify for the public does that

013mean that all the people who are asking to speak will have an opportunity to speak tonight absolutely what we're going to do is those that have to do with agenda items so that we have that information before we reach those agenda items they will have spoken and then those that are on non-agenda items will be after we have finished everything else for the board but we will stay here until everyone is finished [Music] all right i have this situated so that means for now one two three four okay so the clock will be set for five minutes and um we have one two three five that are agenda items and the first one up is beverly cheney and she would like to speak on the superintendent evaluation [Music] hi i'm beverly cheney i live at

0143903 winding way in granbury and i want to apologize it for first because i have a bit of allergies so it may be difficult to understand my daughter graduated from gisd in 2007 and i have a grandson about to start gisd and i'd like to take this opportunity with dr glenn's contract renewal and his evaluation on the table to thank him and the entire board for facing difficult issues and facing them head on you'll continue to strive to do what's right for kids even in the face of pressure from all sides and i really appreciate that i hope his evaluation and his contract consideration both reflect this difficult year that y'all have been through as for the board i know your jobs are tough and i commend you for your dedication in full disclosure many

015on the diets are my friends i know them to be good people some of them are even good friends and maybe not important to everyone here but certainly more important to me i know them to be good christians one i know particularly well dr harrington is my mother all of this being said i want to remind my fellow unconcerned citizens that these people are just that their people their mothers and their fathers their sons and their daughters their neighbors they shop with us at kroger and they sit beside us in the pews at church they don't just show up and do a job for 30 minutes or three hours here once a month what they have committed to each one of them is a huge commitment they go to teacher workshops and staff development they

016go to staff appreciation luncheons and breakfasts and student activities they go to sporting events and graduations and they do hours and hours of training they don't do it for the money they don't get paid they don't do it for the accolades because at least lately there's been many more criticism than accolades and the shares heck don't do it for a two by six brass plate on the wall of the building that two percent of this county will see i know for a fact at least the ones i know personally and i i can assume that all of them do it because they love kids they love granberry and they love the kids of this district and they want this to be a great place for kids their choices may not always be the same as

017mine i know they're not always the same as mine but my choices are based on what is good for me fair choices have to be based on what is good for all kids for most kids also they're privileged to information that i don't don't always have so while my choice might selfishly be my choice and might be what i want what works best for my grandson or worked best for my daughter i may not have all the facts and it may not be what works best for all the kids of granberry so to my fellow concerned citizens i implore you before you criticize in personal attacks before your comments are filled with rage and certainly before you go home and sit behind a computer and type hate-filled messages remember he is someone's son she that's

018someone's wife he is someone's father and her well she's my mom please be kind thank you miss chaney next we have sonia chastain to talk about home school participation in uil good evening i'm sonya and i am a pe teacher over at brawner elementary i just completed my 19th year here in granbury isd as a teacher i have taught at the elementary the middle and high school levels i've also coached at the middle school and high school levels and i'm here to visit you today on as she said the participation of homeschool students in our ul uil activities i have two children of my own that will be attending ghs in the fall and they are involved in various activities that are involved with extracurricular and such as sports uil one-act play choir they are

019in swim cross-country basketball volleyball track and cheer i probably left out a few they do multiple sports and so i feel that i needed to come and speak on the behalf of of our kids who are in public education i know this is something that cranberry is an innovative district we are open to new ideas and i'm not and i think when we look at the typical day for a ghs student or someone who is involved in sports take my kids for exam they get up at 4 30 every morning and they go to swim practice then they go to school for eight hours and they are taking classes that are on the collegiate level they're taking dual credit dual enrollment honors classes and then after school they may have a second sport and then

020they have three to five hours of homework every night and they're getting in bed like at 11 o'clock to midnight every night and then they get up at 4 30 and they do it all over again and for those of you don't know swim starts the first week of school and it goes all the way to the end of may so we do this year round and i think when we look at the typical day of a homeschool student they would also be able to attend that same practice in the morning but then they are going to go home and they may do three to four hours of homework and then they have the rest of the day where they were able to rest they may engage in additional practice or additional tutoring or with

021a private coach or have additional ways that they could improve their sport or their activity whatever they are doing i feel that the accountability for like grade wise like our kids are taking common assessments they're taking quizzes they have to pass to be able to play i think that the level of that academic accountability compared to the home school i don't know how we're going to get that on an equal playing field because curriculum is not the same testing is not the same and i know the stress and the anxiety that my own kids go through daily um and so i feel like when we look at that playing field it's not a fair playing field as far as what our gisd students are putting into this and getting out as far as their activities

022and the amount of hours that a homeschool student would be doing the same i feel like that the additional practice and training that the student the homeschool student can get on their own would be beneficial to them where they're getting rest and additional training while our school our kids are still in school and yes uil does regulate the hours that you can practice but i don't know how we would monitor that to me that's that's a huge thing the accountability how we would monitor that and the amount of practice that they're getting and then when you also look at a student um i've taught special ed classes before for almost seven years and i know that students who are involved in sports and they're on that level it is a struggle for them daily just

023to get through the school day much less to be passing and be able to play a sport and that sport or that activity whether it's band choir whatever it might be that is their incentive to come to school and so if they are working and then they are beat out of a spot by a student that comes in who is not be at school our kids are going to look at this and say oh well they only have to go to do two or three hours of work a day and we're going all day why don't i just home school so if we make this a possibility i feel like we're going to have kids dropping out of our system and going to the homeschool side and we're going to lose them and we've worked

024so hard to provide opportunities for them at the high school level for preparing them for the future like our culinary our automotive all of the different programs that prepare them for life after high school and i feel like we're going to lose these kids because they can invest in what is important to them to give them incentive to pass academic academically also just the social camaraderie like if you have someone that comes in and is amazing cheerleader from home school and she makes cheerleader she's in the class with the cheerleaders and she's cheering with them but she doesn't even know the kids on the field that they're cheering for so i feel like it's a big disconnect with with all of that and again like i say i'm not putting anyone down i'm an athlete

025for kids i've taught for 20 years i love kids and i do this this is my life my husband always tells me you don't love your job you love the kids we've got certified minutes all right i'm sorry thank you for your time i appreciate it i just wanted to let you know my thoughts on that thank you so much next we have patty cisco also talking about the uil good evening my name is patti cisco i am a retired educator of 41 years secondary in college a church elder and a grandmother with a student here as well as a guardian of a student here in granbury isd and i'm worried about our schools when i became ready to go parents collaborated with teachers to achieve our mutual goal a well-prepared young adult graduating high

026school with a bright future ahead teachers today though face an increasing wave of opposition in achieving this goal along with the pressure of high stakes testing teachers now face a cadre of legislators with purely personal political agendas who stir parents into a frenzy of fear and mistrust of public education fear of crt a theory that has never been taught in public school fear of indoctrination it has never been taught in public school fear of indoctrination a belief that teachers are secretly plotting to turn their children into card-carrying liberals and atheists and or grooming them to become a part of the lgbtq plus community that's ludicrous when we moved here in 2020 angry parents insisted that schools impinged on children's freedom by forcing them to wear masks the school board vowed to the pressure to teachers

027so that teachers who had recently faced the impossible demands of delivering instruction both in person and online were faced with being more exposed every day knowing that the risk of infection was greater ironically many of those same parents who cried freedom from masks then impinged on the freedom of teachers and students to read what they wish they attacked school libraries going so far as filing charges against librarians and demanding that a new review committee be appointed not with educators but with citizens with higher moral standards just last month despite a survey showing that over 70 percent of coaches and teachers who devote untold after-school hours to uil activities were not in favor of extending uil participation to home school students the school board patted those educators on the head ignored the survey and voted to

028further study this move and i hope that you'll consider that survey tonight that teachers have of protecting their kids from outside violence that looms over each teacher's head every day multiple studies have proven that positive outcomes in education boil down to one overwhelming factor a really good teacher but due to lack of support and trust constant demands and negative feedback from everywhere and especially the parents who should support them teachers are understandingly leaving this noble profession in droves and there's nobody to replace them and with the exit of good teachers a school collapses we must support our teachers here in granberry isd our children's future depends on it it's time to ditch the politics and focus on the kids thank you mrs cisco next we have uh mr jason palano to speak on the superintendent's

029evaluation madam president school board members dr glenn and members of the gisd administration team i watch every board meeting online and my heart hurts for the first 45 to 90 minutes of each meeting i watch public servants openly be being openly belittled and ridiculed after the end of the last several board meetings i wanted to be sure that someone took the opportunity to thank all of you for what you've done for the grambar isd community this district is better than it was ten years ago and as a result of the work that each of you has put in behind the scenes it seems that no matter the situation or agenda item some speakers during public comments wish to criticize you but to you the leaders of gisd a group of individuals so passionate about the

030community that you're willing to make yourself vulnerable once a month to public comments i want to extend my sincerest thanks and appreciation as leaders in this district you must view each circumstance and agenda item through a lens that others when he was in the fifth grade he and his grandmother he and his grandmother it's not the elite athlete or band student or drama student that is going to be affected by this it is that person who is a ranking agenda items the others will be dealt with afterward okay moving on we have uh consider consent agenda items are there any consent agenda items that anyone would like to pull out of course madam president the donations first of all every month those of you that are here or watch hear me thank people in this

031community who step forward to donate to student activities most of which are uil this month was no exception seventy five hundred dollars was donated to to our students uh steem academy actually got a thousand dollars from aaron uh cave and michelle palak lasik donated 250 for their activities mjrotc which is one of our most popular program got a donation of three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars from military offers our uil activities nikki carter nicka carter donated 390 folks they make a difference for our kids every day if you know any of them or know anyone that belongs to one of these uh organizations um oh and i forgot the optimist club sorry about that madam president mr jackson um they donated uh fifteen hundred dollars fifteen hundred and twenty dollars for the student activity

032fund for the student sandwich program and for to fund the junior optimist so someone besides just the taxpayers help us fund activities for gisd one other thing i'd like to pull out compensation increases trs eligible thank you do we have any comments or questions i just pay it in thinking all that money goes to gisd what happens is we receive all that money we send it all to the state then the state determines how many kids we actually have in seats they fund us based on that the rest of the money is spread out to other districts through recapture to the tune of next year probably between six and eight million dollars yes sir but in truth we're we're a property rich district uh what called chapter 49 these days so we would be the

033beneficiary of those tax dollars if we were property poor history that is that is correct those those are spread out to 48 districts those additional dollars well doesn't it come down to the state decides six thousand and if you have that money you get the six thousand per student and if you don't yeah and so and so target revenue is different with every district which it would make sense if everybody received what a 6 125 but it's not it varies district to district and then the 6000 is also based on 100 attendance so we have weighted average daily attendance who not only do they have to be enrolled here they have to show up and then we get a percentage of that sixty one hundred dollars based on how much school the student actually attends

034and then it kind of shifts also like a student who is dyslexic we get a little more money for that especially we get a little more money for that so it's it's kind of a moving target but in roundabout terms the average kid that comes here will get about sixty one hundred dollars per year if they don't miss a day of school okay excuse me madam president uh some of you stole my thunder we all know that we pay taxes and they fund our public school you also know that we sit at this board and set your tax rate and over the past 15 17 years since i've been on this board the rates have dropped dramatically what you may not know is that we have nothing to do with setting your property values in

035the pla last five years in granberry the property values have risen from 5.8 to 8.8 million according to this information in our board book tonight uh and as they said we don't get to keep all the money we get to keep the money based upon the number of kids that we have sitting in our seats every day we don't get to keep the money based upon the number of kids that participate next curricula or anything else we own are the ones that are enrolled because if they're not here we don't get money for them we from the money that the state allows us to keep we do all of the activities we fund staff we fund administration we fund uh we don't fund the food service but we fund buses we fund extracurricular activities we

036fund all of that two years ago this district had remote learning plus in person learning and during the first period of that remote learning the district decided to provide the activity of the activities for those youngsters that were being taught by remote we found out it didn't work very well so the district reversed that policy and said you had to be in school and person learning to be able to participate in extracurricular activities um that was because of some of the issues that came up uh extracurricular activities we know are important they keep kids from dropping out of school every year we have hear a number of youngsters tell us well we wouldn't have stayed in school to finish had it not been for our extracurricular or whichever activity they might in which they were

037involved we polled our athletic and academic coaches and yes 70 of them said that they were not in favor of it and y'all heard me if you were here last month how i feel about that the length of the day every day that these students who are in regular classrooms who are enrolled in gisd has already been addressed by one of the speaker they have long hard arduous days the donations from our boosters the clubs and from our other um citizens in the city fund a whole lot of what we do with extracurricular in texas currently according i i contacted daryl beasley today with uil to verify the the numbers in texas there are two 6a schools that allow homeschoolers to participate in varsity athletics there are two 5a schools in the state of texas

038there are four 4a schools there are four 3a schools there are five 2a schools and there are six 1a schools that allow students to participate in varsity athletics [Music] i reached out to three of those schools i got responses from i reached out to to three i got responses from three one of them had a very bad review two others had um we don't notice any difference so i guess that's just a neutral review i respect parents rights to home school or to go to private school or whatever my grandmother who was a very wise woman once told me you can't have your cake and eat it both and i feel like that if we allow homeschoolers to come into our public schools and participate in uil we're allowing them to have their cake and

039need it too and i think it's an uneven playing field and quite frankly madam president i would move that we deny the right for our homeschoolers to be in public and gisd ms graf you were wanting to say something if i may please um it was brought to my attention earlier this week that the hood county news had a post on facebook about this and i watched the public respond positively until the comments and the likes were removed um and then the whole post was taken down the very next day it was deleted um the feedback from coaches was really not based in fact but fear and emotion i would encourage them to research this more and ask about the length of a homeschooler's day and research more when homeschoolers really go through um [Music]

040we work for the voters in the community and i believe that our community wants our children to play together and why not they pay we do pay school taxes um even though our children do not attend public schools i know that my tax bill more than 70 percent of my property tax bill goes to the public school and quite frankly i believe it's divisive to not let our kids play together um mike best who is a um trustee in weatherford he has the best quote he says if we're really for you know if we're if we're four kids then we need to be for all the kids so my question would be so are we really for all the kids or just the select certain group of kids and that's all i have to say

041are there any more madam comments if i may um our apology our apology to ms croft and to the community and to at least one newspaper reporter uh last month when i made my motion and i went back and looked at the tape i'm sure many in here did my intention was fully to just construct a policy and bring it back to us so we can deliberate it and we've gotten that and so i'd like to thank the administration and mr dawson they came back with an 11-point implementation plan and it's available if you want to look at it but there's basically as i look at 11 thresholds or 11 hurdles that that we would put a homeschool parent to jump through these hoops and so as i kind of sat back and looked at

042it again i was neither advocating or against the idea last month i merely just wanted the policy to look at so i stepped back and and contemplated i started listening to those around me in full disclosure i lived with a uil coach and so uh i began to see this is just problematic and i don't see the the wildfire uh uh either support or uh folks clamoring at our door to to allow their uh kids to participate and as ms graf even stated if the average homeschool child is in five activities outside of their studies man i commend her and god bless all the homeschool parents uh and a lot of us with kids public schools can certainly relate to that it's a lot of activities i think there's enough out there for everyone uh

043i just came down to after some prayerful thought you know i was elected as a trustee of a public education board my charge when i was elected was for the kids and the staff and teachers and so on of cranberry independent school district i participate in optimist club and i've started faith-based troops american heritage and trail life you can look them up that largely are participants or homeschool folks because i love kids everything i've done in my adult life has been for kids so i think there's plenty of opportunities for interaction for both homeschool and private school kids and public school kids to get together but at the end of the day for me for my church and what we need to be doing as a board of trustees for a public education school system

044is to think what's best for our teachers and for our kids this is just too problematic at the end of the day i couldn't come around to it but maybe a future board will consider it thank you mr jackson so you've made a motion right okay dr harrington has made a motion would you please repeat the motion i move that the board deny public uh home school students to participate in uil activities of any kind in granbury isd do we have a second for that motion [Music] not sure i would have chosen the word deny but i think at this time i would go with that and i'll second that motion okay so we have a motion by dr harrington a second by mr jackson are those in favor of the motion please raise your

045hand okay we have one two three four five four and those against and one against and one absence all right we move on to reports first one superintendent's report well thank you madam president uh thank everybody in the audience who is with us tonight i just want to touch on a couple of things the first something that kind of skated through on one of mr whitefield's reports is the the refunding uh which will save taxpayers about 350 000 and it doesn't sound like an incredible amount of money until you go back to to 2005 and you start looking at all the boundary fundings the district has done and there's been a total of eight this will make nine uh for just under 27 million dollars that has been saved by taxpayers and i can tell

046you trustees we are in june so next month is july which means our administrative team is well underway looking at budgets for next year and and i can tell you that with the the appraised values raising uh substantially uh here in hood county and i think we all felt that you're going to see the district threshold for our m o or operations tax rate decreased significantly and so this will mark the seventh year in a row the isd has actually lowered the the operations or the m o tax rate in fact based on the preliminary analysis that we've conducted mr whitefield has done a tremendous job of looking at this the tax rate that right now we're planning to propose in august will be the lowest allowable under the formula provided by the texas education

047agency and so i just want to uh just commend mr whitefield and his conservative approach to manning managing the district's money and we'll have more on that as we get into july and august for the public also let trustees know the demographer templeton demographics will be back in the district they are conducting uh study right now looking at all the new developments going in uh that's something that i think has been a concern to everybody as hood county continues to grow not only uh here in gisd but in toller and lypan uh the the entire county is really seeing significant growth and just in visiting with the uh the county officials and the city officials uh it's encouraging to see everybody continue to take a proactive approach speaking of proactive approaches it took us nearly

048a year but we finally closed on the land it's only a little over an acre over by emma roberson elementary school we worked with our savior lutheran church to to acquire the land get it planted through the city so that we can kind of create a loop we've talked about trying to relieve traffic congestion on our campuses that was a big point in the last bond it's something that's still important to us to do everything we can to alleviate traffic concerns and then finally tonight i would like to address i would like to address textbooks because our library books and materials because i know that's come up over and over i want to commend not only our trustees on being proactive at the at the state level but also our administrative team and even our

049community members because i know many of you are passionate about this and concerned about it as well i will tell you that that we've done three things that everyone needs to understand we've adopted one of the toughest policies the most comprehensive policies as it relates to bringing library materials into into our schools it was recently put out by the texas education agency our board ratified it i guess two months ago that policy and procedure is put in place it really makes sure that we have the gatekeepers in the right spot before materials ever enter our libraries but more importantly than that it allows every parent and every community member to challenge any resource in our district and beyond that once that resources challenge they actually get a written statement back from the district letting them

050know why or why not we decided to keep or remove that piece of literature and so that's a really really important variation that a lot of districts aren't doing and so i'm proud of our district for stepping up and adopting a really proactive policy that puts strong parameters in place for what's in our libraries and so every every parent every community member should should leave here and understand that we've empowered you to help us make decisions for our library to protect kids in addition to that uh we're going to be adding the position of a library coordinator and i really shouldn't say adding because we actually have a resignation coming in the curriculum department so it's going to be a wash but this position is going to oversee and manage all of our librarians to

051make sure that the the board's desire the board's policy is implemented with fidelity and they'll work with parents they'll work with librarians and they'll work with community members to make sure that uh that we are adhering to best practice here in gisd and then finally and this is uh probably the biggest uh piece of the three-point plan that i want to lay out tonight and i want to thank our technology director mr wilson for putting it in place we're going to put in place software which parents can opt into and every time your child checks out a book you're going to get an email alerting you to what book has been checked out by your child because at the end of the day parents need to know what their kids are checking out and so

052it's not uh thank you yeah i thank this guy right here um but uh but again it's not up to uh it's it's it's not up to uh to to uh community members to make those decisions for for parents because we all have different levels my level of tolerance is probably different from mr jackson's or for miss townsend but by my gosh uh forgive that me for that but uh but parents parents need to be able to uh to have ownership in this process and so every parent will have that ability and so through the new policy through having a director to oversee it and through an opt-in program for our parents to have ability to see everything their kid is having access to we feel like we have addressed this policy thoroughly and we're

053prepared to move forward with other items that are certainly more pressing for the district and so trustees thank you thank you so much and i think you heard that with some of the opening comments we appreciate what you do for kids we know our work is not finished we will continue to get better and to grow in every way possible but make no mistake about it we are here to serve and support all kids and and i truly believe everybody at this table and and those of you in the community tonight share that same desire otherwise you wouldn't be here if you didn't care about our schools thank you for being here and trustees that is the june report thank you dr glenn next we have the financial statements for the period ending may 31st

054of 2022 mr whitefield thank you madam president board in front of you do have the financial statements um for the month ending may 31st 2022 these uh financials include all transactions between september 1st 2021 and may 31 2022 and you can see as of revenue to date collected was 94.49 percent of the budgeted amount compared to 94.13 percent and 2020 2021 and 96.78 in 1920. the expenditures to date represent 63.88 percent of the budget compared to 69 in 2020 and 2021 and 66.63 in 2019 and 20. we've talked about these functions uh many times in these reports however i want to focus on the function 34 which is our transportation tonight we budget about 485 thousand dollars for fuel every year in may we did an amendment to that fuel budget for a hundred and

055eleven thousand dollars and tonight you approved one for two hundred thousand dollars um currently we consume about a thousand gallons a day when buses are when we're in school um we have uh we need to finish the year out about five more dumps of diesel and 15 more dumps of unleaded so when we finish up the year we will have spent almost seven hundred and eighty nine thousand dollars in fuel for this year when we cur when we normally budget four hundred eighty five thousand now the percentage on your uh financials does not show that but our budget currently well now that you've approved this budget is 715 000 more than it's ever been in function 34. so basically to clarify 300 000 in additional fuel costs just this year yes sir and to keep

056a bound balanced budget we took it from other areas from other areas and we we put some things off yes ma'am so if if it weren't for the increase in fuel i know we're almost to the end of our fiscal year where will we be in budget laps right now that is how much money or less money have we spent than we would have anticipated if it weren't for fuel if it weren't for fuel i mean what we dr glenda says 300 000 we could have used we probably would have used it in other areas to uh supplement those programs being and ultimately yeah ultimately where we're at it's money that would have gone we'd have been able to put back into fund balance but as we as we get into next year's budget and

057we start talking about you know how how much money we're able to give percentage-wise and raises i mean we have to consider fuel costs upwards over a million dollars well and maybe i stated the question wrong we typically have budget laps every year of two to three percent correct meaning we set this is what we think our expenses are for the year and then we typically come under budget at least as long as i've been on the board yes sir so excluding fuel would we still have budget laps are we still going to have budget lapses excluding fuel that we will have a budget lapse but we we do have some expenditures on the table right now that will will uh probably eat that savings rather okay all right and also yeah and then just

058to you know kind of as you're setting your mind uh mr jackson the planning for next year it it we're also looking at food costs so if you think about it over over 10 percent of the of the population of hood county our students in gisd we sober serve over 10 000 meals a day and so when you go to a grocery store and a head of lettuce used to be 89 cents and now you're paying close to three dollars that's that's going to hit us as well and so all of those things are having to be built into next year's budget and there was an amendment in child nutrition this evening if you look take a look at that we are having increased food costs why don't you just keep on going into cash

059flow yes ma'am a board in front of you you also have our cash flow and to my surprise this month we actually did make money in interest um i guess uh good news or not inflation uh made it where we actually did make money on our interest and it is it is starting to pull us out of the hole but we are still moving away from the long-term investments and moving more into the short-term investments so that we have access to those funds on a more readily basis um you can say that we three made nine hundred sixty two dollars in interest this month thank you emma okay we'll move on now to consider action on items discussed in closed session thank you madam president you have before you our staff recommendations as always want

060to thank uh not only our principals but also wes jones and the hr department for putting them together um just a couple of highlights one on a personal note because he spoke tonight jason pilano who is our very accomplished swim coach is is moving on to highland park isd and we really wish him the best that is a that's a loss for our district he is a an incredible uh incredible coach incredible man and and he certainly made it an impact here in gisd um two big hires that we're making tonight the first is uh we're naming our i believe we title it student services coordinator but ultimately they will be the library coordinator as it relates to policy efa and efb and that will be leah dawson who was uh not only has her

061masters in library science but also has her master's degree in administration she served both as an administrator and as a librarian in the district have total confidence that she will be able to take reins of that program and lead us successfully also we'll be replacing jeff meador who did a great job for 16 years as director of communications we're going to be replacing him with lisa oliver who is in the back room tonight and we are certainly excited about what she brings to the table she is a rock star she graduated from granberry isd she has invested here with her husband and her family and and we could not be more excited about her vision for the communications department at gisd she is a rising star a leader and uh and i know that uh

062that we are in good hands under her leadership so those are two great hires that we look forward to bringing you tonight and it'll be our recommendation that you approve as recommended madam president i would move that we approve the staff recommendations as presented thank you mr jackson i will second thank you dr mcdonalds we have a motion and a second those in favor please raise your hand opposed it's unanimous with one absence moving on to consider superintendent summative evaluation and contract we did all spend a month looking over how dr glenn had done and the board as a whole is very pleased with his work as far as academic improvement as uh ms clark talked about today um just knocking it out of the park and we needed to knock it out of the

063park so i'm really excited about that i'm looking forward to seeing what our uh alphabet number alphabet grades will be for each one of our campuses the second thing we looked at was how the district navigated through covid very pleased with our second year we were able to stay open even when the numbers started going up there were particular times when we had so many teachers out that this building was virtually empty because we had the staff here from administration out on the campuses making sure that our kids keep keep going long-range planning did a great job we've got a 2025 plan that continued being worked on even through covet and even through everything else that's going on and then the last thing we looked at was the bond issue which it failed but we

064learned a lot and we're going to come back stronger and we listened so all in all we are satisfied with how dr glenn is doing and um from there is there anything anyone else would like to say about that madam president i think we all could add a lot of comments to that i just do appreciate dr glenn but i think as we determined um we would like to keep him around encourage him to stay around and with that i'd make a motion to extend his contract by one year to june 30 of 2027. we have a motion do we have a second i second that motion thank you mr jackson had the motion dr harrington had the second this would extend his contract for one more year all those in favor please raise your

065hand opposed was unanimous with one absence thank you board now that would adjourn our meeting but we are going to go back into public comments and we are going to handle those that are written on here as non-agenda items and we are going to start with mr cliff criswell matters of concern interest to the district [Music] dr glenn i'd like to like what you had to say we'll see if it happens all right when you first come here i believe i met you at church welcome to open arms is that right all right it's still open but you got to do a few things all right okay under texas law and i think you may have answered part of this for me under texas lowell superintendent glenn has cleared you interact you've cleared united authority

066to remove any books he deems unfit and what you're telling us tonight that may be done is that right yes sir we have a pilot we have a policy in place yes sir all right we need to ask why did you approve these books to begin with you gave a big speech about removing pornographic books pornographic books but your actions so far has not been that dr glenn talk is cheap you know it action speaks louder than words is that right yes sir we have a very liberal book review committee appointed by you that you created and you're accountable to our children's sake democratic socialist liberal that's what the school has become in part teaching teachings will not be tolerated anymore like this i don't play with the rules anymore i haven't played with the

067rules since vietnam and i'm not going to start now i hope we understand that the elites are undermining our country we can not be polite and look loose lose every bottle or we will implant and actually deliver results for the greater majority of americans which are fighting for their small businesses fighting for their jobs fighting for their families second you have to mobilize popular support this requires breaking the barrel of what our institutions are doing through real investigation and reporting so that americans can make informed choices we live in an information society and if we don't get the truth out we will never gain traction again in this narrative being constantly against the narrative being constantly purchased and pushed for the left which seems to be the school board less than two years ago a

068small number of americans knew about critical race theory through investigation and reporting we've brought that number down to about the public now opposes critical race theory by two to one margin and it is being counted out in schools and other places this kind of action is a model for dealing with every ideological and institution that is undermining the public good in america's future remember that institutions don't choose these out of ideologies dramatically they don't ask people or employers to vote for their them they impose them through bureaucratic and non-democratic rule so it isn't surprising that the institutions lose by when we force them force their agenda into the political arena what political campaign managers in their right mind would ignore a issue that is supposed to be by two and one one margin so call

069so conservatives politicians who do ignore such issues or just oppose bringing them up in a false sense of decorum part of the people's in the countryside with public institutions like k-12 education and other critical steps is to be decentralized then it is centralization and your bureaucracy that makes it impossible for the majority of activities to take control and pose their and i'm sorry i have cancer i'm having trouble standing up here and have neuropathy but i've made my mind to come up here speak decentralizing means reducing federal and state controls in favor of local control and it's ultimately means something like universal school choice placing brother your time's up your time's up brother brother i'm going to speak keep speaking too many parents today have no escape mechanism for standard schools controlled by leftists highly

070hierarchies at least from virtual school charts meaning that public edu education funding goes directly to parents rather than school we've fixed that conservative for too long but we're attacking the credibility of the institutions trust in institutions is a natural conservative tendency the conservatives need to stop focusing on abstract concepts and open their eyes our institutions are dragging our country into that disastrous direction activity undermining that makes america great to some extent the institutions are now destroying their own credibility look at the public health bureaucracy and teachers unions which act in in concert shut down schools and keep their needless mask on and for far too long as it was decreased there has been an exposure homeschooling i'm going to keep paul talking whether you like it or not i yeah i've got something for you

071too you just wait in closing we have if you'd give me a minute as well close but you got to run your mouth in closing we have profile sheets of mark jackson courtney goer which is not here barbara harrington barbara townsend jeremy glenn and you mike moore profile shoots we know what you do we know where you live [Music] i've been a city councilman i've been a commissioner i'm a commissioner's court i've been on school board not in hood county and in sexy when you go to an executive session just like you did melanie you try to rip her apart that will never happen again i guarantee you that you're going to be in trouble if you do i assure you that they don't work anymore i'm through mr lowry [Music] mr lowry i want

072to apologize i saw the part that said not on the agenda i did not see the second part i apologize dr glenn and madam president thank you for your patience uh appreciate it thank you for the honor to speak here after the special session that you had a couple of weeks ago i'm concerned on the direction you may be headed as far as shutting down some of the voices in the community that need to be heard and i appreciate it madam president you invited us back last official meeting in may 16th board member jackson took advantage of the board and made a mockery of the board and took advantage of the robert's rules and spoke for six minutes we were not able to respond to his comments and you invited us back and that's why

073i'm here today to speak i do want to say a couple of things i do wish everybody would read the excerpts of these books number one dr glenn we appreciate what you said but we do need to see action action has taken too long these books are dangerous people that haven't read them don't understand the danger that was there i want to say some let's see things tonight that may be confusing and may people may not understand i just want to say that i'm a born-again christian i'm a sinner saved by jesus christ regarding mr jackson on may 16th for six minutes he spoke to the audience we were not able to respond he mentioned a couple items here i want to talk about one his six-minute monologue again he said there was no vulgarity

074vile pornography in the schools he stated that well he's either not read the excerpts that been provided to him conveniently for his convenience he has either not read them or he approves of the vulgarity the vile and pornography that's in these books and if he does he should stand up and say that he does right now but to say they're not there is it is not true he said there was a misstatement he focused on one book one book to the people and that one book was recognized very early on when the complaint was filed that it was a different offer but it was the same title when that happened miss brown recognized it withdrew the complaint and apologized to you dr glenn but he wanted to focus on that one book to the people

075and if they're not paying attention to this matter they would have thought that this is all over nothing one simple book that was in his statement a misstatement not true he brings up his three friends two which sat on the board not sure why you did that other than to be a good lieutenant the two that sat on the board previously allowed this cancer to start now this board has the hopefully the courage to remove this cancer now i know you've established a policy but again you have one person overseeing this if it wasn't for these two ladies miss brown and my wife sat on that fraudulent book review committee if they had not have dug deeper we would not have known about this and you all would have just moved on down the road

076they were actually should be recognized by this board for their efforts of identifying and for those who haven't read it to come up here and want to admonish all of us read the excerpts read the excerpts it's pornography absolutely pornography so not sure why you did that recognize those three individuals but you're a good lieutenant getting back to the uil i encourage everybody to go to back to may 16th uil at the thing and it's at three hours may 16th 51 minutes and zero five seconds you should have abstained tonight minimally or you should resign you refer to school homeschool children as homeschool cult and then immediately change it to kids yes sir three hours 51 minutes and five seconds go look at it you should you should abstain tonight go look at it so

077um dr harrington you need to address that that's serious you got a board member that a slip of tongue stated something like that that should be addressed by this board he mentions his faith many of you have talk about your faith we have a doctor of theology on your board which i salute we've got to practice our faith dr harrington in your prayer on the special board meeting you said you want the divisiveness to go away i say no we want the divisiveness to stay until righteousness can be be found here righteousness we as we as christians have become way too complacent we sit in our homes we say prayers for people which is good we talk about our faith we write scriptures on walls but we're not getting involved our lord jesus in red

078letters says he didn't come for peace he came with a sword he fought the pharisees he caught the fought the sadducees all three years of his ministry he tells us in these times we are in the end times like i said some people may not understand this he talks about the end times okay he tells his disciples at the end if you have take your purse take your cloak if you don't have a sword buy a sword somebody explain that to me they can't so what i ask for the board and i'll leave my time is to find the courage you're going to be judged by the great king who comes back you're all going to be judged exposing these children to this pornography you're going to have to answer to now you've got a

079policy in place these books should have been removed a long time ago thank you for your time thanksgivings to lowry and now we will have a marietta harrow [Music] and she's going to talk on the standard operating procedure i'm short good evening board dr glenn i wanted to talk about the last meeting when you addressed when you handled the your sop your standard operating procedure and specifically the changing the number of trustees to put an agenda item on the trustee on the agenda from it was one you propose three then you i believe courtney made a motion and i'm not sure who seconded it to change it to two two trustees have to agree and and during your discussion the reasoning turned out to be that it would save time that way you made sure

080that there was a second to each uh each item on the agenda so there would be a second sponsor well i voted each one of you separately not as a group so when my votes were cast they were cat my votes that put not all of you but some of you in your positions i voted for each one of you individually and i expected that you would represent me and what i my wishes for our community and put them before your trustees to decide on i didn't count on having to go to two of you or more to get something on the agenda i feel that other community members in granberry have the same stance i urge you to reconsider that decision so i'm going to talk about it if that was your decision the

081reason was you to ensure that you had a second for everything that was placed on the agenda that i want to know what the study was how long of a period of time you looked at how many items did not have a second during that period of time and how much time it wasted and then i will remind you that at this last meeting um the community stood up and asked you to revert that back to one one trustee is able to put something on your agenda [Music] and you refuse to listen emotion was made by one person on your board one trustee made a motion hearing what the community had said at your board meeting at this board meeting special board meeting that past thursday one of you heard it made a motion and

082there was no second it took less than a minute for you um miss bart president to say there's no second the motion fails so i would like to know how much time you've wasted over the over what period of time you checked you covered to do this study i'm assuming that said it was such a time waste to your board and i'm sure the other audience members tonight and the community at large would like to know the answer to that question additionally in the past when you had reviewed your standard operating procedures you had a workshop where all of you got to put something into it this time according to what was said at the last board meeting it was one person who made all the changes none were solicited they could have been offered

083but they weren't solicited from the other trustees and i think that was after three years of not being able to three years of not being able to modify the sop that you surely could have taken the time to have a workshop and had input from the entire community represented by each one of you thank you next we have ms lowry to speak on books dr graham trustees these are a few forgotten facts for nearly four centuries americans believe the fear of the lord was the beginning of academic knowledge in 1690 america's first public school book was published and reprinted frequently for the next two and a half centuries it was a common text from which american students learned to read this first grade textbook was the rhyming alphabet a and adam's fall we send all

084be heaven to find the bible mind see christ crucified for sinners died the founders believed and in the first federal education law acknowledged the schools and education systems were a proper means to encourage the religion morality and knowledge that were so necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind in to 1962-63 the u.s supreme court ruled that after 320 years of fear the lord being central to america's educational philosophy it was time to make a change it was time for public education to become completely secular since that time academic knowledge has plummeted american high school students regularly finished last near the last or the bottom half of the students in the math and testing and science testing how far we have fallen so here we are in 2022 with this push to sexualize our

085children to push to normalize and groom children by allowing and keeping and providing sexually explicit age and appropriate material for children to read in a school library the schemes of the devil multiply those who know and do nothing will be held accountable for this sin [Music] at the may 16 2022 school board meeting the audience was scolded for six minutes see the video time three fifty five twenty to 401 during this lecture we were told there's no vulgarity in the school district i beg to differ so please listen carefully as i read an excerpt from a book in the cranberry middle school and parents if you have any children that are present please ask them to leave even though they can get these books in their library and trustees if you've not given your female

086austin attorney these excerpts please do so so she can read them for herself so she can read the vulgarity i don't believe she's seen them or read them she locks herself in the bathroom and does the drink test spreads the drop of punch on the paper waits 30 seconds and watches it change to a bright blue her stomach lurches roofies and then mr durbin pushing her back against the counter and kissing her and she's feeling his hot tongue on hers and she starts kissing him back because that's what feels right the fuzziness in her brain grows i gotta go she says suddenly pulling away nope you don't have to go i mean to the bathroom she says seriously there's one in my bedroom he says his eyes hungry oh cool do you have that porn

087magazine in there jenny hesitates too late wondering if she's supposed to say that but she can't remember why she shouldn't lots of them he says not that i need them with you here well she follows him through the dazed and half naked crowd and he stops to grab another glass of punch and gives her another one too on his way to mr durbin's bedroom janey waves at coach crater hey he says turning back to mr durbin wasn't stacy here before before she's still here janie his words are deliberate like he's concentrating she's chris in the other bedroom so we can in here stumbling janie bumps into the door trying to push and finally tries pulling on it it opens the door mr durbin is on the bed there are three girls from class with him

088and he's taking their clothes off as they lie there in which coach crater comes out mr wang is kissing her neck and the coach is telling her how hot she is and feeling her up and says something about bench pressing then in her mind while the two men kiss and touch her is miss steuben telling her something coach crater goes inside and comes back with a joint 21 positives on the ghb janie cable's voice is harsh everyone at the party was drugged durbin even drugged himself rumor has it the drug was known to enhance stamina they both shudder what about wang him too sadly he raped stacy before baker and cobb got there they found his dna and she asked for the morning after pill she said she doesn't remember anything that happened that night

089and so what did they say up and this is the kind of stuff that is in the granberry middle school this book was written by an adult it is about teachers drugging and having sex with students this is why we want these books out of the library and so maybe you all can tell me what is the edge of the educational value of these very vulgar books that are in the library for sixth to eighth graders next we have kelly ford kelly ford all right thank you next we have craig mayberry [Music] all right greetings school board tonight you know i had a really cool speech planned to make everyone's ears hurt again in regards to the book issue but however in view of the the tragedy that took place here before our very eyes

090in june second the book issue and frankly any other issue for that matter just automatically became moot um for those who may not be aware watching online what have you i strongly urge you to go back and watch the june 2nd replay of the gisd special meeting and you'll just see what happens and to summarize it what we saw was caesar flexed his muscle and tightened his grip by practically silencing the voice of the voters who put the board members in place they made it 100 percent harder and more difficult to let the public have any meaningful input on the topics at hand they did this in the utmost cloak and dagger skullduggery are possible the excuse it was done because it was necessary to review the sop and it had to be done now

091or otherwise the sky was going to fall to hear a few it was carried out with little or no notice to any of the public who actually has to work for a living so as to minimize public scrutiny the excuse for the sadness of the meeting was that this is going to be the only time in the foreseeable future a quorum could assemble the sop hasn't been reviewed since 2019 so what what's wrong with it all i can see is the big elephant in the room and it's the same tool now by used by mckinney and round rock isd to squelch one of their own members who does not toe the party line who thinks for themselves exposes agendas that are contrary to the will of the people who voted them there said lone voice

092of dissension here in gisd proudly proudly and powerfully stood up in the same manner and put the kids and the voters first not the teachers not the admin and certainly not the coaches and whoever came up with this knuckleheaded idea it is evident that absolutely zero thought was given to the implication of this change the board sought immediate instant gratification for selfish gain and damn all consequences otherwise the approach would be just like nuking the city to catch a bank robber so just what are the implications of this decision suffice it to say that pandora's box has now been opened because you see three years from now [Music] very little are none of you are going to be sitting up there there will be a fresh slew of new faces who do not share your

093world view and who are so anxious to incorporate their leftist racist and gender ideologies in all the grades so they're ready to bring it in and also along with the reckless and irresponsible fiscal policies to be foisted upon all so what makes any of y'all up there so certain that the slippery slope you've started down is going to stop where you want it to and stay there today now it takes two board members to put them item on agenda in due time it'll be three and eventually four to create unopposed coalition then public inquiry will become a mere winter dressing to placate the masses into the illusion they actually have some kind of voice in the matters then magically the streaming of these meetings will become sporadic and then they'll cease due to the name

094of technical difficulties or budget cutbacks the list goes on and i will end with this disclaimer i really and honestly hope everything i said is wrong i really really do i genuinely invite anyone on the board all of you or any one of you to discuss the strategy and the logic behind me with me over coffee someday however me of such great faith i ain't holding my breath thank you mr mayday next we have dave eagle mm-hmm [Music] uh madam chair person board members thank you for allowing me to speak my name is dave eagle i am county commissioner here precinct four and i have some concerns that i want to air and i'm interesting that mr mayberry was in front of me because i want to talk about some law your last agenda item

095for june 2nd showed that you're going to go into a closed section session under 550-1071 consult with board attorney and then you slid over to 550-1074 to dis for personnel matters i'm not sure if you were trying to relate the two together but i just wanted to talk about that because when you went into closed session you were back there for an hour and a half i told you when i was at the podium that day that it was illegal on its face that the way that agenda was worded so let's discuss some law texas education code 11051 uh mandates that you held your meetings in compliance with 551.08 at seek that's the texas open meetings law and there's if you go into a special meeting by the way this was a special meeting the

096act the act has certain notice requirements that must be met for instance the act requires the notice to fully disclose the subject matter of a meeting to the members of the interested public and i'm going to call your attention to texas attorney general opinion number jc-0057 was rendered may 26 1999. there's a lot of case laws cited in that opinion more specific notice is required for subjects of special interest to the public than routines that was not a routine meeting that was a special meeting again texas attorney general opinion jc057 since this was a special call meeting on a thursday at midday i will assert that more specific notice should have been given and by the way jc means john cornyn i'm going to take just a moment here to let you know that i

097graduated saint mary's university laude i clerked for john corning back in the mid 90s so to give you some of my credentials i also have an mba and i'm a member of the john m harland society of saint mary's university just to give you a little bit of credibility for my background anyway let's talk about how the agenda item is worded and illegal on his face the agenda item talks about attorney consultation and it's implied about a personnel matter you can't do that there are specific statutory reasons for to go back there in a closed section session for an attorney opinion when the government body seeks the attorney advice about pending or contemplated litigation or a settlement offer that's it maybe you were talking about litigation i don't know but you didn't notice it that

098way so the next question is this why did you go back there to seek legal counsel i don't know because if it was for personnel that was an illegal meeting so what did you consult with the attorney about you at least need to give the subject matter if it wasn't a personnel matter if it was a personnel matter then you need to name the person that you're going to go back there and talk about so this board is subject to the texas open meetings act and i'm just going to do a hypothetical here let's say you went back there to talk about jeremy glenn he is entitled to have his name on the notice so that he can say wait a minute i don't want to go back there and have a meeting in secret

099about me because i want you to do it out here so if i assume that you didn't talk about him or he might have been able to demand to come back out here but it's essential that on a special notice a special meeting that your notice requirements are heightened so i'm going to submit to you that i would appreciate well let me let me go to this people can be removed from office for official misconduct is under local texas local government code 87012 an officer may be removed from official misconduct government code 551-144 prohibits a member of a governmental body from knowingly calling or aiding and calling a closed meeting that is not permitted by the open meetings act or participating in a closed meeting that is not permitted by the open meetings act violation

100of 55014 55 551.144 is official misconduct i'm not saying that anybody's done that but i would urge you to take a really hard look at the open meetings act especially when you're planning to go into a closed session and i'll leave with this [Music] the texas association of school board has just published their their latest version january of open meetings act public comment and other rights of the public it's 13 pages and i would urge you guys to really take a close look at this and i'm not seeing anybody did anything wrong i'm just saying what if and if anybody wants to talk to me about the open meetings act i'm my door's open i'll be glad to talk to anybody that wants to talk about it thank you [Applause] thank you next we have

101seth richie good afternoon board uh first off i want to tell you all thank you all for what y'all do this isn't a fun seat in a hot seat to be in i'm here to speak on something completely different than the literature that everybody else has been speaking on i'm here to talk about security within the school district first off i want to touch on i have background in military law enforcement and specialized tactics and i've also have a different viewpoint i actually come in and i have helped train y'alls staff with the security i've actually been there in those hallways teaching training and trying to help make them proficient due to the fact that it is a serious matter we can talk about how important this literature is and i'm not discrediting that at

102all but just as important that is we have to make sure that they can get from k to 12. and that's on us as a community and then that's where the community has to come to y'all because you all help make those decisions but the community has to be involved too because we can't complain about budget if we're not willing to pay and have adequate protection for students so that's where i put the fault on the public as well that we're going to be mad about money when you cannot put a price on a child's head okay so i'm not coming here to belittle anybody to be upset with anybody i just hope that maybe before this next year kicks off that i would encourage all to maybe address and see where we can improve

103here recently in the newspaper there was a story within the security and i will be the first to tell you that granberry isd has a very good security team okay the people i've trained are very knowledgeable and they're willing to learn and put in hard work but part of putting in that hard work that i've seen is sometimes they were underpaid i know one that works two jobs and this is just me talking to them while i'm training them because i'm trying to relate so it's hard to retain knowledge and professional people that you want defending the students within the school on a lower budget and that's where i also put the citizens to say that doesn't need to be a budget issue safety should never be a budget issue however that's the world we

104live in if you want to go buy anything tactical they up the charge because it's tactical and sometimes tactical is what people think is scary or it looks scary but it's a scary world and we have to do what we have to do to protect the students when we were doing some training exercises we used younger adult males to walk within the school without anybody as far as the security training was where teachers didn't even address them as they walked through the hall because they're they're too busy with their day-to-day and i think that's where we can also help train the teachers to recognize who's the abnormal person in the room those teachers have a heck of a job and we put a lot on those teachers as as communities but we also have to

105be able to support those teachers by giving them the knowledge and the ability to train and understand how to pick out the different person in the crowd who's not making eye contact who's just walking through and who could be looking suspicious that could be helped on so many levels and i'm not telling y'all one way to go or not all i ask is that y'all would take a look at that and figure out where y'all can address that this year to make sure that it is safer for everybody to attend the schools that we love and cherish y'all are talking about the teachers of how they stepped it up and that how they've made a difference in the testing this year and we have to make sure that their hard work doesn't go unnoticed by

106the hard work of making sure they're protected as well having a security is important but having a security that's unbreachable is what you have to have i believe this that if y'all ever want to talk to me and go anywhere i will help wherever i can as i have in the past and i thank you all for y'all's duty that y'all do here and i pray that y'all continue to serve the community faithfully thank you thank you next we have grant wood uh thank you president townsend trustees and superintendent for the opportunity to speak to you my name is grant wood i live in granbury 2315 lakewood court uh it's my first time addressing the board so thank you and thank you for your patience um and some excellent news about the test scores uh

107excellent news and congratulations to the entire district on that achievement please keep up the good work and also an interesting coincidence ms patty cisco who spoke earlier was my sophomore english teacher at irving high school um i think the fact that i remember her in her class was a nice validation of her expertise thank you miss cisco uh sorry sorry about that um but uh on a more serious note i i come before you to reiterate a warning that i'm sure many of you have heard there's a steady and tenacious effort to undermine public education not just here in granbury but in many school districts across texas and the united states that threat is from a small group of political activists that continue to look for and whip up discontent and dissatisfaction in the administration

108and educators i have just a few quotes from uh for and about our founding fathers on public education america's public schools develop because after the revolution americans realize that leaving education to parental whims and pocketbooks created vast inequalities it could not ensure an educated citizenry this is from a uh article by johann neem on the washington post the united states was an is not was is an experiment in democracy unlike anything the world has ever seen turning away from government dominated by elites and hoping that the common man could rule himself if this experiment had any chance of standing the test of time the nation needed far more schools to prepare everyday citizens for self-government as james madison the father of our constitution remarked quote a popular government without popular information of the means of

109acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy thomas jefferson similarly argued that governments quote derive their powers from the consent of the governed unquote but that this is education that makes this consent possible president washington his last annual message to congress added that expanding education was essential to the perpetuation of the nation's common values and the chance of a permanent union jefferson tried to build public education system in his home state in the quote bill for more general diffusion of knowledge unquote he warned against the tyranny of government that would follow unless the people at large were educated by the common experience of all from a book by derek black or an article by derek black in time quote i have no safe depository for the ultimate powers of the society

110but the people themselves and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control of the wholesome discretion the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform them of their discretion by education this true corrective of the abuses of constitutional power thomas jefferson the founding fathers maintained that the success of the fragile american democracy would depend upon the competency of its citizens they believed strongly that preserving democracy would require an educated population that could understand political and social issues and participate in civic life vote wisely protect their rights and freedoms and resist tyrants and in particular lately demagogues this is from nancy kober the new program to allow parents to monitor their children's book borrowing is an interesting development parent responsibility is the key not government censorship read the entire book

111before judging them not just the excerpts that excerpt sounded like an object lesson to me it was disgusting i ask you all to resist the temptation to bow to political extremes crt library books what's next don't allow our school district our teachers librarians administrators and by extension our children to be used as pawns by a group that has no interest in supporting a broad secular public education please resist the tyranny of the minority thank you you mr wood next we have jamie walker madam president dr glenn and trustees thank you for the opportunity to come and speak i appreciate your service in our community uh my name is janie walker i've lived in granbury over 40 years and i have a huge investment in the school district and the school system because i have three

112grandchildren who are in the school system now one in high school two in the middle school and also two that will be starting in kindergarten this year my desire for my grandchildren is to hear for that they can hear and learn the truth in their classrooms truth about our history are science math literature et cetera what is truth the oldest book and the best most read book in the world the only reliable source of truth available is the holy word of god jesus said i am the way the truth and the life and then jesus said god's word is truth apart from god's word there is no truth i pray that god's word will be available in our schools and its principles lived out by those who read it and come to believe in the

113truth isaiah 48 says the grass withers the flower fades but the word of god shall stand forever psalm 100 verse 5 says for the lord is good his mercy mercy is everlasting and his truth endures to all generations and then proverbs 1 7 the fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge but fools despise wisdom and instruction what is the fear of the lord reverence to our holy god our creator the one true living god proverbs 14 26-27 says the fear of the lord is strong confidence and his children shall have a place of refuge the fear of the lord is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death proverbs 15 33 the fear of the lord is the instruction of wisdom and before honor is humility proverbs 13 proverbs 3

11413-14 happy is the man that finds wisdom and the man that gets understanding for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the game thereof than fine gold proverbs 11 11 by the blessing of the upright the city is exalted but is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked what we want for our city is for it to be exalted righteousness will exalt a city and then proverbs 14 34 righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people and the first commandment that jesus gave us is to love the lord our god with all of our hearts so in mind and the second is to love our neighbor as ourself may our city be blessed as students learn to honor and fear the lord and love one another

115i pray that god will give wisdom and godly understanding to each of you on the school board that every decision you make will be for the welfare of our students future leaders of our community and america and then i'll end with the proverb with romans 15 13. now the god of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the holy ghost thank you thank you next we have greg hill madam president board of trustees dr glenn thank you for giving the opportunity to me to speak to you again this evening i appreciate it i appreciate your service i've always started when i address the board with those words i appreciate your service and so i want to kind of before i get started

116in what i wanted to cover i want to address some of these issues that people have raised about about you having to sit through these public comments let me just say this disagreement is not disparagement disagreement is not demeaning disagreement is not a personal attack we can disagree for sure and we can get along right so i want to address the issue of the adoption of the standard operating procedures of this board that were put in place at the last special board meeting i didn't get a chance to address you during that meeting because i was out of town and the meeting was called so quickly and actually we were told i have to tell you that we were told that the meeting was not not going to be anything special really there was not

117going to be any kind of real business conducted at this special meeting so i thought okay well and then i got received a report after the fact about what had been done during the conduct of your special meeting so i got to see the special meeting in the context of viewing it after the fact and so when you view a meeting after the fact when you have that context in place it's really easy to kind of see things that maybe would not have been seen during the meeting itself i don't think that anybody that was here really expected anything to take place like what took place on that thursday meeting having said that i watched the meeting and all through the meeting one of the things that struck me was how many times people on

118the board told the public and claimed that there was nothing going on here nothing is taking place nothing is happening just move along as a matter of fact here's what came to me as i watched the meeting a quote from queen gertrude in shakespeare's hamlet the lady doth protest too much me thinks that's you madam president you are telling us that nothing's going on here this is nothing to be worried about well it is something to be worried about it is something to be worried about when you begin to silence the voice of any one of the members of this this board of trustees an exact that's exactly what took place if you go back and you watch that meeting via video you can't help but see that there is an agenda that is being

119executed there's an agenda that's taking place there and it was to silence one of the voices of of the board member here you know this gentleman here just spoke about our early democracy really we don't have a democracy we have a constitutional republic our forefathers and our forefathers chose that form of government for this very reason to protect the voice of the minority they were so wise they were so wise they protected the minority voice in all forms of government you should do the same secondly our forefathers knew that ideas could be honed and refined and really concepts governmental concepts could really be refined in the forge of debate silencing any one of your voices does nothing to further the debate you need to operate in that environment where you talk about things and every

120voice is valuable so what i would ask you to do is to reverse the decision that you made last thursday revisit the sops and return to one member of this board being able to place an item on the agenda that's only the right thing to do amen thank you mr harold next up is monica brown we're live streaming i didn't want to interrupt you but people have been texting me that your live stream is muted they can't see and they can't hear so it's live streamed right now that's why i'm doing this the whole time and i didn't want to interrupt and say but i had multiple people message me and say we can't watch it but i didn't know how to convey that without looking like i was being disruptive so i'm being a

121little bit disruptive by doing this but that's just to get it thank you recorded letting us know that i did not know that i know and it doesn't look good that me sitting there doing that but that is what i'm doing so and some people thank me for who want to know i'm a community member so i'm monica brown i don't like putting my address out so i never do and although it's already in public records and phone number and all that kind of stuff but i appreciate what we said tonight a couple of things i would like to know if the book gone is removed from the high school because that's a book i brought to the attention of the board and dr glenn earlier this year and it was about a 17 year

122old having sex with his with with his 30 something year old teacher very explicit and i put pictures of the actual content so that it could be seen and i have read a ton of pages of books hundreds and hundreds and hundreds because i took it seriously when i realized what people were doing now i know that this little brochure right here talks about this is the one to get the meeting and it says you if you want to complain about an individual school employee you do it through a form and it says to ask the secretary would that be you no it would it i'm i'm sorry it would be dr glenn's secretary okay so i i need to find out about that because it's still upset to be it's still a jaw-dropper for

123me that we had principals librarians laughing about some some stuff and putting it back so we had 133 books we were called to pull out in review and we did but as you know it was done in two meetings 100 of them went back to the library with less than four minutes per book and they were not reviewed in any decent or professional manner and those were that was an employee who led the meeting i'm not mad at her but i i'm still my mouth is still dropped dropped my jaw has dropped over it why that happened and did we do anything about it so that won't ever happen again because right now i have 10 books that i have i have challenged i have requested reconsideration and i already know there's a district person

124in there and there's like four or five other employees and then two parents so i do applaud amazing things going on in this district i never wanted it to seem that way but i did get stuck in a really bad situation by allowing myself to be nominated to the book review committee so when i saw the content and i saw your well-paid educated employees nodding their head and smiling and saying yes to sexually explicit books not to mention books that are inappropriate for children age-inappropriate educationally useless i'd like to know when i get that letter from the principal from the high school and acting middle school i'd like to know if you're going to keep the books tell me how they're educational that's a big question i talked to a teacher who said we didn't

125even go in the high school library why because we have to as teachers require that if we're going to show students something that's pg-13 we have to have parental permission so why in the world we take 15 or 20 kids into the library look for resources that aren't there that's this is not my words i'm really speaking more for a couple of teachers tonight that contacted me and said we can't go in there because if they pull out this stuff that's literally the bigger part of the library fiction [Music] non-educational material nc 17 if you were to label it like a movie that teacher will get in trouble for that they can't even show a pg-13 movie without parental consent and they're not going into the library and they said that started when the new

126building was built which i don't actually know when that was but when all those things came in teachers who did have morals and values and wanted to go in there to teach something they said the resources for teaching are not there i'm almost out of time but i probably will just forward this to you later the heart of some of the teachers they do feel trust has been broken they won't speak up because they watch what's happened to us and i'm truly not i'm really i was a little aggravated with you but everybody else and i'm not i'm just trying to say you you know you pulled me out and said something that wasn't true and i would have loved it if you guys had reached out and said hey i'm sorry about that he

127lost his temper our upset is more about what we read and what we saw and when you read it the first response is intense emotion and feeling and i imagine dr glenn some of the things that happened to you earlier this year when you expressed yourself and got in trouble for some of what you said it might have been because of the poor content i know my time's up someone entrusted me with their thoughts i would like to give them to you later and in writing i'll do that and hope that you can find time to read it and i hope that you know our heart is not trying to be pitted against you but we do feel that you have the authority to step up and to make the decisions not just to put

128it off on a brand new employee ed elder [Music] fellow americans god bless america thank thank god that we can live in a country where we can have people speak for marxism and and government schools and people can speak from the bible this this is america amen and when i heard that what was going on i knew i had to come here and speak for freedom because for 22 years i served in the united states marine corps and you know it's amazing how many how few people have served in the military that are alive today it's a miracle i'm alive and but you know what i always loved this country i came in at vietnam and went out at black hawk down so i saw some stuff but i love freedom and so i had

129to come here tonight because you know for if if people want to understand if the yes ma'am there is crt right here in this district i've talked to people there is pornography well also i'll show you then people disagree but it's here and being a marine having been on the school board i didn't know what to say tonight when i first came in there was a guy at the back that said we need to muzzle at that gal she's controversial she's embarrassing the district you know i served on a school board we have a police officer here tonight when i got on the school board in in a very liberal part of the area that's why i came to granberry we had a lot of police because i wanted to allow teachers to be able

130to teach creationism and evolution and then to decide free speech people came from all over the united states witches covens people threatened my life people tried to kill me so i i know what controversy and the guy at the bathroom i don't think he's here now he says we she's controversial man i love controversy i love controversy because that that's the competition of ideas but we see in our country now at the highest levels right now we have a congressional committee that didn't allow both sides muzzled that's what this guy said we need to muzzle her i said like a dog muzzle her well that's what they did to the republicans and and a little little note of freedom this one guy stole my thunder i was going to say you know this is not

131a democracy that i risk my life to defend it's based on free speech we don't need no ministries of truth it's it's free speech which we've had tonight and i tell people the difference between a democracy and a republic is in a democracy you have two wolves and a sheep voting who's what who they're gonna have for dinner that's a democracy and you want to talk about controversy look at what's been going on with trump for two years what's the difference between all this trump stuff and a cow they can milk the whole trump controversy for years 24 7. you can't milk a cow 24 7. so i love controversy it's a fact of life in a republic they don't have it in communist china they don't have it in cuba they don't have it

132in russia today and we're about to lose it here and people that don't think we have crt and pornography and sexualizing kids uh i handed out some of the people run for school board it's a book called american marxism by mark levin that tells you the agenda and why it's there and it is here right here in river city or lake city granberry it's here as far as one person standing up that you try to shut up i was one of them both in the marine corps i had to retire as a major because i batted heads with the clintons they've got a body count so they forced me to retire as a major but thank god i did retire but i've never quit fighting for freedom from when i first went in patriotic vietnam

133war the black hawk down and bill clinton screwing that one up but whatever but one person what can one person do one person has alerted us to to what's going on here this travesty against our freedom this outrage right here in granbury one person's alertness but let me tell you what else one person has done william wilberforce stood against slavery in england in his friend the united states one person got raised up and people that don't think religion is important every hospital charity everything that's been done that glorifies real real quick florence nightingale modern nursing early nurses were prostitutes everybody know that she stood alone dietrich bonhoeffer stood against hitler and my favorite modern day guy lieutenant colonel sheller one marine stood up against these corrupt filthy generals that let our that oh they did

134so much damage in afghanistan so many christians persecuted so many deaths one marine stood up and what that marina said because other lieutenant colonels came up to him said we back you up but we don't like the way you handled it you know what for people that say you're christians people that say you're a marine don't say it don't be a sayer of the word be a doer of the word let's see it stephen they stoned stephen with blocks and his countenance showed before everybody i'd say there's one person in this room tonight whose countenance is glowing like an angel [Music] and with no further business we will adjourn this meeting at 8 36 pm