NOTE TO LARRY MOORE REGARDING PENDING REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION:

This note was sent to Larry Moore instead of Joe Kimmel, the Board president, because I thought he was smarter than Joe and more likely to help me get answers. 

Date:  January 5, 1996

To:  Larry Moore

From:  Mary McGarr

RE:  Pending Requests for Information

1.  Last spring I submitted a comprehensive review of our extracurricular program after Bonnie Holland requested that I do so. [The report appears elsewhere on this web site. MM] I read EVERY student organization's rules, constitution, by-laws, etc. that were submitted.  I then made suggestions about items that appeared to me that principals should address.  I have seen no evidence that anything has been done.  What I do see is continued embarrassment for the school district because there are no definitive and fair documents in place.  As a recent example please recall the problems encountered at Taylor High School with the band program last fall when the band director made up new rules for the seniors when they all got mad at him and quit his program. 

Spring and its elections are fast approaching, and i really think some fair rules need to be in place for this process.

2.  On August 23, 1995, I met with Dr. Merrell and asked for a review of these items:

*I requested that the Board be allowed to decide if schools were going to waste teacher time and effort applying for Blue Ribbon School Awards so that principals can go to Washington (to receive the award).  Although Dr. Merrell sees merit in this program, I asked for this to be a Board decision.

*I asked for a copy of Dr. Hugh Hayes' expenses for the last year he was employed by this district for the Board to review.

*I asked for a Drill Team and Cheerleader Expense report from all three high schools that included the following information:

How the budget allocation from the district was spent last year (1994-95)

How much money was collected from each student's family for expenses.

How all of the money collected from each student and her family was spent.

What the policy is on use and acquisition of student uniforms.

I asked why some of the student uniforms are rented.

I asked how often the uniforms are replaced.

I asked how much of the money is spent on "practice" uniforms.

I asked who gets to go on the spring break cruise at KHS.  I asked who pays for the cruise.  I asked why do they go when the other schools do not have such a program.

I asked if the students miss any school time when they go on this cruise.

I asked how much academic class time did students miss for the purpose of participating in this activity (cruise).

I asked what other trips are taken by these groups during the school year, during vacation times, or any other time for which money is collected from the students.

I asked why the principal and his wife also went on the cruise and who paid their expenses.

(Board member James Peters has also asked for similar information.)

5.  I questioned the use of the DEAR idea as being an infringement of the copyright laws.  Although a reply was left on my recorder that did not address my concerns, I never received anything in writing and had to find out for myself that this is a DOE program and a letter from the DOE was all that was needed to keep from infringing! I don't know if KISD has gotten that letter.

6.  In my report on the Campus Improvement Plans I asked about the Central Office and Miller Vocational Center CIP's and got no response. [Those two places also need to do a CIP by law.] I also asked that the composition of the CAT teams be reviewed and fixed this year (1995) according to Board Policy and state law.  I am not aware that that was done.

7.  I asked that a policy on the CAT be established and am assuming that it will be on the January or February agenda.  It should not appear any later than that.

8.  Last summer, Ken Burton and I sent the Board a memo about our concerns with the Pregnancy Program.  We addressed those concerns at a board meeting and made five requests.  Although the teacher responded to some of the requests, mostly they were things that were already being done. The items that were new were ignored and/or no definitive action was indicated.

9.  At a board meeting last summer Ken Burton and i asked that the 7th grade Health Education (sex education) unit be included in the agenda of the Health Education Advisory Committee for review.  When I attended the last meeting of that committee, that item did not appear to be on their agenda.  I have since discovered that the district (since September of 1994 !!!) has not had to legally teach this unit at the 7th grade level.  I'm stunned that this information was not given to the Board considering how much opposition there is to the course now and was in 1991 and 1992 also to the implementation of a sex education unit at the 7th grade level.

10.  I questioned in October two elementary schools that had more than a 22 to 1 ratio in some classes.  I think it interesting that the response has been that the Board no longer gets copies of that report as we had all the weeks prior to my question!!!!  It occurs to me that the Board appears to be getting less and less information.  Your mushroom analogy seems apropos. (Larry Moore had told a joke that he heard at a school board national convention one time.  It went like this: "The speaker said that superintendents think of board members as a bunch of growing mushrooms:  they keep them in the dark all the time, but every once in a while they crack open the box and throw a little S#^t on them to keep them happy!")

11.  Last spring I submitted a request with regard to TAAS information reports.  If all of my requests are not met, I should be getting a written reply as to why they are not.

12.  I asked for a set of new upgraded numbers with regard to the excessive costs of the Waller County Appraisal District VS Harris County Appraisal District at the October or November Board meeting.  In December I asked about them again, and the response was that they were on Bill Moore's list of "things to do."  If one of the rest of you had asked for these numbers, YOU would not have gotten such a rude reply!  Mr. Peters also brought up the 1990 report from the TRA which although suggesting the changing from the WCAD not be attempted in the foreseeable future, ddi make some specific recommendations that have not occurred, among them that the dual employment of KISD employees [by both the WCAD and KISD] be addressed.  That has never been done.  I also believe that when our district is having to house school district administrative employees out of the AD building at other sites, that there is a cost involved, and it relates directly to the cost of housing WCAD in our building thus increasing the "real" costs of using this appraisal district.  Also the TRA's basis for cost analysis was based on a $15 per parcel fee.  MY figures indicate that the number was actually $18 (at that time).  Mr. Peters and others also alluded to the "control" we maintain over the Appraisal District.  I maintain that if the Board elects by majority vote a replacement member and 'our' previously elected members do not honor our request and put in place someone else, and if the president of the WCAD is not one of "our" elected members then WE do NOT have "control" of anything!

13.  I asked last September that Dr. Merrell set up a visit for Board members to the new Austin HS in Ft. Bend ISD.  That has not been done.  That school was recently built and cost way less than what KISD is paying for schools.

14.  In December I asked (in writing) for a legal opinion regarding the teaching of sex education before the Health Advisory Committee made a recommendation to the Board.  I got a TEA opinion instead.  Even though the TEA opinion agreed with mine, our district went ahead and taught the high school health class sex education unit the last two weeks in December (contrary to what you read in the Katy Times).  This action (allowing the teaching of the unit before the Board received and approved the recommendation of the committee) by the superintendent was a clear violation of the law as stated in Senate Bill I.

15.  I asked that information be obtained from several select high schools.  I haven't received a final report.

16.  I asked that Board policy on the return of tests be enacted, and that should be on the January agenda.

17.  I asked that Board policy with regard to graduation be enacted, and that should occur by February.

18.  We have not heard anything about Dr. Bell and the conversion to unitary status.  [This was a scam, in my opinion, run on the Board by the former superintendent where he brought in an old friend and allowed him to make about $30,000 telling us that we had complied with a desegregation order that was many years old. We already knew that. I was never assured that this event even needed to occur.  That we had never received the final paperwork substantiated my suspicions.] This issue needs closure.

19.  I have not seen any correspondence between the district and judges of Harris and Waller counties with regard to the alternative schools.  We need a report on our participation in these activities.

20.  We were addressed by a student about transportation to the Miller Center.  What happened with that?

21.  We were addressed by students last spring about road conditions at MCHS.  What has been done?

22.  We received a letter from a father of a MCHS student about his son's car being towed.  There seemed to be consensus that the assistant principal needed to fork over $45, but we've not had a report.

23.  I asked for administrative regulations that address AEIS reporting.

24.  The Board asked for a yearly review of security measures several years ago. We do not do that.

25.  I asked for a report from the ETS last summer on the number of National Merit Finalists at each high school for the last ten years.  Don't have that either.

26.  I asked that the Board be given a list of administrative salaries every year and who gets a stipend and for what and how much it is.  I haven't seen those either.

We seem to be getting less information than we used to on everything.  I also am concerned about the crimes that are committed at our high schools with apparently no one caring.  I'm afraid to ask about them for fear I will stop receiving those reports as well.

Always liking to end on a positive note, my two accomplishments last fall are these:  I got the lights replaced on the basketball scoreboard at Taylor High School (I was asked to do so by the parents of the girls volleyball team.  It seems they had asked Joe Adams to get them fixed as his daughter is on the team, and he wouldn't do so!), and I got the rolling overhead door stabilized (not fixed) in the Black Box Theater so that it wouldn't fall on anybody.  At least Mr. Norwood listens to me!