QUESTIONS ASKED THAT OTHERWISE WENT UNASKED:

As a school board member, monthly I had all sorts of questions about everything under the sun.  They were always things that I thought needed to be known by the Board members and that I thought fell within our realm of oversight.  How could we provide oversight if we didn't keep abreast of issues and problems?

Of course, superintendents don't like "helicopter" board members (as Bob Thompson likes to call them), but that's tough.  School board members need to be helicopters! That's why we elect them--to oversee the management of the school district.

While I asked a lot of questions, put a lot of items on the agenda, and generally was doing my job, I didn't get a lot of answers.  The word "stonewalled" comes to mind.

On a notebook page in the fall of 1995, I had notes relating to these items:

1.  I wanted a report on the 7th  grade Health Education program

2.  I wanted the enrollment numbers--the previous superintendent had given them to us weekly, but Leonard Merrell quickly starting withholding information from the Board when he was appointed. [If one goes to a Board meeting at this point in time, there's hardly anything on the agenda at all for Board members to consider.  They slowly removed all access for them to information. It was deliberate and insidious. It was the superintendent's way of taking away their control.  I imagine the TASA had training sessions for superintendents on how to accomplish that result. If the board members themselves are not able to see what is going on, don't allow each other to talk to the Press, and aren't smart enough to figure things out for themselves, then they simply are puppets sitting there every month. MM]

3.  I wanted to know how the money was spent from the Texas Secondary Schools Awards.

4.  I wanted a legal opinion on the sex education program that was being provided in high school.

5.  I wanted to know what the Waller County Tax Appraisal numbers were.

6.  I wanted to know if any of the other Board members would go with me to visit Wesley Elementary School which was an inner city HISD school whose TAAS numbers were better than half of KISD's elementaries. [Only one, Jim Brasier, went with me when we finally got to go.]

7.  I wanted to know the itemized cost of our doing the Katy Plan (as it didn't look to me like they were going to use anything that we had done.)

In April of 1995 I had these questions:

1.  Will the Board get to review the Campus Improvement Plans for MPE, WMJH and MCJH.  Evidently they hadn't been available with the others.

2.  Asked that all Board members get a copy of Snapshot. (That's the book of compiled statistics for all Texas school districts that were provided free from the TEA, and I thought all Board members should have a copy. KISD doesn't like to be compared to similar school districts, and this volume is about the only way to do that.)

3.  I asked the Board to review the superintendent's practice of cutting out information in the Minutes of the Board meetings.  We had gone from having the names of those in attendance removed (no way then to know if board members show up for meetings), to having all discussion go unrecorded, to having the names of those who voted Aye and Nay recorded, and who made and seconded motions.  Obviously the superintendent didn't like having a record of what had transpired.  In my opinion, there was only one reason for that!

4.  I wanted to hear the Outdoor Learning Center Committee report.

5.  I wanted to hear what they were doing about the weighted grade point committee report.

6.  I had asked for a review of the 12th grade math curriculum (there isn't any) in 1993, 1994, and was asking for it again in 1995.

7.  I asked for a report on the sub-population comparison that I knew they had done giving the number of students and the number who took the test for each set of data.

8.  I wanted to discuss Board Policy EHOA.

9.  With regard to the TAAS report to the Board to be made in June, I wanted it given in terms of Mastery data for ethnic minorities and economically disadvantaged; the percent of students at each school who COULD take the test but who did not, the actual numbers at each school who did not take the test and why; the percent indication of positive or negative change from scores of the previous year; and the percent increase that was the target of CIP's and whether the target was met or exceeded; which of the grades that took the test stayed the same.

At the April School Board meeting, Gay Lambirth, the KEA representative, spoke to the Board regarding teachers' salaries.  She pointed out that 1/4 of them were living in poverty, 1/4 of them were single parents, and that Texas ranks in the bottom one third in teachers' salaries.  She commented that "money buys capable people." Then she asked for a  7% salary increase for teachers for the next year.  That amount did not include the incremental raise that was automatic. At the time the starting salary for a Bachelor's degree was $26,000 and for an Master's degree it was $27,500.  They also had fully paid health insurance. She also pointed out that the Fund Balance was growing each year and there was more money in it than was expected.

The other speaker was Margie Roach, an attorney, who was suggesting to the Board that discipline in KISD was not being applied fairly.  She made three points.  She suggested that 1) Third party accusation of students was occurring and that discipline applied because of that fact was unfair; 2) she suggested that punishment by the school for incidents not related to the school were an invasion of students' privacy and that children were being used as an "example" to others unfairly; and 3) there was a lack of integrity by employees when they misrepresented a source and when they administered uneven and unfair application of punishment.

I followed up on their statements.

August 23, 1995

I asked for a review of these items;

The Blue Ribbon Schools Application--I was not a fan and thought all of that was a farce and waste of money. The tacky signs proclaiming a school as being a "Blue Ribbon school" cost $3,000 in those days, and I thought that money would be better spent on students.  Bragging rights for a phony award weren't in my wheelhouse!

Special Education newspaper coverage--I was opposed to anything but specific information of programs with nothing about the students in the program.  I thought they deserved privacy. [ I think there are probably Federal laws about that now. MM]

I wanted to see Hugh Hayes' expense reports for his last year in KISD.

I wanted to see the Drill Team and Cheerleader Expense report

Specifically I wanted to know these things:  How the budget allocation was spent last year.

                                                                     How much money was collected from each student's family

                                                                     How all of that money was spent.

                                                                     What the policy was on the use and acquisition of student uniforms

                                                                     I wanted to know why some uniforms were rented.

                                                                     I wanted to know how often uniforms were replaced.

                                                                     I wanted to know who was allowed to go on the drill team cruise at KHS?  Who paid for it?

                                                                     Why do they go?  Do the students miss any school time to go on this cruise?

                                                                     How much academic time is missed by students in these programs during each school year?

I wanted the check report in the Agenda.

I wanted to review the policy on sales in the name of the District by school groups.

I wanted to know what the policy was on students who live out of the District but who attend our schools without telling that they do--also wanted to know what the responsibility of teachers and school personnel was to turn in violators.

I wanted to know the progress being made on installing lockers for band instruments at MCHS.

I wanted to know the book availability for AP courses and also at MPJH.

I wanted to have a follow up on the math report--were we going to provide transportation for 8th grade math students in geometry classes at the high schools and if we were planning to have an honors level 12th grade math course in place by the next fall.

I wanted to review their plans for the Abstinence Policy.

I wanted to know what the rest of the Board thought about my idea to use voting machines for school elections and for including voter registration as part of the 12th grade government curriculum.  [We are supposed to teach citizenship, yes?MM]

I realize all these items indicate that I was full of questions.  But these were the things that concerned me when I realized what they were doing in the schools plus all the things parents were asking me all the time.

If one realizes that I took about 1,500 calls per year while I was on the school board, and that I couldn't do a thing about almost all of them except point to the protocol for questioning things at their child's school, one has to realize the frustration that I felt while I was on the school board.  All I could do was ask general questions hoping to find answers, and that's what I did. I got all those calls, because I would listen.  They weren't all from parents either.  Many  of them were from teachers.