03-02-2021 Alief ISD School Board Retreat Patron Presentation, Damon Barone

Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus 

I have a question about the donation reports presented at each regular school board meeting. Are the in-kind donations restricted or unrestricted donations? 

My reason for asking is because as much as the district loves to drum up media stories or loves to display the districts narrative of what takes place in our district, I have never seen a single picture of our kids eating $3,000 worth of chick-fil-a, attending a circus event, or any of the other in-kind donations reported. Thus, I question who is receiving these in-kind donations, or question if the donations are being distributed in the manner which the donors intended them to be distributed to our students? 

My next question or concern is about the district calendar. I know that this board likes to say that they do not get into day-to-day operations, you all do not like to get into the weeds, you stay above the line of governance, and all of those other wonderful cliches.  

Although it is true that a school boards are not supposed to get into day-to-day operations, my concern is to question when the Alief school board is going to hold Superintendent Chambers and district administrators accountable for the decisions they make or do not make? If Superintendent Chambers says that the sky is green, I do not expect you all to tell him that the sky is actually blue, but what we as parents and community members do expect the board to do is to hold the superintendent and his staff accountable for the results, decisions, data, and the damages attributed to their position and the actions of their accusations that the sky was green. 

I will give you a brief example of what I am talking about. Superintendent Chambers and his administrators said that Alief students needed more time in the classrooms, that was why they wanted to extend the 2020-2021 school year start date, as well as extend the end date of the same school year by a week, for a total of two weeks added to this year’s school calendar. But then Superintendent Chambers gave those same students a week off in October, and another week off in February, and now he is proposing to change the calendar back to its prior format for the 2021-2022 school year with no justification or explanation of how the 2020-2021 calendar did not work for our students’ academic performances. 

The next part of that equation is that the district PROMISED teachers that they would have a week off in February, but only gave them three days off. Then during those three days off administrators required teachers to come to their campuses, on their days off, to pick up devises so that they could teach the following week remotely, as well as required teachers to contact parents and tell them to come and pick-up devices, which the teachers were expected to pass out to parents, during the teachers alleged time off, because of the coming winter storm, which the district knew about ahead of time.  

Alief teachers never received their February week off or the three days off which the district PROMISED in writing by way of a district calendar. Many also worked that weekend to distribute devices to parents for their children to potentially learn remotely the following week. 

Coach Ronald Kotts if you are listening you should like this analogy. In football they call this an empty hand, when the quarterback fumbles the ball, then pretends as though he were throwing the ball, even though the ball was clearly not in his hand, in hopes that the refereeswould bail him out and state that the fumble was an incomplete pass, saving the team from lost yardage or a turnover. 

My next question is regarding the district Resolution for Emergency Closure Payments and Benefits for Employees. Does this resolution include payments for hourly employees such as cafeteria workers, custodians, bus drivers, mechanics, etc.? If not, why are they not included in the resolution to pay district employees for time lost to the winter storm?  

My last comment is in regards to these so-called board retreats, which I also attended last year, and noticed that the meetings are called board retreats but the board rarely talks or rarely gives input during these multi day meetings. These meetings are not meetings of the board facilitated to district administrators, they are more so meetings of the district telling the board what the district wants the board to know and how the district wants the board to support whatever it is that the district intends on doing, i.e., support the districts narrative that the sky is going to be green this year. 

As a district parent and taxpayer, I want to know when the public will be allowed to hear from our elected officials and see some of the work in their official capacity that they PROMISED and campaigned on? 

Thank you. 

Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpay, and alumnus