09-07-2021 School Board Patron Presentation, Damon Barone
Greetings, Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus.
During the August 24, 2021 Alief ISD School Board Meeting, Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum Avalyn Camble Montgomery discussed the districts proposed spending allotment for the ESSER II federal funds; to be specific, how the district intended to spend $168 million dollars of our communities tax money.
Ms. Montgomery stated several times that the district’s spending plan was allegedly on the Alief ISD website; however, during the public comments portion of her presentation I asked Ms. Montgomery to pull up the districts plan on the computer screen which she projected her presentation to the audience on.
Instead of doing so Ms. Montgomery and the Director of Public Relations, Kimberly Smith continued to refer myself and audience members to the alleged dashboard on the district’s website.
During today’s school board meeting you all are schedule to talk about doing business with Alief ISD, agenda item #3. Each time I speak at the school board meetings I clearly represent myself as an Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus, this means that my family and I are customers of Alief ISD.
In no other customers service business would a company routinely ignore their customers, routinely fail at serving the needs of their customers, blatantly tote on only being required to give the legal limit to their customers or the school board, and do so, then have the audacity to expect their customers to remain loyal.
My first concern is that my comments and request of the district to pull up the dashboards in real time, of the items they were presenting and advising parents and community members to go to, were ignore by the district and its leadership.
My second concern is that the district constantly likes to glorify itself as a district of innovation, and that the leadership of the district are experts. Innovators present their websites, and dashboard information during their presentations without having to be asked for it, or subsequently ignoring the request of their customers.
Experts do not tote on or base everything that they do on the minimum requirements or minimum expectations of their tasks, especially to their bosses, in this case to the school board and parents of the district.
At the same August 24, 2021 school board meeting, under the direction of Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum Avalyn Camble Montgomery and Director of Public Relations Kimberly Smith, the district leadership were referring its customers to the Alief Website and the ESSER II dashboard to inquire how the district allegedly intended to spend $168 million dollars of our tax money.
Then one hour later during the discussion of Agenda Item #12, Covid-19 Update, Director of Risk Management Katina Gordan talked about an alleged link on the Alief ISD website for parents to report to the district any positive cases of covid they may have in their households, but Ms. Gordan ended her remarks by saying, “We have a lot of parents that either don’t have computer access, or are not comfortable using the computer.”
I will close with this, three district leaders explicitly referred to the district’s website during their presentations to the public, then ignored customer Damon Barone’s request to pull their presented dashboard information up live on the computer for the community to see, and then had the audacity to ended the night of presentations by saying that a lot of Alief ISD parents either don’t have computer access, or are not comfortable using a computer.
It is for reasons like this, and many others that I have decided to run for the November 02, 2021 Alief ISD School Board election, Position #7.
It is time for a new voice, and new direction of the district; especially on the school board, and I intend to be the voice for the students, by the parents, of the community.
New voice, new direction.
Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus.
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