February 21, 2023 Patron Presentation, Damon Barone
Greetings, Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus
During the February 07, 2023 school board meeting, Trustee Rick Moreno stated that his school board non-negotiable is parental involvement; however, his voting record does not support his statements.
Parental involvement includes being active in you all’s hidden committee meetings, and here in this board room listening to the discussions of district leadership, witnessing the voting records of the school board, being fully informed of all opportunities to attend district meetings, and having our voices heard.
During the March 22, 2022 school board meeting you all unanimously voted to change school board policy BED (local) to shorten patron presentation times from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
During the February 07, 2023 school board meeting, Trustee Jennifer Key expressed her displeasures with private schools and how they allegedly do not have to abide by open records request, and do not have to publicly share their board meeting information.
In fact, the displeasures which Trustee Key expressed about private school’s open records request, and their unwillingness to publicly share board meeting information, unfortunately closely mirrors how my experiences as an active parent have been here in Alief ISD.
The ironic part of Trustee Key’s concerns is that Trustee Pastor Gregg Patrick sits to the left of Trustee Key and operates a private school, Southwest Community Christian Academy, which is within the school boundaries of Alief ISD; specifically, just 4 miles from this administration building.
During the February 07, 2023 school board meeting, it was announced that Trustee Gregg Patrick was 3 hours short of the MINIMUM professional development hours for Texas school board trustees. Which also compounds the May 31, 2022 open records response from Alief ISD which you all allege that no interview questions or selection matrix was used when this board voted to select Janet Spurlock over long time tenured, Alief ISD Master Trustee Nghi Ho to fill Harvey Tongs vacated seat.
Then you all turned around and hired Anthony Mays to be the districts next superintendent, despite him not having a superintendent certification, and stated he was the best candidate of the 53 applicants who applied for the position, but refused to share the other applicants resumes, per my November 10, 2022 open records request.
I will close with this, during the February 07, 2023 school board meeting Superintendent Mays talked about a 19-million-dollar financial deficit here in the district. I looked through you all’s check register and found that 3-million-dollars’ worth of legal expenses were paid to just 17 vendors. Which is thirty times the 100-thousand-dollar amount in legal expenses which Trustee Jennifer Key stood at this patron presentation podium on October 15, 2019 and expressed great concerns about.
The contradictions in the boards comments, inconsistencies in practices, and implementation of policies and procedures are concerning, to say the least.
Damon Barone, Alief ISD parent, taxpayer, and alumnus