The CISD board of trustees voted 5-1 to not renew its membership with the Texas Association of School Boards. According to the resolution submitted by board President Cameron Bryan, this decision was due to the TASB promoting “divisive political ideologies” through its training and conferences. The resolution was also signed by board Vice President Hannah Smith and Secretary Andrew Yeager.
Trustee Michelle Moore voted against the decision. Moore cited concerns for future policy updates, losing services provided by the TASB and the district potentially facing budget limits in the coming year.
“We have budget constraints,” Moore said. “So many times we pause on decisions when it comes to the budget when we don’t have the information, and right now we just don’t have the information to know what it’s going to cost.”
In May, the TASB voted to end its membership with the National School Boards Association after members of the national association sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking the federal government to investigate and prevent threats against public school officials.
In CISD’s resolution, the TASB is criticized for taking eight months to announce the end of its membership with the national association.
Along with its decision to not leave the National School Boards Association quickly, the resolution states local taxpayer dollars are used to fund the TASB membership and its services. According to the resolution, the services provided by TASB are “readily available on the free market.”
Bryan said elected officials have a fiduciary responsibility and must be mindful of the values of the community.
“To continue sending our communities taxpayer dollars to an organization that pushes the very ideology that our community specifically and overwhelmingly rejected at the ballot box ... would be disingenuous at the very least to those that have entrusted us to represent them,” he said.
CISD’s annual membership to the TASB is $11,000, according to Superintendent Lane Ledbetter. He said this amount does not include additional services. The dollar amount depends on services the district pays for, he said.
The district recently had the TASB do a survey on the district’s competitiveness of salaries, which he said cost “substantially more” at around $15,000.
Moore also mentioned the policy changes that will come on the legal and local levels from the ongoing 88th legislative session. Trustee Hannah Smith said the TASB policy changes are “not entirely substantive,” and policy can be built from information provided by the Texas Education Agency.
“To say that every single policy that we get from TASB is a significant policy change is not an accurate statement,” she said.
Moore pointed to the policy the board approved right before discussing its membership with the TASB. Policy Update 120, approved in a 6-0 vote by the board, was recommended by the TASB.
“If we start relying on our attorneys to update that policy information, that is going to cost significantly more than we’re paying TASB,” Moore said. “We need to make sure that those [policy] resources are available at a competitive price.”
A statement provided by the TASB said CISD’s vote is “disappointing,” but the district has a right to assess and evaluate its membership with the organization. The TASB stated it has never wanted to monopolize a market but help districts find cost-effective solutions.
“It’s important to note, however, that ... TASB has stepped in and developed service offerings when it has made sense to pool resources from across the state to help independent districts operate more efficiently,” a TASB spokesperson said. “In many of these instances, TASB stepped forward when other organizations weren’t interested in providing similar services to schools.”
The TASB stated it is accountable to the more than 7,000 elected school board trustees that are members of the organization.
“We welcome scrutiny and competition and stand by our commitment to serving our members so that they have the tools, products and services to better serve their school district communities,” the TASB spokesperson said.
