What happened
In a 4-3 vote, the board passed trustee Kendra Camarena’s motion to indefinitely table the decision. Trustees Justin Ray, Christine Kalmbach and Todd LeCompte voted against the delay.
“I think there’s multiple layers here that still in my mind’s eye need to be unpacked, and so I feel like tabling this item will allow us to potentially unpack to get answers that we may need and also address some of the root causes [of concerns] that I heard my colleagues speak of,” Camarena said during the Jan. 15 regular board meeting.
The board’s agenda included a proposed change to the district policy that dictates who can request reconsideration of CFISD’s instructional content, including library books and textbooks. The policy specifically pertains to material that has already been approved by the State Board of Education and adopted by the district.
A red-lined document shows the proposed revision would have removed “any district resident” and “a student who is 18 years of age or older” from the policy’s language, narrowing the scope of public input on materials.
If the policy had been approved as proposed, only district employees and parents and guardians of current CFISD students would be allowed to request reconsiderations, according to the document.
More details
The potential change was initially presented for a first reading in December, and the board reviewed it for a second time at its Jan. 12 work session. Trustees specifically disagreed over whether to remove “any district resident” from the policy.
CFISD General Counsel Marney Collins Sims said the revisions aim to align the district’s local policy more closely with state and federal laws. However, she said CFISD has the ability to customize specifics at the local level.
Sims said all district community members have an opportunity to provide feedback to the State Board of Education when materials are in review—before CFISD adopts them.
Additionally, Superintendent Doug Killian said the public can participate in the district’s instructional material adoption process, which includes several days of community review.
Ray recommended during the work session the board not accept the revision and keep “any district resident” present in the language. LeCompte agreed that all taxpayers should have a say to promote transparency.
However, Camarena and trustee Lesley Guilmart expressed some hesitancy with the broad scope of reconsiderations as currently written, noting past instances of omitting textbook content due to subject matter.
What they’re saying
Several community members shared feedback on the proposed policy edit during public comment Jan. 15, both in favor and against the revision. Some speakers said reconsideration after adoption should be limited to residents with a personal stake in the matter, such as parents and guardians.
“Reconsiderations are time consuming, and I believe we should protect the finite resources of district employees by ensuring that reconsiderations are made in the interest of students, not activists,” Bryan Henry, organizer from Cypress Families for Public Schools, told the board Jan. 15.
However, other community members said former district staff, parents of former students and other taxpayers should not be restricted from making requests.
“While there are some complexities around how these materials are funded, removing the ability to challenge these resources would be perceived as an attempt to silence the taxpayer’s’ voice,” Monica Dean, parent of CFISD graduates and member of the School Health Advisory Council, told the board.
Killian said Jan. 15 it would not be productive to spend a lot of time workshopping the policy. He said the current language “meets everyone’s needs” and has not created any problems for the district in terms of overtaxing staff. Formal requests for reconsiderations ultimately have to go through the board for final approval, he said.
“There was no intention to disenfranchise anybody,” Killian said. “This was just a review of a policy where we saw that there was a historical thing that we hadn’t taken care of ... and really all the policy suggestion was to at least go to the minimum requirement.”
What’s next?
It’s unclear as of press time whether trustees will revisit the proposed policy change in February. The current language, which includes all district residents, remains in effect until a revision is approved.
The board will meet Feb. 5 for a work session and Feb. 9 for a regular meeting, both scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Mark Henry Administration Building, located at 11440 Matzke Road, Cypress.
