The Friendswood ISD board of trustees presented an update on its “See Something, Say Something” program at its Oct. 8 meeting.
The “See Something, Say Something” program allows parents and students to submit reports of concerning behavior to the school district. The alerts are sent to six to nine people in the administration, depending on the report, Director of Communications Dayna Owen said.
“We are also noticing a shift in reporting from, ‘I want to report my friend,’ to ‘I care about what is going on and I’m worried about my friend’,” Owen said.
While all reports are followed up on, not all reports result in disciplinary measures, Owen said. According to Owen, 70 percent of the reports are coming from or are about high school kids. Five reports have resulted in arrests.
The trustees also signed a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, outlining the relationship between the district and the Education Foundation. While a memorandum of understanding had been in place since the Education Foundation’s inception, it had not been updated since 2006, Superintendent Thad Roher said.
“It’s just a cleanup of an old MOU, and it will be something we look at more frequently,” Roher said.
New items include requiring an annual audit, which had been in practice but was not required by the former agreement. Other new stipulations include that the executive director of the foundation is under the supervision of the superintendent, with a formal contract approved by the foundation president or treasurer.
The new agreement also dictates that if the foundation ever ceases to exist, it will transfer assets to the district or a reincorporated successor foundation.