By a vote of 5 to 1, the school board passed a resolution that will allow its 11-school network, which serves more than 8,400 students and 1,100 employees, to seek alternatives for their school board membership in 2024.
After Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) issued a public statement criticizing the National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) labeling of parental involvement at school board meetings as “heinous actions” and calling it “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism,” as well as the TASB’s delayed action to disassociate itself from the NSBA, he advocated that every Texas public school leave TASB.
Cameron Bryan, Carroll ISD Board president, was strident in arguing for what he called the fiscal responsibility of the board and duty to encourage the promotion of values that parents agree with.
“To continue to send our community’s taxpayer dollars to an organization that pushes the very ideology that our community overwhelmingly rejected at the ballot box in May 2021, November 2021, then again in May of 22 would be disingenuous at the very least to those who have entrusted us to represent them,” Bryan said.
“I encourage all of you to not buy into or participate in the rumors and fear-mongering that are being portrayed right now on social media, but instead work with us so we may be successful in obtaining the freedom to choose who we do business with in the future.”
Andrew Yeager, Carroll ISD Board secretary, said this was a message to all other school boards that ”today after this vote, you too will have a choice.”
The one dissenting vote was from Trustee Michelle Moore, who raised concerns about where the alternatives for legal services, human resources, policy assistance and training would come from and what alternative organizations the board would explore.
“There’s a resolution here stating that we believe as a board that all of these things will be readily available on the free market at competitive prices, we don’t know that. I think we are jumping ahead here,” she said.
There was discussion between board members before the vote to represent the alternatives to TASB and assert that the services would offer potential savings.
“Trust me, my name would not be on this resolution if I didn’t feel that the groundwork … has already been done to find substitutes that do not put economic hardship onto this school district,” said Yeager.
“We still have a membership through August, five months from now,” said Bryan. “We still have plenty of time for our administration to go and do an RFP (request for proposal) process and present back to us all the bids for insurance purposes and any other services that we need.”
After the successful vote from the board, many took to social media to voice their thoughts.
State Rep. Mayes Middleton (Galveston) applauded Carroll ISD for “standing strong with Texas parents” and commended their move away from TASB, calling it “the anti-parent taxpayer funded lobbying group.”
Harrison, who led the initial call for schools to disassociate from TASB, also praised Carroll ISD for their decision.
”Carroll school board trustees deserve praise for their courageous decision tonight to prioritize parents and students by cutting ties with the liberal activists at the Texas Association of School Boards, who weaponize Texans’ hard-earned tax dollars against them, their values, and their children.”
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Cameron Abrams
Cameron Abrams is a reporter for The Texan. After graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Tabor College and a Master’s Degree from University of the Pacific, Cameron is finishing his doctoral studies where his research focuses on the postmodern philosophical influences in education. In his free time, you will find him listening to a podcast while training for an endurance running event.
