BISD's board must explain Thursday night actions

By CHRISTOPHER CLAUSEN
November 15, 2009
Posted: November 14, 2009, 1:29 PM CST

Once again, some Beaumont ISD officials must explain their actions.

Once again, they must convince citizens they acted as advocates for taxpayers and parents.

Thursday night Trustee Terry Williams berated his fellow BISD board members for a flip-flop vote.

Oct. 15, the board rejected a personnel item Superintendent Carrol Thomas put on the agenda. It contained two recommendations packaged for one vote: Robert Zingelmann for the director of business finance and Ted Stuberfield for principal of Smith Middle School.

Thursday night, Thomas resubmitted the twin personnel agenda item, which he coupled with two counselor positions as a single agenda item for one vote.

Williams declined to be specific about his objection Thursday night, but did ask that the items be separated.

Thomas simply replied that these were his recommendations.

This time the board voted 5-2 to approve the four positions. Trustee Bishop Ollis Whitaker also voted no.

"If the state wanted to give the superintendent that (power) to do what he wants to do, he wouldn't have to bring it to the board," Williams said Thursday night.

"You're going to sit here and give it to him knowing that we told him 'no' last time," Williams said.

Good reasons might exist to explain why a majority of the board changed its mind. Perhaps Thomas, or the individual Williams objected to, convinced some of the five trustees to change their votes.

But there was no good reason this information was kept from taxpayers Thursday night.

Besides Williams, only Trustee Janice Brassard spoke up, and her reason seems less like that of an advocate and more like that of a bureaucrat.

Although she voted against Thomas' recommendations in October because of concerns about a candidate, she told Enterprise reporter Emily Guevara for an article in Saturday's paper that guidelines from the Texas Association of School Boards suggested concerns about a candidate's experience should not enter the picture, she said.

Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson told Guevara that some school boards allow superintendents the power for "the assignment and evaluation of all personnel."

The key word is allow. It's not required. These boards rubber stamp the superintendent's recommendations.

However, other districts exercise more control, Culbertson said.

This second group understands they're entrusted to advocate for taxpayers and parents to ask questions and press for answers. They understand a superintendent is human and can't be right all the time, and that their oversight is a check and balance on behalf of taxpayers who expect to be heard and expect immediate change.

They expect BISD's board to respect their authority and by extension, BISD's board must enforce that hierarchy.

Brassard said she will hold Thomas accountable for the questionable recommendation on his annual evaluation and she said on the record at Thursday's meeting.

As that stands it means Thomas won a public game of political chicken with the board.

The majority of the board should have said Thursday night why they changed their vote. Now it is again taxpayers duty to tell the trustees they too will be held accountable, possibly sooner rather than later.