Irion County ISD Board March 10 2025
- G. Noelke
- Mar 14
- 5 min read
Bidding documents for a portion of the IC ISD 2024 bond projects are now online at Gallagher’s site. Yes, you should download them (particularly the Plans) and check them out. The City of Mertzon does not have construction codes or a code enforcement department, so it is the Wild, Wild West for citizens who wish to protect their private property and public streets and park from stormwater flooding.
Here is the agenda for this meeting, and below that will follow my agenda analysis and meeting review. I also have included some Commentary about the current state of government.
A. Agenda analysis 1. Teacher / Employee Contracts, Resignations, items 4, 11, 14, 16 and 17: I'm a broken record on this point, but our community misses a real opportunity to support public education at this meeting each March when teacher contracts are renewed for the following school year. Look around...the Department of Education is being dismantled...and, our state leadership is on the verge of supporting the privatization of public education through school vouchers. The lack of support for public education is abysmal and discouraging. We are rapidly nearing a point of advancement with Artificial Intelligence (AI) where the discussion is going to turn to whether TEA trained classroom robots will be more effective and cheaper than hiring humans. (My reading says that in about 3 years AI systems will exceed human intelligence.) One part of an argument to oppose the anti-public education efforts could be to promote teaching and teachers at this meeting in particular when their contracts are being renewed. Stand up and thank a teacher for teaching and support their contract renewal...at a public meeting...in open forum.
Learn more about the history of the Department of Education and how the current administration is changing its priorities: Listen to the NYT podcast The Daily for March 10, 2025. (What’s your view? Reach out to me.) 2. What the heck is an "MOU"?, items 6 and 7: "MOU" stands for "memorandum of understanding". In a legal sense, it is simply a written statement of what the understanding is on a particular issue between two governmental entities. They take the form of a "memorandum" because they are not considered an enforceable contract. That is, you aren't going see the governmental entities suing each other over a violation of their agreement. Generally, they are a great tool to spell out which each side agrees to do. Their downside is that they are often forgotten about and go unused because, without enforcement teeth, they carry no weight. Sometimes, however, an MOU is vitally important to build trust after a period of disagreement or ill will among elected officials. Here is a recent example of that, the MOU between the City of Mertzon and IC ISD, which was necessary to recover from the rancor and fallout after the 2019 bond build out, something I have covered extensively in this blog. (The IC ISD Board and its allies pretty much told the City Council how high it needed to jump when they wanted a city street closed for a gym, and the Council did the jumping...thereby getting us where we are today using 2024 bonds for flood control structures that are necessary because of how imprudently the 2019 bonds were spent.) Note: The leadership at the City and IC ISD is different for the 2024 bonds than for 2019 bonds. Many of the legal issues, however, are identical. Moreover, the stakes are even greater. The 2019 bonds were for $18 million, and the 2024 bonds are for $53 million.
B. Meeting review Note: I was not able to attend this meeting, and this review is from a recording of portions of the meeting. 1. Open forum, item 4: No one spoke, thus yet another missed opportunity to create a community value around the importance of teachers. 2. Bond purchasing, items 5 and 10: The Board, after much discussion concerning when to cycle out its current fleet of Suburban / suburban like vehicles, went with a bid offer from Jim Bass in San Angelo. There was also some discussion of putting some items up for auction, but it was unclear from the audio what was being auctioned. I'll come back to this if it is important. 3. MOU's, items 6 and 7: The Board approved an MOU with ASU for dual credit. This may lead to a more rigorous educational environment than the current arrangement with Howard College. This is significant because of TSI and the additional dollars that come with compliance. 4. Admin Reports: Supt. Moore reported: - There will be an "intruder audit" in April, date unknown. More on this after April. - During spring break (next week) construction fencing is going up. -Legislation - bills that do not specifically provide for small or midsized school involve a funding bias for large schools. - Meetings with Parkhill are ongoing to identify the specific needs in the new elementary classrooms.
Principal Parker: her report was limited to enrollment and attendance. AD/Asst. Principal Morrow: his report was largely limited to student athlete awards and upcoming meets. 5. Resignations, item 11: Diane Heflin and Brian Tillman have submitted their resignations, and they were reluctantly approved by the Board. Mr. Tillman is a multi year state champion band director ( 3 years?), so this is quite a loss to the District. This past fall I had the opportunity to listen to him during a practice while I was waiting out the Board during a closed session. He was excellent, and there is no doubt this is a huge loss to the District. The new Director will soon enough enjoy a new practice marching field as a result of the 2024 bonds. I will be covering the construction of that field on this blog. 6. Closed session, action on closed and teacher/employee contracts, items 14, 16 and 17: The Board in open session, without mentioning any particular teacher, approved a list of teachers for 10, 11 and 12 month contracts. 7. Not present: President Carlie and Tony Martinez were not present at this meeting; Ricky Rey, Ashley Hill, DJ Rainey, Taylor Douglas and Chad Koonce were present.
Commentary
Edward R. Murrow famously said, "A nation of sheep begets a government of wolves". As I watch our state move toward an approved system of educational vouchers and our federal government dismantle the Department of Education, both without any local public engagement at this school board meeting, I am forced to wonder out loud whether we are on the edge of some abyss. Government is getting broken, not to make it more efficient, but to redirect its vast wealth to serve the few who can manipulate it to serve their own financial ends. But, consider this as we watch other communities, states and countries begin to fester and publicly protest about what is transparently becoming a war among economic classes: Are we not being baited, no bullied, into a dispute amongst our fellow citizens, state and national government and our allied countries?
Is declaring martial law one of the goals of these efforts to break our democratic system of government?
Could be.
After all, the declaration of martial law is the ultimate declaration that the democratic system is broken.
Copyright 2025 G Noelke