As is often the case, the important matters are discussed in private.
Here is the agenda for this meeting, with my comments below.
Comments:
The meeting is at 6:00 pm, and coincides with the Mertzon City Council meeting that starts at 6:30.
Athletic Director Conner is listed as giving an administrative report. His appearance at board meetings in the past has been sporadic, even though he commands a large slice of the budget, received most of the 2019 bond funds and the athletic program clearly has the board's attention. He needs to report at every board meeting or have a sub to report if necessary. Reporting publicly creates accountability, and win, lose or draw, Athletic Director Conner is a public servant.
The consent agenda is chock full of potentially controversial issues that might go without discussion - sex ed, legal fees and mounting maintenance and operation costs.
Similarly the closed session has plenty of meat on it. First, sun worshippers can only hope at this point that the District makes known publicly something about the safety audit. I'm not concerned with the opinion of the Safety and Security Specialist, presumably at Region 15; certainly not everything in the audit is protected. Second, note the bond workshop. To my knowledge, this is the first public notice of a potential new school bond package. Why "health insurance" is worthy of a closed session isn't clear to me. Caveat: my review of any of these closed session matters is not an opinion on whether they do or do not qualify for a closed session.
One reason citizens need to observe public meetings through to the end are items like item 11, "Action items from Closed Session". Presumably this section allows the Board to vote on matters discussed in closed session. In practice, at least under Supt. DeSpain, the Board was clearly conducting business in closed session to avoid taking votes in public. (If you've been to as many public meetings and executive sessions as I have, you learn to read a room, if you know what I mean.) In addition, the agenda item is potentially a missed opportunity for the board to make public things it discussed in closed. For example, the Board might want to announce publicly that it did well on its safety audit, or portions of the audit. A different way to address this agenda item would be to revise it to read, "Discuss or take action on items in closed session" or something to that effect. This page may be updated up until the time of this meeting.