They don't respond to anything and litigation is discussed in closed meetings.

Feels. It feels like a good hill to die on. The science feels settled. It feels like this will help Jenkins bid for Governor.

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Overall the dismissiveness of the board and the way they treat everyone under the guise of maintaining order is very disappointing.

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I just watched a fair amount of the public comment. They reacted to everyone, whatever the topic, the same way. Dispassionate listening. What do you want them to do? Give standing ovations? Hand out gold stars?

You weren't there were you? And of course you can't draw anything from the board by watching public comment section, they don't say anything.

There were announcements before and during the meeting and then references to the public comments during the actual agenda items that were very off putting.

Dr. Stone even saying she is befuddled by all the pushback on the SEL curriculum after a lady stood up and read quotes from assigned books for junior high kids with 40 f words and explicit descriptions of locker room sexual assault.

They never address any of the real questions from the public during the actual agenda items. They just review the pre-made material and move on.

It also very much seems that most of the public comments that support the topics at hand are planted in direct support of the pre made material.

Their academic metrics are abysmal and getting worse. I think something like 7% of 7th graders are at level for math. Most grade level scores are now below the state average. Then they spend all their efforts and money defending mandates and pushing new CRT lite curriculum instead of getting at least half the third graders to read.

They are driving top performing kids out of the district or to private school. Unfortunately they are too far down the path at this point to redirect course. They will be equivalent to DISD before my kids graduate. Their junior highs were already right on the bubble of being unacceptable this will push them over the edge.

I did not attend in person; I watched the replay. As noted in my response. So, sure, I may well be missing some nuance.

I think folks looking for a reason to be mad will be mad. And I cannot imagine willfully signing up to volunteer to be on an ISD board.

Ol Jock 99 said:

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I did not attend in person; I watched the replay. As noted in my response. So, sure, I may well be missing some nuance.

I think folks looking for a reason to be mad will be mad. And I cannot imagine willfully signing up to volunteer to be on an ISD board.

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To be fair...this is more about "looking for a reason to be mad".

The academic scores are horrific in public schools over the past year.

Plano is performing poorly vs prior years too.

While you may dismiss CRT as not a big deal it is to some....even going beyond that....again, our schools have failed kids this past year and the School Boards and Superintendents need to address it. Wasting money and time on mask lawsuits and having attention diverted to creating online learning, etc is fraudulent....

Yep, there is some serious remedial education needed to make up for 18 months of disaster, and the effort and expense here is completely misdirected. And the more they pursue these online learning avenues, the more kids will be lost for good

Here is some of their more "in depth" dive into the STAAR results from last year. They compare to state, other "peer" districts and by demographics. Yes, it's very concerning. We need to look beyond last year and see what the trends were going into the COVID slide. That's probably going to be even more telling. Everyone got whacked last year. Some worse than others. But how did we enter last year? Catching up to just last year is probably not the goal. Districts need to do better than that.

Item V O
https://richardsonisdtx.swagit.com/play/08092021-540

Public comments in public board / council forums is one of the most awkward processes around. I don't know how it was developed or why, but it's awkward for everyone involved.

Experience tells me that there is no nefarious organizing of the comments ahead of that section. They have to be turned in 15 minutes prior to the start of a meeting. The only decisions are 1. does the card address an agenda item (as required) (if not, that open public section is at the end of the meeting) and 2. Due to time constraints (hardly any), and depending on the number of speakers signed up (known only 15 minutes prior to the meeting), the board President decides whether to do the 3 minutes per speaker, 2 or 1.

All of this said, there better be a feedback loop / process following the board meetings. If a council / board asks for public input but never does anything about it nor follows up with the speakers, it diminishes any trust or productivity of the process as a whole. Hopefully they are circling back around with speakers.

It takes a lot for someone from the public to get up there and speak at a podium. No matter the topic or side of said topic, we should all hope that the audience and board / council pay each speaker the respect they earn by being involved in the process. It's tough.

Yeah, the state of affairs for the general population, especially poor and/or minority kids, is really really not good.

Plano Board voted to let mask mandate expire on September 24. Vote was 4 to 3. Finally common sense prevails. Maybe now we can slowly start focusing on this thing they call "education"…

Plano's was pretty half-assed anyway. The online waiver was pretty much a free-for-all given "philosophical" objection was a valid option.

Agree but I shouldn't have to sign a waiver to keep a muzzle off my kid. Also makes it easier on teachers etc.

RISD scores aren't just down YoY. They are below the state average, apparently.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CUF-yQUJssU/?utm_medium=share_sheet

Also, how the heck does a book with explicit locker room sexual assault end up on an 8th grade reading list, along with other books with explicit content?

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CUFTA4yJdCw/?utm_medium=share_sheet

I don't have a child in RISD, thankfully, but this is very disturbing stuff. Good luck to y'all fighting against this board. I hope you're able to make changes.

Looking at the score breakdown by race (trying to find it again)...RISD's biggest issue compared to the rest of the state is Asians. RISD has refugee Asians, not tech exec Asians. RISD black and hispanic are slightly above state averages (not enough, but not worse at least). Whites are significantly above. But Asians are like 20 points below. That skews the averages.

Wow. That is awful. Sounds like the school board and superintendent need to quit worrying about virtue signaling and get to work on….education!

Heard that around 200 refugees from Afghanistan were just dumped on lake highlands schools. I'm sure they will all perform spectacularly in the spring.

Shame its only 200....we should put them all in....no student left behind....

Interesting notes from the AGs response to motion for relief in the La Joya Travis County case that most ISDs joined.

It indicates two things:

1. There is no temporary injunction in effect for Richardson ISD as they joined the suit after the Travis County injunction.

2. The Richardson ISD Superintendent and Board Members are individually named in the lawsuit recently filed by the AG. If they continue to ignore any orders in that suit they could be held in contempt by the court.

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C. Suits Filed by the State of Texas Do Not Constitute Harassing Litigation Intervenor School Districts make two arguments to support their contention that the suits filed by the State of Texas are harassing. First, they claim that by suing Spring ISD1 and Richardson ISD2 , the State is harassing these school districts. As discussed above, there is no temporary injunction in effect to prevent application of GA-38 to either school district, yet they continue to flout the requirements of GA-38, which carry the force and effect of law. Tex. Gov't Code 418.012. Additionally, the suits against Spring ISD and Richardson ISD include defendants the superintendent, board of trustees, and individual trustees that are not part of the Travis County suit and whom, under section 65.023 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, must be sued for injunctive relief in the county where they are domiciled.

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Update on the La Joya Case on politics board. update

EDIT - Looks like it has been fixed and RISD is now back in the non-compliance group. I sent them an email and it changed within the hour.

https://lakehighlands.advocatemag.com/2021/09/24/karen-clardy-resigns-from-risd-school-board/?fbclid=IwAR2-_cnIgShXWiLe9IuIu-z11gVY7Vyu7_fnK5MLexNSxfTSIIgxqc0bLlI

Clardy steps down, effective immediately. Personally, I like Karen. I don't know how she was as a board president, but she is an extremely kind and committed person. I know that the hateful rhetoric from both extremes has been eating at her. Volunteering just doesn't pay.

Ol Jock 99 said:

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https://lakehighlands.advocatemag.com/2021/09/24/karen-clardy-resigns-from-risd-school-board/?fbclid=IwAR2-_cnIgShXWiLe9IuIu-z11gVY7Vyu7_fnK5MLexNSxfTSIIgxqc0bLlI

Clardy steps down, effective immediately. Personally, I like Karen. I don't know how she was as a board president, but she is an extremely kind and committed person. I know that the hateful rhetoric for both extremes has been eating at her. Volunteering just doesn't pay.

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She and I disagree on some policies, but I will give her credit for at least communicating with me with some regularity.

The general perception i have heard about her is she is a bit of a suck up/pawn to Dr. Stone.

Wonder if this has anything to do with the current lawsuit that individually names the board members. The AG also issued an opinion stating that these officials could be criminally charged for upholding these illegal mandates. And in RISDs case it is clearly illegal as they have no TRO or injunction from any court right now.

To be clear I have no reason to think this is the case, but often in situations like this something nefarious is floating around. Wonder if there was any discovery done in the current lawsuit.

I fear that the present climate will discourage reasonable people from volunteering, and risd will be left with candidates from the extreme ends of the spectrum. Only people who are strongly attached to an agenda will put up with the headaches.

McNasty said:

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I fear that the present climate will discourage reasonable people from volunteering, and risd will be left with candidates from the extreme ends of the spectrum. Only people who are strongly attached to an agenda will put up with the headaches.

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This is a huge risk and we saw it first hand when Poteet dared to question his opponent's funding sources. You would have thought he shot someone.

McNasty said:

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I fear that the present climate will discourage reasonable people from volunteering, and risd will be left with candidates from the extreme ends of the spectrum. Only people who are strongly attached to an agenda will put up with the headaches.

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Pretty much guaranteed. No normal person wants this chaos

My understanding (and it's pretty accurate) is that there is nothing nefarious involved. It's just been a tough year or two, high stress. Not a good environment for anyone sensitive. I'm sure the Monday night meeting was just the tipping point deciding when to pull the parachute cord.

Richardson ISD board president resigns suddenly

EDIT: I see this is not new news, but different source for the news.

Appropriately named gal

What's the latest on the mask fight? I'm pretty sure my kindergartner got strep last week from wearing that nasty thing on her face all day.

Update on the legal front.

RISD continues to require masks even though they have no TRO/injunction from any court. (They joined the La Joya case in Travis County after the TRO was granted). They filed a motion for a new injunction that includes them from the appeals court and enjoin the separate suit where they are now being sued in another court by the AG, edited - that motion was denied yesterday.

The board is supposed to decide whether to continue the mandate in a meeting on Oct. 4. Email the board members and/or speak up in the public comments.

They also sent out a garbage survey that everyone should fill out. It's probably in your SPAM folder and try to ignore the biased questions.

Funny they didn't have a question that asks.
Do you support RISDs decision to spend a bunch of your tax money on legal fees fighting a destined to lose court battle because we want to force 5 year olds to wear masks 30 hours a week while we continue to have the same COVID case rate as the state average?

harge57 said:

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No update on the legal front.

RISD continues to require masks even though they have no TRO/injunction from any court. (They joined the La Joya case in Travis County after the TRO was granted). They have requested a new injunction that includes them from the appeals court because they are now being sued in another court by the AG, but have not received one yet.

The board is supposed to decide whether to continue the mandate in a meeting on Oct. 4. Email the board members and/or speak up in the public comments.

They also sent out a garbage survey that everyone should fill out. It's probably in your SPAM folder and try to ignore the biased questions.

Funny they didn't have a question that asks.
Do you support RISDs decision to spend a bunch of your tax money on legal fees fighting a destined to lose court battle because we want to force 5 year olds to wear masks 30 hours a week while we continue to have the same COVID case rate as the state average?

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Related to masks or is it the same thing we got in Plano re: equity and inclusion?

Its mask specific.

Good suggestion. Here is the list of board members if others would like to voice their feedback. https://web.risd.org/bot/

RISDs student new case rate has been higher than the state average for 4 of the last 6 weeks. But overall is essentially the same as the state average. Shouldn't that be drastically different if mask mandates work?

And to keep this in context less than 1% of kids are getting COVID each week even during the peak. (I think total % is now like 2.5%). For the small percentage of kids that do test positive for COVID up to half of pediatric COVID cases are asymptomatic. The odds of one of this small % of kids getting COVID ends up in the hospital is incredibly low.

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For the week of July 31 the rate of hospitalization with Covid of U.S. children 5 to 17 was 0.5 per 100,000

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The awareness of the actual risk to kids from COVID and the effectiveness of a mask mandate as a mitigation to COVID is so far away from reality I am not sure how to describe it.





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