Thursday, August 14, 2008

July Lancaster ISD board meeting called “worst ever” by conservator

By Brian Allen of Best Southwest Citizen

The July 28 Lancaster Independent School District Board of Trustees meeting (the term meeting being used in its loosest sense) is still making headlines. Texas Education Agency conservator James Damm told the Dallas Morning News it was the “worst school board meeting he has ever attended.” Not that I or anyone else that has watched this group for the past several years would disagree, but let’s really take a look at that statement.

A large portion of Damm’s job is attending meetings in dysfunctional school districts (*cough, cough* Wilmer-Hutchins) , so when he says it’s bad, it’s bad. Damm saying it’s the worst board meeting he’s seen is equivalent to Simon Cowell saying it’s the worst audition he’s ever seen, the beat writer for the Los Angeles Clippers saying it was the worst basketball game he’s ever seen or Paris Hilton saying that was as drunk as she’s ever been. All the aforementioned are experts in their chosen fields.

With power on the board now having shifted dramatically, people are expecting Morris and the newly elected trustees to turn this mess around. If the last meeting was any indication, the natives are restless. Citizens want this district to be much better off two years from now and if it isn’t, heads will roll again.

One brand new trustee, Cheryl Wright, has already decided she’d rather be anywhere on the first Monday night of the month than at LISD meetings. Who could blame her? Well, the people that elected her to the board in May certainly can and probably do. It’s not like LISD meetings were sunshine, lollipops and rainbows before. One could argue that Wright knew or should have known what she was getting into before. But the district has a long, hard road ahead of it and it deserves someone who can devote the time.

I don’t envy them the search. Let me see, I can spend hours of my life locked in executive session death match with Carolyn Morris and Ed Kirkland, with the TEA and every media outlet in D/FW watching me? As far as recruitment pitches go, you could sooner convince most folks to challenge Michael Phelps to a few laps around the pool.

Pegasus News content partner - Best Southwest Citizen

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• Lancaster ISD