The Wichita Fall School Board looks to have violated the Open Records Act by holding a pro-CSCOPE meeting with the Wichita Country Republican Women, according to a story in the Times Record News, a Wichita Falls newspaper.
The meeting was an apparent attempt by a pro-CSCOPE school board to tamp down growing opposition to CSCOPE, a highly controversial anti-American curriculum resource that has worked its way into school districts all over Texas.
This meeting was called ahead of a June meeting in which the school board will decide whether to renew or cancel the district’s CSCOPE contract.
Less than a year after the CSCOPE renewal vote, in May of 2014, there will be a school board election. Filing to run for the school board is usually done 60-90 days before the election. Current occupants of the seats up for re-election in May 2014 are Allyson Flack, Bob Payton, and Kirk Wolf. All three seats are at-large, meaning anyone ion the district can run for them.
The news story included extensive excerpting from the Texas Open Meetings Act that show meetings called by school boards must be open, with proper public notice provided.
The pro-CSCOPE school board thought it could skirt the requirements by not answering questions at the meeting. However, the school board failed to restrain itself in that way. The Times Record News article includes the text of a question read and answered by a school board member.
After the meeting Delores Culley, Wichita Falls County Republican Women’s President, seemed surprised that the pro-CSCOPE school board would expect to such a meeting to convince parents and concerned citizens to support CSCOPE, whose list of anti-American propaganda smuggled into Texas districts is long and unseemly.
Culley seemed unimpressed, saying, “That was the most brain-numbing bunch of stuff I’ve sat through in my life.”
–Times Record News article