Irion County ISD Board Meeting November 12 2025
- G. Noelke
- Nov 14, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 20, 2025
Agenda Analysis | Meeting Review | Meeting Documents | Commentary | Last Meeting
A. Agenda Analysis
Bond projects, item 5: This item is written consistent with the District's standard "place holder" language in case something needs to be approved.
Grant/academic data update and review, item 6: The District is headlong into getting qualified for the Teacher Incentive Allotment dollars. This appears to be an update.
Sonora MOU, item 7: The District has an MOU with Sonora ISD for special education services. One issue that came up last meeting was the transportation costs for those students. My interests are many, but these days I point it out here because Washington has gutted the Department of Education offices that oversee the protection of civil rights for these students. Don't forget that all are entitled to a free appropriate public education, even children with disabilities, as provided by federal law, even when our elected leaders wished such wasn't true.
Administrative reports, item 8: Leadership reports here, always worthwhile.
TASB 124, 125, 126 plus bereavement and retirement pay out, item 11: TASB policy changes...ugh, again. One governing purpose of a school board is for the the board itself to implement policy and to guide the superintendent on policy execution. This method of policy implementation where the policy rules come down from TASB waters down board membership into a cold weak broth. I'll do a PIA request after the meeting to hopefully figure out what is being changed.
The remainder, items 13 - 17: These are standard items for this meeting, though don't let their routine nature get in the way of their importance. First, a consent agenda is a time saving device that minimizes board discussion, so the public is excluded from hearing about sometimes essential matters. Second, of course, closed sessions are private, so the public likewise is excluded from hearing about essential matters. Both items are lawful, though.
B. Meeting Review
Approval of pending construction projects, item 5: The Board unanimously approved the recommended bid (by ABA) to construct the flood detention projects at 4th and Fleming and over the hill at 2nd and Juanita.
Here is the ABA bid document that was approved by the Board.
I have seen an early plan for those projects produced pursuant to one of my PIA requests a few months back. (Yes, such plans are open records, and I regularly ask for them.) I believe that there has updated plans, however.
What changed and vaulted these projects to the front burner? Apparently the City put the brakes on the District’s request to connect to utilities for the new cafeteria until the District showed some commitment to flood diversion. (Refer to this MOU between the City and the District.) After a bit of awkward discussion about the City’s resistance, Board Member Ashley Hill thankfully said the quiet part out loud: They (the City) are concerned that we (the District) won’t keep our word.
There remains a lot of distrust between the City and the District. (I hear that distrust at both meetings.) The bad blood from the construction of City Gym with the 2019 bonds no doubt still lingers.
In any event, the District is moving forward toward a solution. At last, there’s reason to believe that these almost 10 years of advocacy haven’t been wasted!
See my commentary below on a bit more on the bad blood between the City and the District.
Sonora MOU, item 7: It is very rare to come across a contented Special Ed student and parent, but a part of this item was just that. It takes a village, especially for those who are the most vulnerable, and sometimes the village has success stories. So, notwithstanding my own cynicism that public education will fail because the Office of Civil Rights at the Dept. of Education has been dismantled, sometimes good people are doing good things. And they do it not out of the fear of regulatory penalties but because they just want to do right and do good. We are a better community when we generously encourage diversity in all its forms, including those in special education.
Retention stipend, item 9: This is in effect a holiday bonus, once a year. The Board did a good job debating the pros and cons of it considering the staff of received a raise in September. They reached a fair compromise and had a thoughtful discussion.
Policy updates, item 11; This is a massive update and is too much to cover here. Supt. Moore did get me some info before the meeting, and I do appreciate that.
C. Commentary
Sometimes I cross post my commentary when it relates to both IC ISD and City issues. In case you missed it, see my post here at C 1 about how both knowingly failed to follow the law when they closed the street and alley for the new gym. I continue to beat this drum, regretfully, because even as of the last special board meeting, the Board failed to approve any bids for its flood detention projects. (All that is publicly known before this meeting was the Gallagher representative at that meeting said he didn't like the bids.) The localized flooding is largely a self inflicted wound, and perhaps a reminder is needed here and there of that. Yes, it is going to be expensive.
(Read Commentary 2 and 3 together.) In a related note, after the presentation by Gallagher at the last Board meeting (here at C 3) I walked outside with their superintendent to point out that large piles of caliche were in a location to migrate to my property in a flood. Whether or not my efforts made a difference, I'll never know. But, here's thanks to Gallagher (and their sub) for installing a sediment fence near my property to prevent that. It's not a total solution, but I'll take whatever I can get at this point. This approach has been far better for all involved than a complaint to TCEQ, no doubt about it. (Migrating sediment can be a violation of a SWPPP, a document required by federal law.)
Lest you think I am over reacting see pages 17-23 of this EPA manual about best practices concerning sediment control and erosion at construction sites. Nothing I've been asking for is outside of a best management practice.
The installation of a sediment fence at IC ISD. Using a new law for more effective advocacy: Government at all levels is prone to be reactive to citizens, rather than proactive with citizens. (See my post on The Grand Mistake.) One way I use the Public Information Act for advocacy is to probe areas in advance of a pending mistake, so hopefully I can get some documentation - or response - that incentivizes proactive thinking. For example, frustrated with Gallagher's response on the piles of waste caliche that is certain to migrate onto my property, I asked for the following from Supt. Moore in a PIA request: Copies of all documents evidencing Gallagher’s efforts to stop the stormwater wash of waste construction caliche onto 4th street between Juanita and Fleming.
Now, this is exactly the type of request in the past the District and its lawyers would have simply not responded to. There would have been crickets, in part because silence is a legally neutral non answer. But now, effective September 2025, there is a new state law that requires a response to a PIA request if there are no documents. Silence is no longer a "response". See Texas Gov't Code 552.221(f). And, in fact, Supt. Moore, to her credit, complied with this law by responding to my request above with "no documentation". So, here's the update on the caliche:
The caliche piles were removed last week the same day the sediment fence was installed. Of course, I'll never know the motivations of Gallagher and their sub for removing the caliche. I am merely attempting, with the aid of 552.221, to get the District and its agents to think ahead before they make another Grand Mistake. Had the Board and its previous superintendent been more proactive with the 2019 bond funds before they spent them, our community would not today be dealing with correcting the flooding issues they knowingly created. I don’t know the exact number, but previous Supt. DeSpain was a master cricket farmer given his prolific use of silence as a “response” to my monthly PIA requests during those years of his tenure. He could not do that today because of 552.221. For example, he could not have remained silent, as he did, when I requested a copy of the board approved audit of WBK Construction, the construction manager for the 2019 bonds. That audit never saw the light of day…
More on the bad blood between the City and IC ISD: There was some confusion during the discussion to approve the bid for flood control projects about why there was tension between the District and the City. The Gallagher rep mentioned he thought that perhaps the District had reneged on flood control structures at the time the new gym was built, but he fairly stated that was before his time. Board Member Koonce replied there were no projects, and I believe he is correct. The Board never intended to address flooding from District property. Rather, I think the dispute arises from former Supt. Ray DeSpain representing to the City Council in a public meeting that the District would redirect the down spouts of the new gym so that its storm water would not flow down the 4th Street basin but instead down Fayette street. In fact, the District did not do that, and today the water from the roof of that gym is a significant contributor to the flooding of the property. Indeed, as I wrote back in August of 2023, in a bad storm the architect, Jeff Potter, estimated that 1,574.7 gallons of storm water per minute would be repelled by the gym roof.
So, the City has every reason to be distrustful because ALL of that water must enter a City street, and the District used none of the 2019 funds for stormwater diversion even as it knew that it was creating more impermeable structures on its campus.
Even more on the bad blood between the City and the District: The bad relations between these two hasn't always been. Indeed, I detailed here the lack of community engagement for the 2019 bond package. And, here are the minutes from the board meeting for the bond call of the 2019 bonds. One thing that is not readily transparent is that many of these folks making the big decisions with the 2019 bond funds are related to one another, and their relations included executive level/administrator roles at the District and the City, as well as a private donor and major employer. So, going into the 2019 bond construction it was quite easy for leadership at the District and City to get along and run the board to build exactly the gym these families wanted. As William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It is not even past." The legacy of these families thus continue to visit us today each time it rains, even though they no longer frequent the board room or City Hall. Full disclosure: I carry some Tankersley blood, as many of us do in the community. My Great Grandmother Mamie Emerick was a Tankersley, and her Grandmother was Annie Tankersley, whom we would all be lucky to have in our family line. But, this honor allowed me no favors. Loye Tankersley publicly lobbied to close 4th Street for the new gym. Upon information and belief, he did so at the request of a former school board member.
Copyright 2025 G. Noelke
