January 21, 2009 

Bad Signs from Cleburne ISD

Cleburne ISD has made many changes, but they were changes forced by the Texas Education Agency after TEA found that CISD misspent 43% of federal funds audited. They were not voluntary changes..

Cleburne ISD has not had a change of heart.

To quote from Pastor T. D. Jakes' sermon before the Presidential inauguration, “You cannot change what you will not confront.”

Cleburne ISD still insists nobody did anything wrong, nobody is to blame, nobody should pay back anything, and nobody should be punished. We are paying the former financial officer $451 per day, apparently until he finds another job that pays as much as this one. Furthermore, Dr. Beard and the school board say we don’t need single member districts (one school board member from each neighborhood). The existing board, with 6 out of 7 members living in the Gerard elementary school vicinity, say they represent everyone.

We get the idea they think everything is just fine if only Harold Gentry and Alden Nellis would go away. They seem to forget the 1553 voters who voted against the Bond Issue.

We were hopeful when new superintendent Dr. Ronny Beard took over the helm of Cleburne ISD that basic changes would be made beyond those mandated by TEA.

Harold Gentry and Alden Nellis met for dozens of hours with Dr. James Warlick at his request. Dr. Warlick was first hired as interim superintendent and then continued with another title after Dr. Beard was hired as Superintendent. Dr. Beard attended two of these meetings.

The first thing that Dr. Beard did when signing on was to hire his wife. Gentry and Nellis told him this left a bad feeling, since at one time former Superintendent Robert Damron’s wife, with a BS, was the second highest paid teacher at CISD. Dr. Beard simply said he needed her.

Then Gentry and Nellis asked for a small sign that CISD would cut back on spending, at least a little. They asked that they get cheaper rooms for the school board for the TASB meeting in Dallas . Dr. Beard said “maybe next year.” Harold Gentry showed them where they could get perfectly adequate rooms with shuttle service for much less. He even showed them where they could reserve the same rooms as the California service got them for less money, even as the convention neared.

Dr. Beard’s response was to make a big issue of a newly discovered “fact” that school board members were actually Key Officials and as such, could spend twice the amount of state-mandated guidelines for room. The Times Review was spoon fed this “fact” and made a big splash of it. (Never mind that Key Officials are defined as employees of the state, and school board members are not employees of the state. Never mind the fact that CISD is a political entity, not a state agency.) School board members made a big production of refunding about $13 per night off their $179 per night hotel rooms for themselves and spouses. We paid $6,464.13 for lodging for 3 nights for 6 board members and spouses and a few administrators and spouses, plus registration fees, bringing the cost of 6 school board members to attend a convention to around $10,000. We were told that several of them cut classes.

Dr. Beard then outlined a plan whereby he would receive an extra $1800 stipend for attending community civic organization meetings, and others would receive lesser stipends, totaling around $9,000 per year for promising to attend civic club meetings. This was about $3,000 more than CISD spent in the past on civic club dues and meals for administrators (paid directly to the civic clubs). Alden Nellis spoke to the school board and objected.

Harold Gentry spent hours providing Dr. James Warlick with data to support criminal charges. Dr. Warlick said this would be turned over to the DA and other investigative agencies. The story changed as time went on. Dr. Warlick finally gave the data directly to Superintendent Beard, who turned it over to the school lawyers, and then announced in the Times Review that absolutely no wrongdoing was found, and that settled it for once and for all. (When do your own lawyers get to decide if you are guilty or innocent?)

Dr. Beard also made a big splash in his interview with the Cleburne Times Review saying that the money was simply taken out of the wrong fund, but that it was legitimate expenditures for the children’s education. No wrongdoing, just a little mistake of money being taken out of the wrong fund. (Our comment: No wrongdoing, just money taken out of the children's education fund and used for "networking and team building" - (translation good times), by the board and administration, resulting in an education opportunity lost forever to the students.)

Harold Gentry notified Dr. James Warlick that there would be no further meetings, that it had become unproductive.

Dr. Warlick was being paid $60 per hour to meet with Gentry and Nellis. There is no need to pay him for this anymore as there will be no further meetings. Nothing that Gentry and Nellis provided to Dr. Warlick made the slightest difference in the way the administration acted. If the meetings were designed to make Gentry and Nellis feel they were having “input” and therefore be placated, they were a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Superintendent Beard has clearly chosen his path and announced it to the world. He will have to go his way and Gentry and Nellis will work through other avenues.