Local school boards meet, hilarity ensues

Last December's Texas Academic Performance Report tells you a lot about schools' staffing, funding, student performance, graduation rates, etc. It's such a big deal The Huntsvillan devoted an article to it last week.

It's also such a big deal that each school board must hold a "public hearing" on it, at which anyone can speak. These are typically held in February.

Through the magic of YouTube, The Huntsvillan "attended" the February meetings of the Huntsville, New Waverly, and Conroe ISDs, the districts of the three high schools compared last week. Just as the Texas Academic Performance Reports tell a story, so does a school board meeting – in a very different way.

This is the story of those three meetings.

All the world's a stage

In a way, every school board meeting is the same. You say the pledge and celebrate some kiddos, then the routine things get waved through (the consent agenda), then there's some serious stuff (discussion items, action items), then the trustees go back into closed session for a while and come out looking tired and everyone goes home.

In a way, it's a performance. You can tell how much so at a glance. Huntsville's and Conroe's meetings have great sound and lighting and presentations on everything. New Waverly's is more relaxed.

Then there is the length. At an hour and a half, Huntsville's and New Waverly's meetings were perfect. You just nicely finish your popcorn and coke and they start rolling the closing credits.

Not so for Conroe ISD, whose meeting began at 5 pm on a workday and ended at 1 am the next morning. Even subtracting breaks and back-room time, it took over six and a half hours – longer than New Waverly's last six meetings combined.

They have work to do. Approving principals. School mascots. Construction updates. Board policy. Special education. Library materials. And so on. These people are on a mission.

Citizen participation

Despite these differences, all three districts treat their required public hearings the same. They hate them. It's like your annual evaluation at work – you don't want to be there, your boss doesn't either, but you have to do it anyway.

Huntsville's hearing on the Texas Academic Performance Report began with a generic presentation on the types of information it contained – and that was it. There was almost nothing specific to the district itself, the trustees said nothing and neither did anyone else. The whole thing finished in fifteen minutes flat.

It was the longest of the three hearings by far.

Conroe's lasted three minutes and New Waverly's zero – they didn't hold one at all. In 2024 and 2025, NWISD held required hearings about the budget but skipped those about the Texas Academic Performance Report. They have until March to do this year's. The Huntsvillan is predicting that it will be short.

Hold on pardner, we ain't done yet

Hearings aren't the only way people can speak out. There is also "Public Comment," where anyone can say whatever they want.

Though required, some governmental bodies don't like it. They discourage comment by making you sign in prior to the meeting and waiting a while for your turn to speak.

This does not happen in New Waverly, which gets down to business quickly. But in Huntsville, it's typically an hour; it was twice that long in Conroe. You'd understand if no one had anything to say.

You would be wrong.

In Conroe, people show up. Fully twenty people registered to speak, eighteen of whom waited the full two hours for their turn. Prayer in schools. Special education. More special education. Transparency. Facility rentals. Book banning. Autistic children. Prayer in schools again.

The public comment period alone took 39 minutes – longer than some entire meetings in New Waverly. And it's not just the speakers. As of this writing, New Waverly's meeting had 24 views on YouTube, while Huntsville's had 67. Conroe's had over 4,000. This kind of citizen involvement provides real accountability for the district.

Culture war flirtation

Public hearings weren't the only thing foisted on school boards this winter. Recent legislation, Texas' Senate Bill 11 (SB11), made each school district vote on whether to set aside dedicated prayer time each day. It was an invitation to the culture wars.

Because schools already have so much to do, almost every district in Texas has declined this invitation – as did Conroe, Huntsville, and New Waverly ISDs, unanimously. But they did so in different ways.

New Waverly was culture-war curious, discussing the issue for twenty minutes. Huntsville, never one for the culture wars, declined with dispatch, as did Conroe, after trying (unsuccessfully) to hide this item on the agenda under another name.

Conroe was so worried about this because they have already waded into the culture wars. It shows up in their school board elections and in tension between trustees. Twenty minutes of their meeting involved book banning – seven times as much as was spent on the Texas Academic Performance Report.^[1]

While SB11 had no converts at these meetings, its authors shouldn't get too disappointed. It has increased religiosity – among superintendents. They kneel reverently and plead that their board doesn't open up the Pandora's Box that it entails. Their prayers have almost always been answered. There really is a God!

What's to show for it all?

In the end, what was accomplished? Nothing special in Huntsville ISD, just routine business that had to be conducted publicly. In New Waverly, it was much the same.

Conroe ISD had more to show for their efforts. They spent 90 minutes on the math curriculum and another hour creating a special education parent advisory council – a big deal in Conroe, where one-third of their students have accommodations.

Bigger isn't always better. New Waverly ISD performs as well as anyone for non-college-bound children. But Conroe ISD shows that, in a big district, progress is messy. Meetings are longer and more acrimonious, with the public keeping tabs on everything that happens. It's a lesson that Huntsville, growing by leaps and bounds, may want to take to heart.

^[1] One book's plot, according to public comment, was "a family thinks their house is haunted, things float, the family moves out, the end." Banning it failed, 5-2.