Latest news with #CharlesRandklev
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Keller school board officially quashes plan to split district
At its May 15 meeting, the Keller school board adopted a resolution officially rejecting a proposal to divide the district, bringing to a close months of speculation and furor. The board also addressed budget challenges, and interim Superintendent Cory Wilson gave a dire warning about proposed school funding legislation in the Texas Senate. During the personnel portion of the meeting, the district extended a contract to popular Southlake principal Christina Benhoff. Two months ago, on March 14, school board President Charles Randklev informed the public that the plan to split the Keller district in half, using U.S. 377 as the dividing line, was off the table. At the time, Randklev cited financial hurdles for the decision not to proceed with the controversial move. The May 13 resolution reads, 'Now, let it be hereby resolved that the Keller Independent School District Board of Trustees hereby resolves that it shall not initiate the creation of a new district by detachment as set out in Section 13.103 of the Texas Education Code or through any further means.' Section 13.103 of the Texas Education Code allows for the creation of a new school district by detachment through one of two avenues: A school board resolution, or a petition to the county commissioners court signed by at least 10% of the registered voters in the area under consideration for detachment. The new-look board, with recently elected members Jennifer Erickson and Randy Campbell, voted unanimously to adopt the resolution on Thursday evening. The vote was met by applause from the audience. 'Some might think that this is a performative resolution,' said new board President John Birt. 'I assure you this is not performative. We recognize and know that this has been a stressful, contentious last few months, no question about it. But with this final action, this resolution, we put this matter to rest so we can all move forward as one district.' In his financial update, John Allison, Keller's chief operations officer, said the district was 'on track' to achieve a balanced budget this year, although Allison cautioned 'there are still a few months to go.' In January, an audit revealed a potential $9.4 million budget deficit for the 2025-26 school year. It also showed that Keller had lost $35 million from its general fund between 2021 and 2023. Keller has begun implementing staff cuts to alleviate financial constraints. Nearly 90% of Keller's expenditures are tied up in human capital, so it was critical to make reductions there, Allison said, pointing out that the district needs to cut 'tens of millions' from its budget. 'It's impacted our staff at every level,' Allison said of the staffing reductions. 'It's impacted our ability to provide services for our students.' The district previously said it would raise the student-teacher ratio by 0.5 at its middle and high schools. With district enrollment declining, Allison has said, that ratio will improve over time. Allison also said there were no plans to close or consolidate campuses, though he said it's 'a conversation we're going to have to begin to have, but not for the next academic year.' Allison speculated that the district would likely have to consider school closures in the fall because of declining enrollment. Interim Superintendent Cory Wilson talked about the status of Texas House Bill 2, an $8 billion school finance bill that passed in the House in April. It's now being considered in the Texas Senate, which has proposed its own version of the bill. The House version increases the basic allotment Texas school districts receive by $395 per pupil, from $6,160 to $6,555. The Senate version would only increase the allotment by $55 per student. Wilson said the $395 per-pupil increase would bring $11 million in much-needed additional funding to Keller. It would also bring $5.8 million for teacher and staff raises. 'It's not a perfect bill,' Wilson said, 'but it was a good bill.' Beyond the $55 per-student increase, the senate bill is largely ambiguous, Wilson said. Like its House companion, the Senate bill is valued at $8 billion, but unlike the House bill, the money would have stipulations. In light of all that, Wilson encouraged Keller residents to contact their legislators to urge them to pass House Bill 2 in its original form. Though the Senate version of the bill would guarantee $2,500 raises for teachers with three to four years of experience and $5,500 for teachers with five or more years, Wilson warned that Keller as a whole 'would be better off with nothing' than it would should that bill pass, citing the uncertainties around how the bulk of the funding could be used. Benhoff, principal at Southlake's Carroll High School, was confirmed as principal of Keller's Timber Creek High School beginning next year. Benhoff was one of two Southlake administrators, along with Carroll Senior High School Principal Ryan Wilson, who did not receive a contract renewal from Southlake Carroll. Southlake residents and students protested those moves at a May 6 school board meeting. Benhoff has been the principal at Carroll High School since 2022. Prior to that, she served as assistant principal at Carroll Senior High School. To begin the meeting, President John Birt welcomed Erickson and Campbell to the dais, and he welcomed back trustee Chelsea Kelly, who won re-election to her Place 3 seat on May 3. Birt went on to express his desire as president to 'minimize division,' and he dedicated himself to rebuilding Keller's reputation as a premier district in this area.
CBS News
27-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
New legal filing calls for immediate removal of Keller ISD board members who supported plan to split
Although Keller Independent School District has abandoned its plan to divide the district in two , the fallout continues. New legal action calls for the removal of five Keller ISD school board members. "It's a matter of public trust," said Cary Moon, the chairman of the Heritage HOA Legal Task Force. The north Fort Worth neighborhood amended its petition against the district Thursday to call for the immediate removal of President Charles Randklev, Vice President John Birt, Trustee Micah Young, Trustee Chris Coker, and Trustee Heather Washington. The amended petition, which builds on the original filing on March 4, asserts that those board members have "continuously acted without property authority and hindered transparent governance." "There is extensive concerns over legal decisions they've made, financial decisions they made and that leads to questions of priorities, of the education of our children," said Carey Moon, the chair of the Heritage HOA Legal Task Force. The proposal to divide Keller ISD created a public uproar , with parents and students crowding into school board meetings in January and February to voice their opinions. The superintendent even resigned in opposition to the plan, and the board got hit with a lawsuit alleging members violated the Texas Open Meetings Act in their planning. Trustees have since reversed course, but parents said it's too late. "We're not just going to let it go and say, 'Oh, you know what? We'll forget about it now,'" said Laney Hawes, a parent to four Keller ISD students and co-founder of the nonprofit advocacy group Keller ISD Families for Public Education. "No, we don't trust them. The laws were broken. They need to be held accountable." Their long-term goal is to vote out the trustees who pushed this proposal. "We're trying to rebuild the community, but it's going to take us a few years to replace the school board and to get trustees in there that we believe have the community's best interests at heart," she said. Through this process, the community has proven there is power in speaking out. "There's been a concerted and enjoined effort by parents, teachers, business owners, neighbors to really protect our ISD," Moon said. "And it's been gratifying to see that." Keller ISD issued this statement in response to the amended petition: "It is our practice not to comment on pending litigation. We're focused on maintaining exceptional educational opportunities for our students as we navigate the current Texas public school funding crisis." The Keller ISD Board of Trustees' next meeting is set for Monday, March 31.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Effort to divide Keller schools was sneaky to the end. How do we prevent a repeat?
Common sense still prevails sometimes — even on the ham-fisted Keller school board. The idea to divide the school district into two has been abandoned, Keller leaders said Friday. Somehow, in announcing the decision, they managed to reinforce the very secrecy and underhandedness that helped doom the effort. School board President Charles Randklev and interim superintendent Cory Wilson told Keller parents in an email that the effort to break off the non-Keller parts of the district was ending. They cited an obstacle that they claimed just hadn't occurred to anyone: Resolving the existing district's $700 million bond debt would require new costs, undermining the stated goal of improving the financial situation for schools as state support slips and enrollment stagnates. The reversal was like the entire enterprise — sudden and abrupt, with no public airing and apparently reached by a handful of people in a most undemocratic manner. Two Keller board members found out as the email was circulating rather than any discussion with their supposed colleagues. And like the district split proposal, the reversal was confusing at best, misleading at worst. Randklev and Wilson patted themselves on the back for discovering the issue with the cost of bonds. Lawyers and experts we talked to raised it almost immediately, and it's just common sense: When you borrow money, you don't get to decide who pays it back and how. The banks do, and if the terms change, the banks are going to want a fresh deal — with new transaction fees and current interest rates. Perhaps the weight of opposition and questions about lawsuits and distribution of property made even Randklev and his faction rethink their arrogance. Not that they could ever admit it. The lessons here reach far beyond Keller. The most important, as we've emphasized from the beginning of this tainted enterprise, is that voters must be the ultimate decision makers on a government question this monumental. Every indication was that the faction behind the split was going to try to pull it off without an election, perhaps with the help of members of the Tarrant County Commissioners Court. It's a specious reading of the Texas Education Code to say it allows creation of a new district through 'detachment' without an election. But lawmakers should take this opportunity to leave no doubt. A simple bill could amend state law to ensure that an election is held. A bill initially proposed by Fort Worth Rep. David Lowe would do that, as well as remove the Commissioners Court entirely from the process. That's a good starting point. It's clear, too, that Keller's leaders flouted at least the spirit of Texas law requiring public business be done in open formats. A few board members managed to hatch the split without even other board members in the loop. The public only found out when a Fort Worth City Council member whose constituents would be affected sounded the alarm. Efforts to determine if the law was broken shouldn't end because the split plan did. Civil suits aren't enough; the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office must investigate and prosecute if the evidence merits. Future officeholders must be made to think twice about this kind of subterfuge. An investigation is merited as well into how the board reached a 'decision' to drop the plan without discussion or a meeting that even included the full board. Texas' public meeting and open-information laws have taken a beating in recent years from government officials determined to find loopholes. If this abuse of their voters doesn't prompt lawmakers to respond, what will? In Keller, the work will be harder. Elections for three board seats in May will create a forum to air some of the issues exposed by the division effort. Those concerns are painful: Many residents believe that race, class or both were motivations for the divide, and they're angry that their elected leaders disdain them enough to try to run away. Keller ISD needs a board and superintendent dedicated to healing these breaches and ensuring that kids get what they need regardless of which side of U.S. 377 they live on. And most of all, families, taxpayers and voters in every corner of the district are entitled to leaders who won't try something this sneaky again. We love to hear from Texans with opinions on the news — and to publish those views in the Opinion section. • Letters should be no more than 150 words. • Writers should submit letters only once every 30 days. • Include your name, address (including city of residence), phone number and email address, so we can contact you if we have questions. You can submit a letter to the editor two ways: • Email letters@ (preferred). • Fill out this online form. Please note: Letters will be edited for style and clarity. Publication is not guaranteed. The best letters are focused on one topic.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Legal firm files lawsuit against Keller ISD, alleges violations of Voting Rights Act
A Dallas law firm filed a federal lawsuit against the Keller school district in U.S. District Court on Feb. 14, alleging its board's election rules violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as well as the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment provides for equal protection under the law for all U.S. citizens. The 15th Amendment ensures citizens' right to vote, regardless of race or color. In January, Brewer Storefront, the pro bono community advocacy arm of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, threatened legal action against the district and issued an open letter addressed to school board president Charles Randklev and trustees. At that time, Brewer offered a 'path forward' to avoid litigation that included adopting a cumulative electoral system for school board seats in which voters have multiple votes that can be divided among all open seats or consolidated in support of particular candidates. Keller trustees are voted on in at-large elections in which voters select candidates from across the district to fill open seats. Some experts believe at-large elections unfairly favor majority voting blocs. In a statement to the Star-Telegram, a representative from Brewer Storefront said the firm received no response from the board to the open letter. Brewer is representing plaintiff Claudio Vallejo, a Keller parent. The Keller school district and all seven board members — Charles Randklev, John Birt, Joni Shaw Smith, Micah Young, Chelsea Kelly, Chris Coker and Heather Washington — are named as defendants. The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth. A Keller school district representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. 'On its face, the KISD electoral system dilutes the votes of minority citizens within the KISD community, particularly Hispanic voters,' the suit's preliminary statement says. 'Like many electoral systems for school boards throughout Texas, the at-large KISD scheme, coupled with staggered terms and off-cycle voting, enables a white majority to prevent the growing minority community from electing candidates of their choosing.' Keller is what is known as a 'majority minority' district, meaning less than half of its enrolled students are white. According to Texas Education Agency data cited in the suit, 24.8% of Keller students are Hispanic and 11.4% are Black. Keller's school board is entirely white, and the suit alleges there hasn't been a Hispanic candidate elected in the last 25 years despite the fact that registered Hispanic voters comprise roughly 15% of the Keller district electorate. This, the suit claims, has resulted in an achievement gap between white students and students of color. According to the most recent publicly available TEA data, from the 2022-23 school year, 50.2% of Black seniors in the Keller school district reached the college readiness threshold. For Hispanic students, that number was 54.7%, and it was 70.7% for white students. These statistics were confirmed by a district spokesperson. Much of the uproar around Keller centers on a recent proposal by board members to split the district in half using U.S. 377 as the dividing line. Opponents have accused the board of seeking to separate the relatively more affluent, white majority east side from the less affluent, more racially diverse west side. Five of Keller's seven board members reside on the east side. Only Joni Shaw Smith and Chelsea Kelly live west of U.S. 377, and both of them have opposed the split. Board members who support the plan say it has nothing to do with demographics, and that a split is the best way to navigate a financial crisis that has left the school district operating at a budget deficit. Attorney William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer Storefront and lead counsel for Vallejo, provided a statement to the Star-Telegram: 'The at-large election system used by Keller ISD dilutes the votes of the significant number of Hispanic citizens. Given the racial polarization that exists, white voters are able to block Hispanic voters from electing school board candidates of their choosing — those who would best represent their schools, children and community. As the controversial proposal to split the district in two underscores, the consequence of the at-large voting scheme is a collection of white trustees who are out of touch with the needs of the majority of the children who attend KISD schools .' Brewer has previously initiated the move away from at-large voting in the Lewisville, Richardson, Carrollton-Farmers Branch, Irving and Grand Prairie school districts.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Law firm opposing Keller school board election rules offers ‘path' to avoid lawsuit
In a letter to Keller school board president Charles Randklev and trustees, Brewer Storefront, the pro bono community advocacy arm of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, issued what it dubbed a path forward for the district to avoid a lawsuit over its proposed district split. The Dallas-based firm believes Keller's at-large electoral rules and off-cycle election schedule violate part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by denying voters of color an equal voice. The letter, which was shared with the Star-Telegram, outlined Brewer's suggestions for rectifying what it views as voter suppression tactics: The Keller school board must abandon immediate plans to split the district in half. The board must pursue a more inclusive voting system. Ostensibly, this means moving from an at-large electoral system to a cumulative system in which voters have multiple votes that can be divided across all open seats or consolidated in support of particular candidates. The district must move board elections to November during the general voting period. Currently, Keller school district elections are held in May. Some argue the low turnout at off-cycle elections can result in representatives who are not aligned politically with most of their constituents. Finally, the board must inform voters, 'especially minority voters,' in both English and Spanish about election dates, candidates and procedures. Board members did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
