15-03-2025
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.
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