Plano ISD has a history of creating community-based committees for projects that the District is considering, such as for bonds and long-range planning.
These committees are comprised of individuals in the community representing a diversity in age, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and profession. Plano ISD has portrayed that they intentionally seek diverse community involvement to ensure that the community is fairly represented and has a voice in the decisions that are made.
If that was truly their intention, it would be admirable. However, as those who have served on these committees know, these committees have been a facade that the District and School Board use to create the illusion of community participation and voice.
The outcomes have been predetermined by Plano ISD before these committees are even formed, and Plano ISD will exert its influence and power to ensure that the committees will reach the conclusion that Plano ISD has already decided.
Since these committee meetings are not videoed, the public is unable to see this play out. Plano ISD will typically post high-level meeting minutes for each convened committee meeting, but it is often impossible to detect this pressure from the District within those minutes.
Reviewing the meeting minutes from the 2022 Future Forward Task Force (the community committee reviewing what would be put out to voters in the 2023 Plano ISD Bond) we can see foreshadowing of what Plano ISD had predetermined the outcome would be for the school closures (for which the Long Range Facility Planning community committee would later be established).
Three years ago, on May 5, 2022, the Future Forward Task Force community committee was deliberating on the 2023 Plano ISD Bond that would be presented to voters in 2023. That community committee had determined that Forman Elementary School should be replaced, not shuttered like the committee had recommended for Carpenter Middle School and Armstrong Middle School
It appears that this community committee’s decision to keep Forman Elementary School did not align with Plano ISD’s predetermined outcome as at the very next Future Forward Task Force meeting on May 26, 2022, the Superintendent made an appearance, putting Plano ISD’s thumb on the scales to ensure that Forman Elementary School would be changed from replacement to shuttering. Essentially, Plano ISD was overriding the community members and unilaterally imposing its will, defying the purpose of even having community committees.
Yet, there is no mention of the plans to shutter Forman Elementary School on the Future Forward Presentation given at the August 2, 2022 Plano ISD Board meeting.
This implies Plano ISD knew it would be closing Forman Elementary School long before announcing it would even be looking to close schools. That Long Range Facility Planning committee was formed 17 months later to evaluate school closures.
If Plano ISD already knew they were intending to close Forman Elementary School contrary to the community input, presumably they already knew all the other schools they intended to close.
In that case, why waste our taxpayer resources on the Long Range Facility Planning committee and waste those committee members’ time?
Plano ISD Rating in Theatrics: A+
A year later, on October 3, 2023, when the School Board was discussing school closures, Trustee Lauren Tyra made a statement that, as these events reveal, was a complete misrepresentation of community input in these committees.
In Trustee Tyra’s own words, what Plano ISD and the School Board Trustees did was:
“an absolute betrayal of the trust that our community has placed in” them.
Educate Plano 