No. I have not sued the school district. I have sued the Keller ISD Board of Trustees—the “school board.”

For many purposes it’s not necessary to distinguish between the two, but for legal reasons it’s important to make the distinction. It may help to compare Keller ISD to a public company:

In a public company, the person in charge of everything is the CEO—the Chief Executive Officer. The CEO is the very top manager for the company.

However, a public company is owned by the shareholders who own stock in the company. In order to ensure the company is managed in a way consistent with the shareholders’ interests, the shareholders elect a Board of Directors for the company. The Board of Directors selects and hires the CEO, and the CEO of the company periodically meets with the Board so that the Board can provide oversight of the company’s management on behalf of the shareholders.

A public school district is similar. The district Superintendent (for Keller ISD, that would be Dr. Tracy Johnson) is the CEO of the district. She’s the top manager of the ‘company’ that is Keller ISD.

The voters in a school district are similar to shareholders in a company. We elect the school board, and the school board selects and hires the superintendent and ensures (in theory anyway) that the superintendent and her staff are managing the district in the best interests of the public.

Much like a shareholder in a company can sue the board of directors, I have sued the Board of Trustees— the people who are supposed to ensure that the district is being managed in the best interest of the public.

I am a pro se litigant, which is a fancy Latin term that means, “some idiot who chose to represent himself in court without a lawyer.”

There is mounting evidence that the board, which is legally required to abide by the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA), may have held one or more meetings to craft a plan to split Keller ISD into two school districts without legally required notice to the public. I believe the board deliberately hid their actions from the public in an attempt to keep us from knowing what they were doing. I believe the board's actions were in violation of TOMA.

There are both civil and criminal penalties that can be imposed on the board if they are found to have violated TOMA. The law authorizes the county district court to issue injunctions (a court order that forbids something) or writs of mandamus (a court order mandating a government body to do something) to government agencies who have violated, or may violate, TOMA.

In my lawsuit, I have asked the district court to issue an injunction against the school board prohibiting them from violating TOMA in the future.

Yes.

No.

TOMA has both criminal and civil penalties. I have no control over the criminal side of things but as a citizen I can bring a civil action against the board. In essence, I’m asking the judge to say, “I’m watching you, and if you do something illegal I can penalize you for it.” The penalties available to the civil court do not depend on having a criminal trial.

In order for the board to face criminal penalties, they would have to face trial just like any other criminal case. A law enforcement agency would have to investigate the issue to determine if there is evidence that a crime has been committed, and that police department would have to turn their findings over to the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office.

The DA’s office would have to decide to prosecute the case. The DA's office has limited resources and is the same office that puts violent criminals behind bars. They must prioritize which cases they prosecute to best serve the public. The DA's office cannot possibly bring all of the criminal cases referred to them to trial.

A trial would have to happen and the board members would have to be found guilty.

That's a lot of steps, and if any one of them doesn't happen for any reason, the board won't face criminal sanctions. I have no control over any of those steps.

If you believe a crime has been committed, I encourage you to call the Keller Police Department (the non-emergency line; please do not call 911 for this!) and ask them to launch a criminal investigation into the KISD school board. If you do call, please be polite. Recognize that KPD is probably not well equipped to handle a sudden influx of calls and their primary responsibility is public safety. This is not the time or place to play tough guy on the phone and make demands of our public stewards. If they seem busy, please accept that they may be dealing with more pressing issues and try your call another time.

Update: Keller PD has contacted me in response to an email that I sent them about this matter. I believe Keller PD is handling this case appropriately and there is no benefit to having additional people call the police department. If you have evidence that the KISD school board violated the law, please do contact KPD and provide them with that evidence. Otherwise, reaching out would likely be a poor use of KPD's resources.

A number of lawyers familiar with the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA) have been quoted in local media (the Star-Telegram, Community Impact, WFAA, etc.) saying that they believe the board’s actions on Dec. 19 were likely illegal.

Violations of TOMA carry criminal punishment of up to a $500 fine and/or a jail sentence of one to six months. (Yes, violating the trust of voters and meeting in secret is a misdemeanor.)

To answer “is what they did illegal?” with certainty, a criminal trial would have to be held.

There are a number of good resources to keep up with your school board. Some are established media, others are on social media. While looking into this issue I found the following resources useful:

The school board trustees are elected officials. They report to the voters. If you are a registered voter in KISD, you are the manager of the school board. If you are not a registered voter, the actions of the school board affect you in many ways-- from the taxes you pay to the books your kids read in school-- and you have no say in the matter. I encourage you to change that: register to vote. Become one of the trustees’ bosses.

As their boss, you are free to contact the board members. Their email addresses can be found here, and you can sign up to speak directly to the board at any board meeting during the "Audience with Individuals" section of the agenda. (The board currently requires members of the public to sign up online by noon the day of the board meeting in order to speak to the board.)

I encourage anyone with something to say to the board, about this or any other matter that affects KISD, to reach out and contact the board. Please do so courteously and refrain from threats or inappropriate language.

We can vote them out in regular school board elections that are held in May. Texas law has no provision for recall elections for school board members. If you think that local elections don’t matter, I challenge you to re-assess your opinion on the matter.

The next school board election is May 3, 2025. Places 1, 2, and 3 (currently held by Micah Young, Joni Shaw Smith, and Chelsea Kelly) will be on the ballot.

This is the latest chapter in a long chain of political maneuvering that goes back decades in Keller ISD. I am not qualified to speak to the history of the politics, but can speak to the current situation.

There are those who believe that Keller ISD should be limited to the city limits of Keller. School districts in Texas are typically not drawn on city boundaries, so there's really no precedential reason for this, but there are many who share the idea, and the core goes back to the politics I just mentioned.

Keller ISD currently encompasses all of Keller and parts of Colleyville, Fort Worth, Haltom City, Hurst, North Richland Hills, Southlake, Watauga, and Westlake.

Texas Education Code subchapter C allows for the partitioning (the law uses the term 'detachment') of a single school district into two school districts. The law (section 13.103) provides for two methods to initiate the detachment: either a school board can vote to split the district, or the voters can petition the County Commissioners Court to do so.

Texas law is clear that if the detachment is initiated by voter petition, the County Commissioners Court must order the school district to put the issue on a ballot to be voted on by the public.

However, if the detachment were initiated by board resolution, the law is less clear. This section of the law is ambiguous enough that it could be interpreted to mean that if detachment of a school district is initiated by the school board, the detachment can be presented to the County Commissioners and the Commissioners Court can approve the detachment without requiring the issue to be approved by the voters.

I hope my interpretation of recent events is wrong, and that my belief in that box above gets disproven.

I will leave it to the lawyers to deliberate (and likely litigate) whether this section of the law really gives the Commissioners Court the power to do something of such profound public importance as splitting a school district in two without involving the voters who would be affected by such a split. In my personal opinion, it is outside the bounds of reason to believe that this was the intent of the legislature. On the other hand, "reason" and "the law" are not necessarily married to each other.

I have heard from one local government official that they have been able to find no precedent for this in Texas. That is, there has never been an instance where a school district detachment was initiated by a board resolution. That means that this case (assuming this issue gets to the Commissioners Court) is of particular importance because whatever happens here in KISD would set the precedent for the future of Texas. If this interpretation of the law is upheld, we could suddenly see all kinds of school districts deciding, "You know what? We don't want to deal with that part of our school district any more. Let's carve them off and get rid of them" and the public would be powerless to do anything about it. This becomes particularly worrisome when "that part of the district" is divided on socioeconomic boundaries. Putting all the poor people in a separate school district instead of managing and solving difficult problems could become a popular board strategy. Obviously, I believe such an interpretation of the law would not be in the best interests of the public, and I cannot believe that this is the intent of the Texas legislature.

The Tarrant County Court of Commissioners is made up of five elected officials. As I write this, our County Commissioners are making statements to social media, refining them, and responding to public replies. You may contact your County Commissioners by finding their contact information here.

Commissioner Krause recently posted to Facebook that he believes the law allows the Court to partition a district without putting the measure to a vote by the public. I have seen indications that Commissioner Ramirez may be taking the opposite stance. I have not heard opinions from the other Commissioners on this topic. Commissioner Simmons' office reached out to me by phone after I made public comments to the Court in the meeting on Jan. 14. I am grateful for her sincere interest in this matter and her willingness to engage with her constituents.

That's the million dollar question here, isn't it?

So far, the board has failed to answer this question to the public. The premise seems to be founded on school finances. It is true that the state of school finance in Texas is in shambles, that the KISD budget is being squeezed to an extreme extent, and with the next legislative session about to begin there is no reason to believe that anything will get better. The KISD administration and trustees are going to face serious challenges with the budget next year, no question about it.

To the best of my knowledge, the board has failed to demonstrate to the public how splitting the district would alleviate any financial pressures. Based on memory, Trustee Young mentioned some financial figures in the board meeting on Jan. 16 as supporting evidence, but to the best of my knowledge that data hasn't been released to the public or vetted by anyone.

I think that if the board were to directly answer this question for the public, with appropriate supporting documentation, it would go a long way toward easing some of the tensions in the district that were on display Jan. 16.

On the other hand, there has been speculation that the motivations for splitting the district aren't based on finances and the this simply a 'cover story' for the board's true motivations.

Based on my understanding of the law (which may be incorrect), the process would start by the Keller ISD Board of Trustees adopting a resolution to detach a portion of KISD into a new school district at a regular or special board meeting. The vote on such a resolution would take place in public.

The Board would then present that resolution to the Tarrant County Court of Commissioners. The Court would have to take up the resolution at a public meeting which requires an agenda to be posted with this issue as an agenda item at least 72 hours before the meeting starts.

The Court would then take up the issue to determine if the Board's resolution is valid. As Commissioner Krause has said in a Facebook post, the Court has no authority to approve or deny the split. The Court's sole responsibility is to determine if the resolution is valid.

If the Court determines the resolution is valid, and if the Commissioners subscribe to the legal theory that detachment initiated by board resolution doesn't require a public vote, then the new school district is created.

So... half of KISD could be gone in as little as 72 hours after the school board votes on it.

Apparently.

Ideally, the board would invite the public to participate in discussions on topics that have a large impact on our community. The board that preceded the current board protected the public trust by behaving that way. I do not believe our current board has or is likely to behave in this manner.

Absent voluntary public engagement by the board, I encourage you to do the following:

The KISD Board called a Special Board meeting on Jan. 16. Per Trustee Chelsea Kelly, it was the board's original intent to vote on a plan to partition the district at this meeting, which presumably would have been poorly attended by the public had this information not leaked.

Over 120 people signed up to address the board at this meeting. The turnout was breathtaking and is the best example of civic engagement I have seen since moving to KISD. I am grateful to those of you who showed up to address your concerns to the board.

During the meeting, Board President Randklev said, "I can assure you we will have robust public dialog before any action is taken. If this plan won't benefit all 34,000 students, the board won't stand for it." Although I am skeptical of his commitment to this promise, I am hopeful that the public will have meaningful input before the board acts on this issue.

After engaging with the public, the board retreated to executive session (per the agenda published before the meeting). The board spent an astounding two hours in executive session before returning to the board room and addressing the public. Upon returning to the boardroom at 11:30 PM (almost six and a half hours after the meeting started-- and members of the public were still in the gallery!), Dr. Randklev addressed the remaining audience with the comments:

"Before we adjourn, a couple of things that we're going to end up doing... I have asked [KISD Superintendent] Dr. Johnson to move our next regular monthly board meeting to Jan. 30 [Joni Shaw was scheduled to be out of town during the regularly scheduled meeting; rescheduling will allow her to be present]. In between then and now we're going to work on a community web page to... share some of the information that we had so that'll hopefully clear up some of the misconceptions. And then we're going to end up taking this idea and ... pushing it into our community groups like we discussed earlier this evening so that we can continue to workshop this idea with you and get your feedback on this idea along with some others we have in terms of how to address some of these issues. So no action will be taken on this item."

Unfortunately, there have been complaints that the members of the "community groups" that Dr. Randklev refers to may not have been chosen impartially. Some individuals are on multiple committees while other members of the public were not selected to be on any of the district's committees. So I am somewhat skeptical that Dr. Randklev's comments don't indicate the level of transparency that they appear to on the surface.

Time will tell.