Lawmakers are looking at ways to keep teachers in the profession, make schools safer, give parents money for private schooling and censor conversations about sex and gender.
Grapevine-Colleyville ISD projects $6.3M shortfall after 6 months of data
Search firm for GCISD’s new superintendent releases executive summary of the community survey
65% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree that “Grapevine-Colleyville ISD is headed in the right direction.”
Review the Superintendent Search Firm’s activities and timeline
Preparing Your School Board Vote: Focus on the Facts
We need trustees who will stand up for our students and staff, seek input from our community, facilitate respectful discussion, & make financial decisions with integrity. Who better than involved GCISD parents: a current teacher, a retired teacher, and a management consultant with extensive GCISD volunteerism!
Here’s a few options for citizens of Grapevine and Colleyville to get plugged into the conversations and to hear how the candidates will be addressing key concerns from our community.
May 21, Books & Baseball Bring Us Together
Follow this link to register to buy tickets together with friends.
Event Recaps:
Continue to get the facts so your vote restores parent, teacher and student voice in the district.
Recorded Panel Discussion
How do college admissions view GCISD changes & challenges?
Hear directly from graduates, parents and educators: Get the main points from the 1.5 hour panel with our shorter clips here.
School Board
Voting Guide
GCISD has adopted a plurality voting system, in which the candidate with the the most votes wins.
We have two 3-way races in this year’s election.
We also wanted to outline a few priority areas to be looking for when you talk with your friends, or if you get a chance to directly speak with a candidate.
Three things to consider when preparing a vote for School Board positions:
We need TRANSPARENCY in how the school board runs GCISD
- Will we be able to follow Trustee actions and contribute to decision making through an open, transparent process?
- Many concerned citizens of Grapevine and Colleyville question the legitimacy of the âbalancedâ budget. The New School Board Majority knowing not all expenses were reflected, has repeatedly claimed the budget was balanced, even though it is now being adjusted monthly.
- Watch the January School Board meeting (starting at 2 hrs 21 minutes) to hear the Interim CFO, describe the challenges and changes needed to manage the current GCISD budget.
We need to KEEP OUR TEACHERS because they are the key to an excellent education
- Will leadership make choices and support programs to keep our teachers, so we maintain our track record of excellence in education?
- Keeping teachers through appropriate raises, professional development supports and a healthy work environment is an option, to avoid the costs of hiring and recruiting and training a new generation of teachers.
- Since the New Board Majority assumed control, we have lost 175 EDUCATORS AND COUNTING. These spots have been replaced with 140 new hires on one-year probationary contracts.
View the tracker and see the truth for yourself.
We need public education to be first priority, including giving students choice within programs
- What can we do to maintain the differentiated learning programs that bring value for being known as a Destination District?
- Hasty actions will negatively impact the specialized learning options students and their families current have.
- Ensure we continue to uphold LEAD 2.0 plans, originally called LEAD 2021. And make sure School Board Trustees keep student success as a primary goal. You can find the full plan here.
- Students are prepared and informed to participate in programs and activities that align to their interests. Students are supported in growing their potential and making choices about their future. Students feel confident in selecting from our variety of programs and activities.
Texas greenlighted a felon to train school board members. Now education officials are examining their rules.
Dunn hosted a training session in Southlake in the fall of 2022.
A Texas superintendent ordered school librarians to remove LGBTQ books. Now the federal government is investigating.
Publisher’s Weekly 2022 People of the Year: The Defenders
“We recognize the librarians, booksellers, authors, publishers, and allies standing tall in the face of an unprecedented attack on the freedom to read.
“There has been no shortage of extraordinary stories from the book world in 2022. But no story this year has been more extraordinary than the ongoing, unprecedented surge in book bans and censorship efforts being pushed by right-wing groups in communities across the nation.”
Charity Has Difficulty Donating Dictionaries to Students Due to New Board Book Policy
Retiring Grapevine-Colleyville ISD superintendent reflects on district accomplishments, political battles in education
Donating Books to Your Favorite Teacher Isnât What It Used To Be!
Our hearts are full. Our community has UNITED over the love of books and over $10,000 in books will be donated to support local readers! Sadly, our excitement was dampened by the reality of GCISDâs excessively complicated new policies governing all book donations, including to teachers for use at school and in classroom libraries. Book fair organizers worked tirelessly to find a way to get the donated books to students through GCISD, uncovering a policy so incredibly cumbersome that it is completely impractical, and not as parent-choice focused as some claim.
When we realized how large the donation would be, our distribution goal was to maximize impact and minimize the burden on teachers or librarians. Book fair volunteers worked all week leading up to the board meeting to find a simple process. We landed on donating Scholastic book credits so librarians and teachers could order books from a GCISD approved list, seemingly the least complicated way to get your donations to students. Obviously, it was not that simple. It turned out that the district would not accept Scholastic book credits, seemingly because Scholastic is no longer an approved vendor. The only option was for us to do the shopping and donate physical books, but book donations are subject to the same burdensome acquisition policy governing libraries and classrooms. So we dug into the policy. And donât forget that even after all of this:
Any parent can challenge a book and, âAny material removed shall not be eligible for consideration to be added again for at least ten years.â
The District Librarian (a position currently vacant) or District Designee (who has a primary job other than this!) would have to read $10,000 worth of books in order to recommend or decline each book to the school board. They would have to then post the list on the district website for a 30 day parental review period, and make the books available for direct review upon request. Board members can request individual copies up to 15 days prior to the board review. The librarian has to acquire them, but canât buy them, because they havenât been approved! After the waiting period, the board would vote on any books pulled for individual consideration. Finally, the district would post a list online of approved and declined books, and the approved books could finally be acquired.
After all of that, librarians still have to decide where in GCISD to shelve the books based on reading level and content. They have to determine the books that are appropriate for the subject area and for the age, ability level, learning styles, interests, and social and emotional development of the students for whom they are selected; ensure they enrich the curriculum; meet high standards of quality; help students gain awareness of our pluralistic society; motivate students to examine their own attitudes and behaviors viewed as a whole and not excluded because of isolated passages; promote literacy; balance cost with need; incorporate accurate and authentic factual content; align with TEKS to the extent possible to develop civil knowledge; present founding documents in an objective, neutral, comprehensive and unbiased manner appropriately for grade level; and earn favorable reviews in standard reviewing sources.
It didnât take long to confirm our original suspicion that if United for GCISD donated $10,000 in physical books it would have put an unfair burden on librarians due to the lack of clarity in the policy at all levels. In the end, we simply could not use our communityâs generous donations to test a system that could take months to process, if at all. For full details, view the GCISD board policies online.
How can parents have choice over what their students read, if the book they need isnât on the shelf?
We spoke at the November board meeting to ask again that the board reconsider this burdensome anti-literacy policy and stop removing books from the shelves. We suggested instead an opt-out policy like McKinney ISD passed, accomplishing the same goal with far fewer adverse consequences.
Join us as we continue to fight censorship and support literacy by putting excellence, respect, and independence back in GCISD.
Follow @UnitedforGCISD for more updates on the distribution of our communityâs generous donations after our online United for GCISD Community Book Fair ends Nov. 18! Choose our original host location âGrapevine Convention Centerâ in the drop-down menu. Sales will still benefit local kids who rely on community support to have books at home and all book purchases over $25 ship free!