TPS Board Votes Down Finance Items On Agenda During Meeting

After a tense school board meeting Monday night, parents want to know if there will be enough money for the district to pay its bills.

On Monday, the school board voted down key finance items on the agenda.

Some parents said they're furious and see this as a moment where political divisions are keeping the board members from seeing eye to eye.

Heather Hope-Hernandez has a seventh-grade daughter in the district. She doesn't see the logic in last night's vote that shut down critical funding.

"Are they there to question? Absolutely. Are they there to audit if there is something that looks funny? Absolutely. But you don't torpedo a school board's budget and think that that's going to solve anything. That's just being disruptive," she said.

Board member Dr. Jerry Griffin was one of three members who voted it down. Two board members voted no on everything, but he was selective for a reason.

"I went through it item by item," he said. "And I said this item needs debate. That's the only reason I voted against it. I didn't vote against it because I thought it was bad, I voted against it because they did not allow us to debate that."

Board President Stacey Woolley indicated that's something that could change, so long as students and not politics drive the conversation.

"If we need to make changes in some of our polices if we need to make changes in how our agenda runs, what I am not willing to do is to say we are not going to put students first in our focus," she said.

Heather's daughter Margaret hopes the board remembers that.

"Remember who they're trying to help here ... We're not even a part of the conversation at this point," she said. "I'm still just in middle school, like I'm still a kid, I'm still learning how to figure this out … And it's just, I never thought that I would have to deal with this, and I never thought that I would have to deal with worrying about whether or not I would have air-conditioning when I went to school or whether the lights would be turned on."

This won't be the last time these issues are debated. Many of the key items voted down will be back on the board's agenda for an upcoming Thursday meeting.