The Carroll ISD in Southlake will not be adopoting a new Student Code of Conduct this year.
The Board of Trustees voted 5-0 to carry over the student code of conduct from the previous school year to the new school year.
The draft of the new code of conduct would have eliminated sexual orientation and gender identity from the district's non-discrimination statement.
That didn't sit well with Jennifer Schutter, who addressed the board during public comment.
"Weakening that student code of conduct is not going to serve any purposes in improving the lives of our most marginalized children," says Schutter.
"Your removal of this language in our Student Code of Conduct opens up our queer students to even more discrimination and harassment," says Laura Durant. "It flies in the face of reason."
The draft of the new student code of conduct would have also made more vague the list of infractions contained in its Level 3 offenses.
The board will be appointing a committee to conduct a thorough review of the district's code of conduct.
"The intent was always that we would go through a very intentional robust review of the Student Code of Conduct with community members and revelant stakeholders through a committee process," says Trustee Hannah Smith.
Carroll ISD Board hires political consulting firm to oversee communications department
The Carroll ISD Board of Trustees, however, did vote Monday night to hire an outside firm to oversee its communications department.
Southlake Public Affairs was the only one to respond to the district's Request For Proposal.
The vote was 4-1, with Michelle Moore casting the lone "no" vote.
"They're political strategists (and) lobbyists," says Moore. "They're a right wing political strategy firm that I don't believe belongs in our district."
Trustee Andrew Yeager, however, responded by saying he had no problem with Southlake Public Affairs' political background.
"A lot of PR firms do do political work for one party or the other; that's very common," Yeager noted. "This is a non-political goal to help communication for our district, and I think it's worth trying."
The district is opting not to fill its communications coordinator vacancy for the upcoming school year.
"We had two people who did not remain in the district," said Deputy Superintendent Dr. Courtney Carpenter, "and it was not probably in our best interest to right now bring someone else into that position."
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