About this Site

Keep Eanes Informed

ex·em·pla·ry (g-zmpl-r) adj.

1. Worthy of imitation; commendable: exemplary behavior.

2. Serving as a model.

Dianna Pharr is an Austin, Texas native and mother of two. She has resided in the Eanes ISD community for almost two decades. Dianna served on the board of the Eanes ISD Talented and Gifted (TAG) committee and was appointed by the district to the Bridge Point Elementary Campus Leadership Team. She was also appointed by district administration as Chair of the Eanes ISD SECAC. Dianna volunteered many hours on district booster clubs (K-12) and volunteered as a substitute teacher at Bridge Point Elementary and Hill Country Middle School. She also served as Chair of the Westlake High School Safe Homes Program.

Dianna now volunteers as a court appointed special advocate (CASA) for children and serves as an Advisory Board Member for Austin Gifted. She holds a B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin and attends U.T. Austin Graduate School. She also maintains this site and appreciates hearing from others who have comments or questions.

Contact: keepeanesinformed@gmail.com

July 2007 - When everything is going right, we rarely question the operations and expenditures of our school districts. There were many years when I simply baked cookies for the teacher appreciation luncheon, volunteered in my child’s elementary school, served on various committees and wrote an annual check to the booster club. I did not know the location of the central administration building of my school district much less the board room. I had more than hope. I had faith ... in my public school district.

Sometimes in life, our perspective changes without warning, sometimes so dramatically that we are moved to action.

When our community began its public discussion of our district’s budget “crisis” in 2003, I began asking Eanes ISD for basic public information that was not readily available from the district or in any other venue, seeking information to answer questions about spending and other topics, hoping to increase the public’s awareness and understanding of proposed cuts to academic or other programs. Many in our community questioned our district's abundant athletic spending and its apparent absence from the evolving lists of proposed budget cuts.

Community members and teachers provided the ideas for my information gathering efforts. Afraid of retaliation, many feared submitting their own requests to the district. "Can you get the board minutes and agendas?" "Where is the budget?" "Are the coach’s salaries and stipends public information?" "How does the district screen for participation in the gifted program and why do the percentages of students identified as gifted differ so dramatically from school to school?" "Why are the gifted programs being cut?" "Are we charging private athletic clubs to use our public facilities?" "Who benefits from the money generated by the Jumbotron?"How safe are our school campuses?" "Does the district comply with federal law ... are our school facilities accessible as required by ADA ... playgrounds, stages, and restrooms?" "Are emails between and among the superintendent and board members public information?" "Have the board members completed required conflict of interest forms?" As I reviewed documents related to the operations and expenditures of our district, I formed a perspective that was truly troubling. I was also shocked by the inability or unwillingness of the district to provide information in an efficient and effective manner. I was also moved to action.

When my school district refused my offer as a volunteer to post the public information to the official district website, I created my own website and posted the public information without editorial comment. Our community library supported open government and reserved a portion of the reference shelves for hard copies of the information. The library also linked www.keepeanesinformed.com to their site for easy online reference. I recognized that all who reviewed public information would have varying perspectives. Information is the essential first step to action - all sorts of actions. I hoped that others would use the site’s information to learn, form, and then communicate their own opinions regarding the policy, practice and priorities of our school district.

Trust. Confidence. School district lingo. "It's for the children." When public school districts spend our tax dollars to retain private attorneys and lobbyists to withhold our public information, and battle against our children's rights, trust and confidence is impossible and children are hurt. Taxpayers deserve value for each tax dollar spent by the adults in our school systems. Teachers and parents have the right to readily access public information reflecting the priorities and operations of our school districts ... without fear of retaliation. However, more importantly, all of our children have the right to be safe in school and fully access the district's facilities and programs. We all have the right to trust those in charge.

Blue links are active links.

June 2008 - Keep Eanes Informed began advocating for open government, transparency and accountability in 2003. During the last five years, we attended (and often recorded) each and every Eanes ISD board meeting (even the 7:30 a.m. study sessions) collected handouts from the meetings, requested board minutes, and posted the information to this site for public review (archive here.) We also posted notices for school board meetings because when this site began, those notices were not available on the district website. We obtained and posted other essential public information (that Eanes ISD failed to post on its website) as well including: district budget information, bond information, salaries and contracts, construction audits, ADA reports showing noncompliance, board member motivations, transfer students, covered football fields, Eanes ISD facility use, conflict of interest forms for board members, information regarding the industry that has built up around the needs and rights of children, and most recently, check registers showing the expenditure of our school tax dollars. We researched nepotism law and watched as the wife of a school board member was hired as a "permanent substitute." The more we reviewed, the more concerned we became.

We followed the money. The district refused to explain the $68,000 of unpaid student activity funds. We reviewed safety and security reports. At the same time we reviewed documents regarding the provision of campus keys to unauthorized individuals and groups (who used our gyms at their pleasure.) Later, our district was re-keyed at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. We watched the coaches on the fashion runway and hunted missing documentation and absent financial audits although board policy required production of booster club financial audits to the district by July 1 of each year. Procedures and policies regarding school donations exist for a good reason. Still, the district ignored our concerns. Later, emails told the story of a booster club that was missing "$2900 from the donations account" (that's a lot of box tops!) and confused about whether the money in multiple banking belonged to the booster club or the school district. This confusion could have been prevented with district monitoring as Eanes ISD local policy requires.

We asked hard questions. Why are we paying for "Chicks Dig Chaps" t-shirts (for the football players) out of General Fund 199 and thousand dollars in gore-tex windsuits (monogrammed, too) for coaches while at the same time parents are asked to donate basic supplies for core curriculum classes such as paper towels and gloves for AP Biology experiments? We all know that our teachers are required to be licensed so why is Eanes ISD Superintendent Nola Wellman not certified? Remember when Eanes ISD told bond voters that the $500K Jumbotron would pay "pay for itself" and then "make money" that would go into our general fund to support teachers? Instead, we learned through (a tip from an Eanes employees) and a series of public information requests that Eanes ISD had (completely out of the public eye) transferred our public property to the Chap Club for fundraising to benefit athletes (all under the radar, of course, and with no contract in place). Why must the at-risk populations in Eanes ISD learn in a sub-standard environment?

We've been busy. Last year, KeepEanesInformed posted all available information and supported a petition drive when Eanes ISD submitted a complaint against a prize-winning physics teacher who had served our children well for decades ... a complaint that could result in the loss of his teaching license. We ask other important questions this year as well: Why are we installing millions of dollars in artificial turf on our high school practice fields and high school stadium, too, when: 1) there are legitimate concerns about health risks associated with turf and 2) children in wheelchairs in our schools can't join their friends on the elementary playgrounds and sports fields because they are inaccessible . Did our district buy turf instead of safety? Are the total expenditures (and positions) for central administration on the rise in Eanes ISD?

We've heard from Eanes ISD employees, parents, students and community members. We learned from our conversations that all children matter to our community, not just those who make the school district "look good" on the TAKS test or the football field. Teachers who wondered how to get funding for training and parents who just wanted their child to learn to read wrote KeepEanesInformed to ask for help. We've heard time and again that our Eanes ISD teachers and parents are the most important resources for our children. Our community believes that students, parents, and teachers should have a powerful voice in the operations and expenditures of our school district. Perhaps the calls and emails that have caught our attention the most are those from parents whose children are being harmed. Those stories are not posted on this site and yet, are the single most motivating reason for our work. The children who must leave Eanes ISD are being replaced with out of district transfers who are carefully screened to make the easy demographics of this district even easier. What a sad commentary.

We've made progress. The 2006 bond initiative for a covered football field failed. The superintendent is now certified (link here and here.) After years of advocacy, Eanes ISD school board meeting notices and minutes are now posted on the district's website, and board meeting handouts are now posted on the Eanes ISD website. (We advocated for the distribution of board handouts at or in advance of board meetings because it is impossible for the public to follow along in an open meeting without this information - archive here - and were routinely told "we're not ready for the public to see these...") We've also worked (with the help of law enforcement) to insure that board meeting agendas are provided with the adequate specificity (as required by the Texas Open Meetings Act.) The district now collects booster club financial audits as required by board policy. Outdated Eanes ISD policies were updated and contractors (according to Eanes ISD) are now trained and must sign agreements to comply with the privacy rights of our children. Eanes ISD knows that someone is watching.

We will continue to ask the questions, echo the concerns of parents, students and taxpayers: Where does the bond money go? What is the district's priority? Why does the district say it can't afford teachers and librarians while it continues to hire more and more central administration staff and cover our district in artificial turf? Why does the district try to revoke the teaching certificate of a nationally recognized science teacher? Why are parents afraid to advocate for their children? Why don't we have foreign language in our elementary schools yet we are adding millions of dollars of film labs, video trucks, and video garages at the high school? How many students will benefit from these millions? Will the Chap Club (athletic funding) benefit? In an Internet age, why does Eanes ISD refuse to post its check register?

We all know that our students and teachers are held accountable. But where is the accountability for school administrators? The Eanes ISD administration continues to ignore our request to post certain basic public information on the district site. Hopefully, our legislators will pass a law that requires mandatory posting of basic public information, such as check registers and superintendent contracts. Meanwhile, we will continue to listen to your concerns, provide public information, connect the dots, and advocate for the rights of every child.

The Texas Public Information Act gives citizens the right to know what their government is doing. When a government agency fights so hard against transparency, you have to wonder why.

“The public's right to know is vital to an accountable, citizen-centered government. Simply put, we are entitled to be fully informed, with an open and accessible government, at all levels, in virtually all circumstances. Government is not created independent of the people. Rather, it is founded on the people's authority and exists for their benefit. That ideal is reinforced in the Texas Public Information Act, which says that the people "do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know." Instead, people have the right to know what their government is doing.” ~ Attorney General Greg Abbott

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