The State Board of Education has created an 18-member steering committee to help it develop a new Long-Range Plan for Public Education.
The committee will work throughout the 2017-2018 school year to draft recommendations that will be sent to the State Board, which will ultimately approve the final plan.
The steering committee is made up of five board members who are:
- SBOE Chair Donna Bahorich of Houston
- Barbara Cargill of Conroe
- Tom Maynard of Florence
- Georgina C. Pérez of El Paso
- Marty Rowley of Amarillo
Rebecca Shah, strategy delivery specialist at the Texas Education Agency, appointed by Commissioner of Education Mike Morath at the request of the board, the heads of three agencies appointed one staff member each to serve on the committee. Those appointees are:
- David Gardner, deputy commissioner of academic planning and policy at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, appointed by Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes; and
- Reagan Miller, deputy director of workforce solutions at the Texas Workforce Commission, appointed by Texas Workforce Commission Chair Andres Alcantar
Rounding out the committee are 10 stakeholder representatives. More than 600 Texans volunteered to serve on the committee when the board solicited nominations this summer.
“We are overwhelmed by the volume and quality of applications we received from Texans who offered to serve on the Long-Range Plan for Public Education Steering Committee. The 10 stakeholders selected will bring a wide breadth of the experience to the table,” Bahorich said.
“We hope to involve those who were not selected in other ways in the process, such as inviting them to community meetings that will be held around the state over the coming year,” she said.
The 10 individuals selected to represent stakeholder groups on the committee are:
- Adeeb Barqawi, a former high school physics teacher who runs the non-profit ProUnitas Inc. of Houston which connects students to health, social, and community service programs
- Rikki Bonet, a veteran pre-kindergarten teacher in the Dallas Independent School who has first-hand experience with dyslexia
- Avery Bullock, a Weather
- ford High School senior in Weatherford ISD and an active community volunteer and school leader
- Sheri Doss, the president-elect of the Texas PTA who is from North East ISD in San Antonio
- Stacey Edmonson, dean of the College of Education at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville
- Lanet Greenhaw, vice president of education and workforce at the Dallas Regional Chamber
- Carol Harle, a current school board member in San Antonio’s Northside ISD and a former teacher and administrator with experience at several grade levels and in the Gifted and Talented Program
- George Kazanas, superintendent of Midway ISD in the Waco area, a former Region 12 Superintendent of the Year and former Region 8 UIL Music Education Superintendent Representative
- Gonzalo Salazar, superintendent of Los Fresnos Consolidated ISD with extensive experience working with bilingual education and At-Risk students
- Ruth Lopez Turley, director of the Houston Education Research Consortium and a professor of sociology at Rice University
The first meeting of the steering committee is scheduled in September in Austin.
The Texas Education Agency, The Texas Comprehensive Center (TXCC) at American Institutes for Research (AIR), and the Meadows Foundation are providing in-kind or financial assistance for this phase of the project.
