A regular board meeting was held September 9. While much was discussed, the board’s recent alterations to the transportation policy was a recurring theme.

To begin the meeting, the board celebrated a series of financial donations granted from Kroger and ICI Construction which will go to provide supplies for underprivileged schools in CFISD.

But in stark comparison, the board also discussed the $4.8 million in budget cuts within the district by the state. They expressed concern about the dangers of an increased deficit of $70 million next year that would cripple the district’s finances.

In light of this, the opening remarks from the board also largely centered around justifying their decision to restrict bus access for students within 2 miles of their attending school. The board members argued that restoring bus service would cost an additional $7 million that the district cannot currently afford.

They also argued that the crisis is partially driven by a shortage of bus drivers, stating that the total number of drivers since COVID has declined greatly along with the district being unable to compete with the wages of private companies like Amazon.

Many members of the board highlighted the various programs that the district is pursuing to ease transportation issues, including the bus buddies program and an effort to train more crossing guards to manage the influx of people driving to school.

Specifically, CFISD has trained 347 people to be crossing guards with multiple board members detailing their positive experience with the program.

Additionally, many members gave their testimonies of participating in the bus buddies program which helps students get on the bus and find their routes on the first few days of school.

The board also took time to address the community’s outrage by dispelling various rumors and condemning the use of social media to express disagreement with the board’s decisions, stating that community members should express their concerns at the meetings instead.

The board clarified that they have altered the policy to restore bus access for elementary students within 1 mile of their school that have been identified as having to go through a hazardous walkway to reach their school.

Despite this, the citizen participation section of the board meeting showed popular discontent with the board’s new bus policy. Parents and students alike spoke about concerns regarding students having to walk along dangerous roads with no sidewalk and in possibly poor weather conditions.

The board stated that it is not the school district’s responsibility to provide sidewalks and that even Harris County would struggle to fund a project that would provide accessible sidewalks for all students. They instead argued that community members should convene with their HOAs to service such projects while stating the board does intend to speak with state representatives.

The citizen participation section was also hostile to the board’s decision to fire many librarians, remove chapters from textbooks, and their condemnation of people expressing discontent online. Some speakers argued that the board was more interested in their political affiliations than serving the district’s students.

This discontent was also apparent during the agenda items portion of the meeting, where speakers expressed concern about the board’s lack of transparency regarding their agenda and decision-making process.

During the agenda items portion, the board decided to revise various policies affecting the procedures and consequences of teachers quitting without good cause,while still deciding to table a resolution that would not allow a teacher who quits without good cause to be rehired for 5 years in fear of worsening the teacher shortage.

The board also ruled that “data collection of students shall be minimized” to address recent concerns of AI and online data harvesting of students.

While policy-wise, the board meeting largely focused on tweaking the procedures of teacher-quitting and online data collection, both common concerns among CyFair residents, the looming weight of the ongoing budget crisis and popular discontent with recent school board decisions was a pervasive atmosphere of the meeting.