Lewisville ISD Bans Petition Group (Updated)

It is well known that the Mayor of Flower Mound and much of the school board are old friends. How else could the Mayor's husband request that the Bible be taught as a subject in LISD? You would have to have all of your ducks in a row before you tried to suggest that course of action.
I've read the Bible since I was 7, and I will teach it to my kids, but I DON'T think it should be part of LISD or slammed down anyone's throats.
This was clearly the good ol' boy network kicking in, as it always does.

Yep, should anyone be surprised? The good "ole" LISD school board continues their history of doing what ever they want. Another good move by them to vote out the current members.

The tighter they squeeze, the more the power is slipping through their fingers.....and forget another tax increase, remember the gas leases that were suppose to alleviate a lot of budget concerns for the next few years, so much for that!

This is most concerning - school property, being paid for by tax payer money, is tax payer property. As such, many, many organizations from Boy Scouts to church groups have used school cafeterias and parking lots as meeting places. I fail to understand how gathering signatures on a petition is any different from any other organization using school property.

Adult and Community Education to host community garage sale

The LISD Adult and Community Education Department will host a community garage sale on April 10 from 8 a.m. - 2 p.m. (rain date, May 1) at the north parking lot of Lewisville High School. PTAs, booster clubs, youth groups, non-profit organizations and businesses are invited to rent booths for the garage sale. For information about booth rental, call 469-713-5997.

(From 2/5/2010 Friday Flash email)

After receiving tips alleging that Flower Mound Mayor Jody Smith had pressured LISD to disallow the group, we attempted to contact Jody Smith today to get her side of the story. At this point we've not heard from her.

We did reach LISD Board President Carol Kyer (of Flower Mound) this afternoon, and she elaborated on the contact with Mayor Smith. Kyer says she sees Smith all the time at various community and Chamber of Commerce events in Flower Mound. Kyer said that Smith had mentioned the petition drive to her and had inquired about it, but that it was not a matter of Smith pressuring for the district to disallow the group.

Rather, as Kyer explained, the policy is that the school does not allow non-school-related use of its parking lots at any time due to liability issues. Kyer said that Smith knows better than to ask for any political action from her, and that she wouldn't have interfered with it had she been asked.

Kyer explained that although the district does not sanction or allow the use of its parking lots, it also does not take any action to prevent the use of its lots, and would not send the police or school officials to intervene. When asked whether Flower Mound Police could have voluntarily enforced the ban, Kyer said "They would have had no leg to stand on. We don't have any no tresspassing signs on these campuses." Kyer said that Lewisville High School was the exception, and that they had put no tresspassing signs there some time ago because people were parking cars there for sale on the weekends.

Just to cover our bases, we did submit an open records request last week for any documents related to Flower Mound Cares, or any discussion related to this incident between LISD staff and Flower Mound officials.