After partnering with the nonprofit Texans for Excellence in Education (TEE), the Midland and Conroe Independent School Districts passed measures strengthening parental rights.
Conroe ISD passed several TEE reforms in a meeting on September 16 – bolstering state law SB 12 with concrete definitions of explicit content in libraries and curriculum, and more broadly strengthening parental rights provisions. The district also added financial oversight for Special Education litigation, along with a chaplain program.
Midland ISD also passed TEE measures in a meeting on May 20, aiming to reinforce aspects such as state literacy requirements, educational philosophy, board authority, supervisor and staff accountability, financial oversight, and higher library book standards. When parents pointed out a sexually explicit library book in 2024, according to Texas Scorecard, the district ensured it was no longer offered to students.
“A lot of the edu-crats in the state of Texas and the school board members just don’t have any clue what they’re doing,” said Midland ISD Board President Brandon Hodges to The Dallas Express. “We need to focus on the pedagogies in the curriculum.”
Both Conroe and Midland ISDs are members of TEE, which offers an alternative to the left-leaning Texas Association of School Boards.
John Petree, TEE president, told DX he is proud of Conroe and Midland ISDs for their efforts to restore quality education.
“Texans for Excellence in Education is proud to stand alongside visionary boards like Midland ISD and Conroe ISD as they take bold steps to strengthen governance and accountability,” Petree told DX. “These policies set a new standard in Texas.”
Removing Inappropriate Content
Kara Belew, a founding member of TEE’s board of directors, told DX that the group takes a two-pronged approach: shifting public education away from teaching sexually explicit content and political agendas back to literacy so that every student can read and fully participate in the American republic.
“Our first priority is to remove sexually explicit and biased content from classrooms and to restore the rights of parents in their children’s education,” Belew told DX. “Through our schools, the government is spending millions of our taxpayer dollars to expose our highly impressionable children to ideas about human sexuality that families and communities find deeply objectionable and never consented to.”
She said this is an urgent issue, as educators play a profound role in shaping children’s worldviews.
“Children are highly impressionable. A single teacher can profoundly shape a child’s understanding, particularly at an early age. Too often, classrooms are used to advance personal or political viewpoints rather than focusing on academics,” Belew added. “Political bias has no place in education.”
Hodges emphasized that the board worked to strengthen its policies in line with the recent 89th legislative session – focusing on “family involvement” and “focused learning environments.”
Some of the key changes include requiring parental consent for minors’ internet access and limiting content to educational purposes, excluding what Hodges called “profane, offensive, or non-curricular materials.” The board also bolstered parental notification for student accommodations and “gender identity or pronoun requests,” emphasizing student safety.
Hodges also said the district adopted a policy to refer to students by their biological pronouns – “If on your birth certificate, you’re a male, then you are ‘mister.’ If you’re a female, you’re ‘miss.’”
District librarians have also removed explicit or profane books from school libraries, he said. Though they have struggled to keep up with the books listed in the online database, which has caused some confusion.
Hodges expressed gratitude for a superintendent who is willing to work with the board.
“We’re very lucky and blessed in the fact that we’ve got a superintendent who is not just concerned about teaching the kids, but also what the kids are being taught,” Hodges said.
Earlier this summer, Grand Prairie and Coppell ISDs revised their policies to comply with state law, which requires parental oversight, as previously reported by DX. Explicit books that vividly described sexual encounters, in great detail, had been available in Plano ISD in 2023.
Boosting Literacy
Belew said public schools are amid a “literacy crisis.”
“While some schools devote time and resources to introducing human sexuality materials without parental consent, they are neglecting their most fundamental duty — teaching children to read,” she said. “Millions of Texas students cannot read at grade level.”
In 2024, 43% of Texas fourth graders were reading below the “basic” level, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
“Without strong reading skills, students cannot fully engage in our democracy, make informed choices, or separate truth from misinformation,” Belew said. “Students need to know how to read and how to think.”
Hodges said school districts have been failing the vast majority of students across the state.
“Those kids in larger numbers should be able to read, write, and do basic arithmetic at grade level,” he said. “We’re just not doing that, and I think we’re suffering the consequences.”
He said Midland’s board adopted policies to strengthen literacy standards, in compliance with state requirements.
“We didn’t reinvent the wheel,” he said. “If you continue to convince people that they’re a victim, eventually they’ll believe they’re a victim. And I think that that is a disservice to those kids.”
The district implemented a “structured literacy of phonics” systematic approach for kindergarten to fifth grade, and used “targeted interventions.”
“We put an adaptive platform that supports reading, writing, listening, and speaking across pre-K through 12th grade,” he said. “We’re focusing on early phonics and vocabulary building.”
The district also restricted the use of personal cell phones during school hours, requiring students to turn them off and store them. This helps enforce HB 1481, which took effect September 1 and bans these devices during the school day.
“We’ve seen the K-2nd grade reading proficiency rise from 56% to 65% in recent years,” Hodges said. “We’re on track to see some further gains.”
Overcoming Obstacles
Hodges said that since 2022, families in Midland had been growing upset with the state of public education. He said once he and others concerned about parental rights won a majority on the school board, “the rest is history.”
“We had to put together a team,” he said.
It was initially difficult for some new members to learn academic policy, as Hodges called it “drinking out of a fire hose.” He also said one of the board’s major shifts in thinking was to accept responsibility for holding the district accountable, rather than simply defending “public education” at all costs.
“In Texas, every direction you look around, it’s just grift – in state-level, local-level politics, money and influence pretty much have an iron grip,” he said.
When DX asked who some of the board’s major opponents were, Hodges pointed to groups that want to educate kids for the workforce instead of self-governance, large oil companies, and public educator interest groups like TASB.
TASB acts as a special interest group, as DX previously reported – blocking school choice, and working to keep taxpayer-funded lobbying. The group spent up to $6.8 million in lobbying since 2015. It also trains new school board trustees.
“You’ve got TASB and TASA [Texas Association of School Administrators] and all these other different entities coming in,” Hodges said. “These board members that go into trainings, and they just believe, ‘Pretty much the only thing that a school board trustee does is hire a superintendent, set the tax rate, and approve a budget.’ Those are pieces of our duties and responsibilities, but they are only three of many.”
Hodges emphasized the importance of teaching the founding documents of America and Texas, as well as scripture and other foundational texts. He said the founders cherished education, but did not view it as a main function of government.
Though he also pointed to Article 7 of the Texas Constitution, which prescribes education for “a general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people.”
“People really need to read and understand Article 7, because the point of education is not economic development – it’s not guaranteeing people quality employees,” Hodges said. “Those are all important factors, but they’re not the factor.”
Hodges said if school board members across the state are hesitating to implement these reforms, then “they shouldn’t be on the school board.”
He said board members will face pressure for making changes, but encouraged them to step out of their comfort zones.
“They’re trying to shame you into becoming a member of this cult of toxic positivity,” Hodges said. “I hope that local communities really start focusing on making sure that you’ve got confident school board members.”
Belew called other districts across Texas to improve literacy and parental rights for their students.
“It takes tremendous courage for school boards to stand up and say, ‘No more. We believe in parental rights. We believe in protecting children. We believe in an unbiased education. We believe in ensuring every student reads on grade level. And we will adopt policies to make that happen.’”