LETTER FOR PUBLIC COMMENT / READ ALOUD STATEMENT

This is the Speech I gave during the Board Meeting on December 15th, 2025.

I am waiting that they post the Board Meeting online so I can put the link here.

LETTER FOR PUBLIC COMMENT / READ ALOUD STATEMENT

Good evening, Trustees and Superintendent,

My name is Rhonda Clavell Rivera, Founder of Guardians for Transparency Through Truth, Education, and Reform, and a parent and community advocate.

I am here tonight not just to ask questions, but to speak to the real and catastrophic impact this decision will have on our children, our educators, and our community.

Stephen F. Austin was not just another campus.
It is the heart of Jones Creek — a school rooted in generational families, history, stability, and trust.
Closing or dismantling this campus does not simply move students; it fractures a community.

Families in Jones Creek will be displaced.
Children will lose a neighborhood school where relationships, routines, and support systems already exist.
For many students — especially those with disabilities — disruption is not neutral. It is harmful.

This decision will also place an enormous and unfair burden on Freeport Elementary, its teachers, its staff, and particularly its special education teams.

You are not just transferring students.
You are transferring complex needs, caseloads, trauma, transportation challenges, staffing strain, and legal responsibility — without transparency, planning, or accountability.

Special education teachers are already overwhelmed.
They are already under-resourced.
They are already carrying the weight of compliance, individualized instruction, behavioral supports, and federal mandates.

And yet BISD is prepared to add more — without addressing how this burden will be supported, staffed, or funded.

That is not “Future Ready.”
That is reactionary.

BISD’s slogan is “Future Ready.”
So tonight, I ask plainly:

Where is the future readiness in this decision?

Where is the $19 million that was promised to build Stephen F. Austin STEM Academy into the pride and joy of Brazosport ISD?

• Where is the facility that voters were led to believe would be rebuilt, reimagined, and elevated?

• Where is the certification?

• Where is the accountability?
  Where is the program?

Instead, Stephen F. Austin was left on the back burner —

• left without proper STEM certification,

• left without the resources promised,

• left without transparency, and ultimately left behind.

Families were given false hope.
The community was given false assurances.
And now, the solution offered is not investment — but dissolution.

You do not fix neglect by closing the doors.
You do not erase responsibility by reconfiguration.

This Board owes the community answers before action.

· We need accountability.

· We need responsibility.

· And most importantly, we need honesty — for our children, our educators, and the taxpayers who believed in this District.

“Future Ready” cannot be a slogan when the past has not been accounted for.

Before you move forward, you must answer:

• Where did the money go?

• Why was certification never secured?

• Why was this campus allowed to fail quietly instead of being supported loudly?

Our children deserve better than silence.
Our teachers deserve better than overload.
And this community deserves better than being erased.

Thank you.