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BISD Memorial Stadium might soon be renamed.
Beaumont Independent School District (BISD) Board of Trustees have opted to again revisit a discussion steeped in dispute, an issue well-outside any school or classroom.
BISD trustees have elected to rehash the naming of Memorial Stadium in an attempt to revert its moniker back to honor Carrol A. Thomas, a former superintendent who oversaw the district when it lost millions of dollars through misappropriation.
Precipitated by reporting from The Examiner, a Texas Education Agency Audit revealed that millions of dollars were embezzled or misappropriated from the school district during Carrol A. Butch Thomas’ tenure. That prompted the state-appointed board of managers to remove Thomas’ name from the school district’s marquee event center. According to BISD at the time, the name alteration was made “in an effort to bridge divisions with the Beaumont community.”
Among others named in the TEA advisory presented in 2014, current board of trustees Vice President Woodrow Reese was also among the officials present during the era of mass misappropriation. Reese was removed from the board upon the appointment of TEA’s board of managers. Voters re-elected Reese in May 2021.
Prior to Reese’s removal, he was instrumental in bringing a measure before the district overseers that would have eliminated more than 100 teaching positions and put those teachers out of work. Reese was also a proponent of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to keep the disgraced board of trustees on the dais.
In recent months, the board of trustees has pondered the idea of recruiting a donor to pay for the renaming of the football stadium, which is also the district’s “educational complex.” Board members Woodrow Reese and Stacey Lewis Jr. are bringing the measure before the board again at the meeting of the elected officials to be held the evening of May 19.
Also on the agenda
Trustees have a host of other items up for vote at the Thursday night meeting, with community involvement at the center of multiple potential actions.
Among them, trustees will mull whether to allow residents the ability to sign up to speak at meetings for a minute and a half. According to state officials, House Bill 2840, “impacts the manner in which public comment is conducted in (BISD meetings). Prior to this legislation, the board had ample discretion to manage the portion of the meeting when citizens could address the board. The law now requires that public comment be permitted on agenda items at all meetings, including regular meetings, special meetings, and board workshops. The opportunity for the public to address the board on an agenda item must be before or during the board’s deliberation on the item.”
After holding a public hearing on redistricting at 6 p.m., trustees will consider whether to adopt a new district map.The agenda item will have trustees consider whether to reshuffle the map to result in one representative covering one geographical area. In terms of current representation on the school district board, any given Beaumont resident has three representatives, including their district trustee and the two at large.
– B. Scott McLendon and Jennifer Johnson contributed to this report