As reported by the Dallas Morning News, the DISD board is voting this afternoon on its new ethics policy. The key issue that divides the trustees is how to deal with the situation of a vendor with family or business ties to a board member: Require disclosure and recusal? Or disqualify the vendor from having contracts with the school district? School districts around the state take a variety of different positions on this, and the DMN has editorialized (in favor of an outright ban on such contracts) and solicited short opinion pieces from various “experts” (including me).
This would be a really good topic for a student paper — taking a look at the variety of approaches among Texas school boards (and others) or city councils and the like — and evaluating them for their ethical perspicacity.