DISD School Board Agenda

February 17, 2026 Published following monthly school board meetings 

Denison ISD Board of Trustees President Bob Rhoden called to order the Meeting of the Denison ISD Board of Trustees on Tuesday, February 17, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. in the Bruce T. Hibbett Board Room in the Denison ISD Administration Building in Denison, Texas. Let the record show a quorum of board members was present. This meeting has been duly called and notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas government code Chapter 551 The Board began the meeting with the role of the Board of Trustees which states, “Board meetings are a public meeting of the Board of Trustees, not a meeting of the public. Day-to-day operations of the school district is the function of the Superintendent, but he or she must do so within the framework of policies and priorities adopted by the Board of Trustees.” The meeting continued with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Major Mullins from Hyde Park Elementary followed by the invocation by Denison ISD assistant superintendent Dr. Andru Gilbert. The vision statement of the DISD Board of Trustees, who work diligently to serve and meet the educational needs of more than 4,500 Denison ISD students, states “The Denison Independent School district will inspire, enable and encourage all students to learn, grow and succeed in a global society.”    

During the Board Comments portion of the meeting, trustees stated… 

Board member Eric Hunt: ”Well, I guess mine is going to be simple and kind of short. I'm just happy to be back. Happy to be here. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you, Dr. Kirkbride, for keeping me abreast of everything going on. We communicate really well with the board, and so I've seen things, even from a hospital bed, but everything's exciting. I'm glad to be here. Thank you.”

Board member Amber Pilcher: “As a parent, I want to say thank you so much for all the care and safety you took into account for the kids during the winter storm. I know those are not easy decisions and you have the community looking at you and then we continue to get communicated with it. It's going to be another day and another day at home. And so, no, but I just appreciate the way that everybody came together and I felt like the communication, it was out there, it was great. I appreciate you taking the kids' safety into account.” 

Board vice-president Becky Russell: “Well, to piggyback off of that, I kind of wanted to highlight the Lady Jacket softball team. During the ice, they gathered 300 buckets of ice off of their field so they would be ready to play ball in just a couple of days. I thought that was kind of a pretty cool thing that they did. And they're under the direction of Chris Anderson who was really proud of them. They were able to play really quickly. And that field was ready, which would not have happened a couple of years ago when we didn't have the turf. With their effort and the new turf, they were able to be playing ball again really quickly. They're playing tonight and they're undefeated so that's really cool.” 

Board member Charlie Pool: “Made this comment in a four o'clock meeting. You know, being a school board member can be kind of lonely unless there's a hot topic and “are we having school tomorrow” was a hot topic. I'm pretty sure Sunday night, if we had a bond and we wanted it to pass, if we'd have school on Monday, we would have 100% participation. It's weeks like that that I think parents really appreciate the educators that we have. I'm just very happy that the state is not making us make up those days. It's quite a blessing, so thank you.” 

Board member Brian Hander: “So Nash, my kiddo, really likes construction. I’m lucky we live close to Main Street. It's been under construction for a little bit. But his favorite thing to see now are the schools under construction. We drive by BMAC a lot so I thought I'd do a little BMAC trivia. If you don't know, the B in B. McDaniel stands for, it's spelled like Bernice, but he pronounced it Bernice. Either way, however you pronounce it, he did not like that name so he only went by B the entire time. And a big thing that's kind of neat about him, he was approaching 65 and he was going to have to retire because there was a mandatory retirement age of 65 at that time. The school board asked if he would stay until 70. He said he would only stay if they would extend it for all of the teachers as well, because there were teachers that wanted to stay until they were 70. If you want to, you can. So, they extended it and he stayed until he was almost 70. He retired and the Denison Alumni Association bought him a brand new car. That's your trivia for the day.” 

Board secretary Shelle Cassell: “Oh, everybody's already said everything that was on my mind, except for the BMAC story. I love that. I love that he (Hander) just has these history things. We are in the spring semester and before we know it we'll be talking graduation and commencement activities and all of that. But, I'm glad we don't have roof leaks that a lot of people discovered they had. We're ready. The spring semester's here and we're gonna roll right through it and have a great semester.” 

Board president Bob Rhoden: “I would say, Mr. Hunt, we are glad to see you. That seat doesn’t look good down there without you in it. So, we're glad that you're here. I also want to thank you, Dr. Kirkbride and the Admin team, for the erring on the side of caution for our students. I have a friend, who Eric is friends with as well, who put the play-by-play on Facebook every day and it's funny. Still, I think all the parents were appreciative that their kiddos were safe. We live out in the country so we see what those buses would have to go over and it was pretty scary. We're not going to announce yet officially, but we have an election coming up. We've got a couple of folks who filed for re-election, and we'll have some exciting news about that in a couple of weeks at the next board meeting. I'm happy to say that we do have folks who filed for those open seats, so we will have a full board.” 

Following the Board Comments portion of the meeting, Board president Bob Rhoden opened the floor for Public Comments. Following the Public Comments portion of the meeting, the Board proceeded to hear Superintendent comments. 

Denison ISD Superintendent Dr. David Kirkbride: “Just a couple of quick things. I sent an e-mail out last week about a budget workshop in March. March 24th. So, if you have not gotten back with me on whether that date works or not, March 24th at 5:00pm, you can either let me know tonight after the meeting or just shoot me an e-mail or a text sometime in the next couple of days just so we can start planning that. Again, that's March 24th for our budget workshop. We are having our board meeting late that month. It'll be March 31st because of Spring Break. The budget workshop would be the week before that.  Just let me know if that works. And then the next time we meet, even for the budget workshop or a regular board meeting, we will have had Spring Break and that's just around the corner. Three and a half weeks, it's hard to believe, but that'll be on us. And then when we get back this semester, we'll fly by. But there's a lot of important work left to do, as we all know. Eric, again, welcome back.” 

Following the Superintendent comments, the meeting proceeded as scheduled. 

ACTION ITEMS

Routine Business - Consent Agenda 

• Approval of Board minutes for the January 2026 (11.A.1) 
• Approve Expenditures for December 2025 (11.A.2) 
• Approval of the December 2025 investment report (11.A.3) 
• Approval of the December 2025 financial reports (11.A.4) 
• Approval of the December 2025 tax reports (11.A.5) 

REGULAR BUSINESS

• The principal of each campus will sponsor a luncheon for the parent-teacher organization on Thursday, March 5, 2026. 
• The Public Information Department will coordinate publicity of Texas Public Schools Week through media outlets. 
• Each school principal, working with their parent-teacher organization, will develop activities that invite parents and patrons to visit our schools during the week. 
• Special exhibits of students’ work will be displayed at each campus. 

INFORMATION ITEMS

• Aliza Hastings – Terrell Elementary Teacher (effective 1/23/26) 
• David Self – Director of Facilities (retirement, effective 6/30/26) 
• Alvis Dunlap – B. McDaniel Principal (retirement, effective 6/30/26) 

• Erin Griffith – SMS Math Teacher (effective 1/26/26) 
• Allyson Wims – Terrell Elementary Teacher (effective 2/2/26) 

• Anderson, Dustin: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Anderson, Sandra: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Bach, Holly: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Boettger, Cavin: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Brown, Jennifer:  2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Butler, Angela: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Cates, Brandon: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Goodell, Lyn: 2026-2027 1 Year Probationary Contract 
• Harris, Kyle: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Haywood, Tia: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Johnson, Shelby: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Kaai, Kerry: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Kush, Lisa: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Noble, Caleb: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Oliver, Akeia: 2026-2027 1 Year Probationary Contract 
• Truxal, Melanie: 2026-2027 1 Year Term Contract 
• Uber, Kyle: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract 
• Woolford, Jackie: 2026-2029 3 Year Term Contract