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Harris County board extends superintendent contract, adopts ELA materials and approves contracts; proclaims March fine-arts observances
Summary
At its March 13 meeting, the Harris County Board of Education extended the superintendent's contract for one year, approved a multimillion-dollar elementary ELA materials adoption payment schedule, awarded a landscape contract, approved several district contracts and proclamations recognizing fine-arts months and school breakfast week.
Garnet Ray III, chairman of the Harris County Board of Education, presided over the March 13 regular meeting where the board approved a series of personnel, curriculum and contract items and issued proclamations recognizing fine-arts and school nutrition observances.
The board voted to extend Superintendent Doctor Finney's employment contract for an additional year after completing its annual evaluation. "I appreciate the opportunity, and I must give most of the credit to my team out here," Finney said after the board moved to approve his contract.
In a separate curriculum and instructional-materials action, the board approved adoption of a Savvas (formerly Pearson) English language arts package. District staff presented a payment schedule the board approved: a $70,000 down payment due on approval, a $467,000 payment scheduled for July 15 and a remaining payment deferred to July 15, 2026. Staff described the district's total commitment as $537,000 and said the payment schedule is intended to help the district's fiscal 2026 budget planning.
The board also approved the recommended landscape services contract award to Outdoor Detail. District staff said Outdoor Detail submitted the "best qualifying bid"; the contract was described as "a little bit higher" than the district's prior landscaper — about a $40,000 increase, according to staff. Two of three bidders met minimum qualifications, the presentation said.
Other approved actions included renewing the district's West Georgia RESA (RISA) membership for fiscal year 2026 (staff said the membership is roughly $61 higher than the previous year), adoption of the 2026–27 school calendar (the version chosen had received the most public votes), and approval of the consent agenda that encompassed the major purchases report, financial report, enrollment report and school nutrition report.
Board members voted to adopt formal proclamations recognizing March 2025 as Youth Art Month, Music in Our Schools Month and Theater in Our Schools Month across the Harris County School District. The board also proclaimed the week of March 2025 as National School Breakfast Week and encouraged public awareness of school nutrition programs.
The meeting included a curriculum update from Doctor Patterson, who announced that the Georgia Department of Education had approved the Harris County School District to offer a fine-arts diploma seal. Patterson said students must complete a fine-arts pathway of three courses, take a fourth fine-arts course, complete 20 hours of arts-related community service, participate in two or more arts-related clubs and complete a capstone project. "But this is a huge win for our whole school district and all of our schools," Patterson said.
Two policy revisions were presented for first reading and will return for a vote at the board's next regular meeting after the required posting period. One revision to the student code of conduct would change transportation language so that elementary students (pre-K through fourth grade) "will not be allowed to get off the bus at a designated stop;" staff noted state law allows fifth-grade students to do so with parental permission. A second revision to the district's gifted-student policy would make automatic referrals to the gifted referral committee when a student scores above the 90th percentile in reading or math on national-normed assessments or other district-approved screeners (the Georgia Milestones may also be used), allowing the district to use multiple norm-referenced instruments as triggers for further testing.
The board recessed to executive session twice during the meeting for personnel- and discipline-related matters, including interviews related to the superintendent position and a student disciplinary appeal, and reconvened before adjourning.
The board took the actions by motion and voice vote; motions and seconds were recorded in the meeting minutes but individual roll-call tallies were not read aloud.
