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McKinney ISD board upholds administration, denies grievance alleging EFAC skirted state committee rules
Summary
On Jan. 14, 2026 the McKinney ISD Board of Trustees denied a level 3 grievance from Thomas Klein, who argued the Educational Facilities Alignment Committee (EFAC) functioned as a statutory planning committee under Texas Education Code 11.251 and thus should have followed statutory membership and open-meetings rules; district administration said EFAC was a temporary advisory body and compliant with board policy.
On Jan. 14, 2026, the McKinney Independent School District Board of Trustees voted to deny a level 3 grievance filed by Thomas Klein alleging the district's Educational Facilities Alignment Committee (EFAC) was misclassified to evade statutory membership and open-meetings requirements.
The complaint came before the board during a special meeting called and chaired by Vice President Harvey Wahaca; Klein argued that EFAC performed district-level planning and decisionmaking functions covered by Texas Education Code 11.251 and the Texas Open Meetings Act and that the district had failed to provide complete committee membership information in response to public information requests.
Klein told the board that EFAC's resolution assigned it core planning tasks — including studying projected student enrollment, campus capacity and recommending attendance-zone maps — and that a confidentiality requirement in the EFAC resolution was incompatible with public-access rules. "The EFAC is not a harmless advisory group. It is a district level planning and decision making committee performing functions expressly governed by TEC 11.251 and subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act," Klein said.
District administration, represented by Aretha Jackson, urged the board to deny the grievance and said the EFAC was established as a temporary advisory committee under board policy BDF Local and BQB Local that provides recommendations but not final decisions. "District administration respectfully requests that the grievance be denied as the district is in legal compliance," Jackson said, noting the board retains ultimate authority and could edit the resolution or reconstitute the committee.
Board members questioned which statutory provisions applied and whether EFAC had in practice made decisions. A board member asked Klein whether the committee had recommended school eliminations; Klein replied that EFAC recommendations had included identification of schools to repurpose and that his original proposal had identified eight underutilized campuses and one middle school as candidates for consolidation or repurposing.
After an executive session for consultation with counsel, a board member moved to deny the level 3 appeal; the motion was seconded by Vice President Harvey Wahaca and the board voted in favor. The chair declared the motion carried.
The meeting record shows the board also discussed ordinary calendar items — including reminders about the Jan. 20 regular meeting and a Feb. 24 grassroots meeting to be held in Irving — then adjourned. Any formal change to EFAC's structure or composition would require a future board action.
(Reporting note: quotes and attributions in this article come from the board meeting record and public comment and are attributed to the speakers who appear in that record.)
