Long-Range Plan Steering Committee membership

The State Board of Education created an 18-member steering committee to help it craft the Long-Range Plan for Public Education, a statutorily-required report. The committee is to recommend long-term goals for the Texas public school system and identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of the system.  

The recommendations will be forwarded to the 15-member elected State Board of Education, which ultimately will be the body that adopts the long-range plan.

The steering committee is composed of:

Five State Board of Education members

• Donna Bahorich, R-Houston, chair of the State Board of Education 
• Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, chair of the board's Committee on School Initiatives
• Tom Maynard, R-Florence
• Georgina Pérez, D-El Paso
• Marty Rowley, R-Amarillo

Three agency representatives

•  Texas Education Agency representative: Rebecca Shah, strategy delivery specialist
•  Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board representative: David Gardner, deputy commissioner of academic planning and policy
•  Texas Workforce Commission representative: Reagan Miller, deputy director, workforce solutions

10 public stakeholders

Ten public stakeholders were selected from among more than 600 applicants. They are: 

• Adeeb Barqawi, a former high school physics teacher who runs an organization that empowers school districts to nurture the whole child by equipping them with a data driven infrastructure that systematizes impactful connections to resources for all students
• Rikki Bonet, a veteran pre-kindergarten teacher in the Dallas Independent School District who has first-hand experience with dyslexia both as an individual and as a parent
• Avery Bullock, a Weatherford High School senior in Weatherford ISD and an active school leader and community volunteer, working with groups such as the Brazos River Regional Day School Program for the Deaf and Salvation Army
• Sheri Doss, the president-elect of the Texas PTA who is from North East ISD in San Antonio
• Stacey Edmonson, dean of the College of Education at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville who has a wide-range of research and practical experience in the areas of special education and administration
• Lanet Greenhaw, vice president of education and workforce at the Dallas Regional Chamber
• Carol Harle, a current school board member in San Antonio’s Northside ISD and a former teacher and administrator with experience at several grade levels and in the Gifted and Talented Program
• George Kazanas, superintendent of Midway ISD in the Waco area,  a former Region 12 Superintendent of the Year, former Region 8 UIL Music Education Superintendent Representative and former president of the Rio Brazos Education Cooperative Management Board, which provides special education services as well as other services to small districts.
• Gonzalo Salazar, superintendent of Los Fresnos Consolidated ISD with extensive experience working with bilingual education and at-risk students as a teacher and administrator
• Ruth Lopez Turley, director of the Houston Education Research Consortium and a professor of sociology at Rice University

During its kick-off meeting Sept. 12, the committee elected Barbara Cargill as chair and Lanet Greenhaw as vice chair.