The board that governs the Texas School for the Deaf meets Friday morning with 22 items in front of it, including two that come straight out of last year’s culture-war legislation: approving a list of library books, and certifying that the school follows a new law banning diversity work in public schools.
The certification is the sharper of the two. A 2025 law makes a superintendent certify each year that his school assigns no diversity, equity and inclusion duties to anyone, and that it can discipline or fire an employee, contractor or volunteer who knowingly takes them on. The board has to approve that certificate at a public meeting with a chance for people to speak, after a week’s notice online. It goes to the Texas Education Agency by September 30 and must list any cost savings. The agency told districts in May that this is the first year it is required. Whether the law reaches this school at all is an open question it does not answer: the requirement is written for school districts and charter schools, while the School for the Deaf is a state agency with a governor-appointed board that state law tells to act like a school district board of trustees. The school is putting it to a vote regardless.
The library item follows a different 2025 law, which makes boards approve the books a school library buys or is given, leave the list open to public review for at least 30 days, and vote on it in an open meeting. Replacement copies of books already on the shelves are exempt. That law is separate from a 2023 statute making vendors rate books, which a federal judge permanently blocked last October in a ruling the state has appealed. The same question about whether any of it reaches a state agency applies here too.
Money and safety fill most of the rest. The board votes on next year’s operating budget and on the appropriations request it will send lawmakers by August 21 — written under a July order from the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker telling every agency to shave three percent off its baseline. It also hears findings from an intruder detection audit, which state law keeps confidential, and an internal audit report whose technology section goes behind closed doors under a law letting boards discuss network security privately.
One oddity worth noting: the school’s published board calendar for this year lists August 20 and 21, not this week. Three meetings were posted instead for August 13 and 14.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 11 a.m. CT Friday, August 14, 2026. A policy committee meets at 9 a.m. the same day, and the board met separately on August 13. The notice was filed August 7.
- Where
- Administrative Welcome Center Board Room, 1102 South Congress Ave., Austin.
- Governing body & chair
- Governing Board of the Texas School for the Deaf — nine members the governor appoints with Senate consent, at least five of whom must be deaf. Shawn P. Saladin is president.
- Format
- In person. A sign-up sheet for public comment sits outside the board room the day of the meeting; there is no advance deadline. Board policy sets no fixed per-speaker limit but bars the chair from cutting anyone below a minute.
- Live video
- None found. Nothing on the school’s board pages or its meeting portal indicates this meeting will be streamed or recorded on video.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · meeting materials portal
Board members
- Shawn P. Saladin — president; UT Rio Grande Valley deaf rehabilitation academic.
- Heather “Hex” Lightfoot, Austin — vice president; orientation and mobility specialist.
- Christopher Moreland, New Braunfels — secretary; internal medicine physician.
- Lisalee D. Egbert, Arlington — UT Arlington deaf studies professor.
- Gregorio Mata, Edinburg — operations and data associate at a national nonprofit.
- Darlene “DJ” Nobles, Waco — owner of an interpreting agency.
- Oscar Ocuto, Austin — associate professor of education, Gallaudet University.
- Lauren Ridloff, Austin — actress; parent of two deaf sons.
- Kathy Sellers, Kosse — lead interpreter, Bryan school district.
The roster follows the school’s own board biographies page and the roll-call sheet posted with this meeting’s materials; all nine seats are filled and officers were elected in November 2025. That page lists no city for the board president, so none is given. Two members’ published cities differ between the school’s pages and the governor’s appointment announcements — Moreland appears as New Braunfels and Austin, Ocuto as Austin and Manchaca — and the school’s listing is used here. Peter L. Bailey has been superintendent since September 2023. The school, founded in 1856, is a state agency in its own right and put on-campus enrollment at 544 for 2025-26 in its most recent strategic plan. Board policy requires notice on a campus bulletin board, the school’s website and through the secretary of state.