Texas School Procedures is an unusual business. A subscription service providing professionally researched and written documentation for the state’s school districts and open enrollment charters – you won’t find something quite like it anywhere else in the US. Yet, its origins are as classic as it gets. You’ve probably heard this one before: a dedicated employee spends years in the trenches, learning the industry inside and out, before one day asking, “Shouldn’t there be a better way?”

Today we’re happy to share our interview with Debby Moore, founder and CEO of Texas School Procedures. Debby took her passion for making the lives of educators easier and turned it into a one-of-a-kind service to the state of Texas.

TxSP: What is your professional history? What came before TxSP?
Debby: I am one of those jack-of-all-trades educators. When I first started in education, all I ever wanted to be was a special education teacher working with students who faced academic and behavioral challenges. But along the way, I also had the opportunity to grow in my experiences and expertise by serving as a school counselor, a director of an alternative education program, a special education counselor / behavioral specialist, a campus principal, and a district director over student and administrative services. 

TxSP: Wow, so you really did it all?
Debby: I welcomed the challenge and it was important to me. You can’t be a great teacher if you don’t yourself love to learn. I just kept pushing forward.

TxSP: What inspired you to start TxSP?
Debby: When I was at the central district office, one of my responsibilities was to write campus regulations for the district. It had been a fairly small district, but we were at the beginning of a very LARGE growth spurt.

As in many school districts, we had some written procedures and common forms to use, but they were not saved in any one place or in any consistent way. So as always happens, we ended up with multiple versions of our procedures, none of them dated, none of them vetted and aligned with current laws, and without any idea who wrote them. 

After I retired from that district, colleagues who I had worked with and moved to other districts asked me if I would come write protocols and documents for their new districts. Thus began the idea of developing a website that any size district would benefit from using not just the regulations or protocols, but all the documents needed to implement the protocols as well.

TxSP: How long have you been building your library? 
Debby: The library started about seven years ago with two sections – one for campus administrators and another section for professional school counselors. At the request of our partnering districts we began to add other sections, and now we have almost 2000 protocols and accompanying documents for seven sections. We add, modify, or delete information on a regular basis due to state and federal laws, district requests, as well as research-based practices to support unfunded mandates.

TxSP: Is there an element of school operation that you really love serving or writing about? 
Debby: I’m glad you used the term school operation, because when we began, we only wrote protocols and documents aligned with board policy. What we found out in our work was schools wanted more protocols and documents that dealt with the day-to-day operations in every area of school life that extended beyond board policy. My favorite area that I really enjoy serving or writing about is any area that has to be implemented at the campus level, because that is where the “rubber meets the road” and the real work for students happens. Anything TxSP can do to help support that work or make it easier – that is the goal of our work.

TxSP: Where do you see TxSP growing next? Are there still more topics you want to cover? 
Debby: There are always new topics to cover as the laws change on a regular basis, and our districts always challenge us to help them develop procedures for new ventures such as drones, behavior support, trainings, etc. We are currently working on the requirements for HB 18 and the school counseling program to be implemented in the 2020-21 school year, new federal guidelines on prayer in schools, and have recently added information on immigrant students, transgender students, and a large section for secondary counselors on transcripts, graduation requirements, etc.

TxSP: What do you think is the biggest challenge administrators face in terms of regulations and protocols? 
Debby: The biggest challenge administrators face is in not having regulations or protocols at all provided by their districts. Our experience has shown us that whether you are a very small or very large district, most districts do not have a bank of “how-to” protocols and prepared documents and letters to use. Therefore, administrators and school staff are having to make time to research and develop these on their own – which takes time away from being in the classrooms and building relationships with students. 

We have not found a single district which has a designated district staff member who has the time, knowledge, or experience to develop these protocols and documents and keep them updated along with all their other responsibilities. Viola – Texas School Procedures!

TxSP: What do you think the future holds for school administration in Texas? What do you think districts should be expecting over the next 5-10 years? 
Debby: With SB 11 and HB 18 being signed into law this last legislation, I believe that we will continue to see more legislation on safety, mental health, and support services. We will also continue to see an emphasis on college, career, and military readiness and closing the gap in learning for our students. I also have worked with TEA on a project and see support and movement towards originality and thinking outside of the box.

TxSP: What are you the most proud of regarding Texas School Procedures?
Debby: TxSP prides itself on truly being service oriented and responsive to our districts’ needs. I believe our website really makes jobs easier for campus administrators, counselors, nurses, and support staff and brings peace of mind to district staff that everyone is consistent in application of the law and best practices.

If you’d like to learn more about Texas School Procedures, how it works and the incredible benefits it can offer your district, start here.

Texas School Procedures March 11, 2020 0 0

Debby Moore

CEO. Trainer & Product Developer

Debby Moore has had over 32 years’ experience in Texas Public School Education as a district administrator for Administrative and Student Services, as a campus administrator for elementary and secondary levels, as counselor for special and regular education at all levels, as a behavioral specialist, and as a regular and special education teacher. Although Debby retired in December of 2010, she continued to serve in several interim school district positions such as Director of Elementary Operations, COO of Human Resources, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, and Director of Student Services. In June 2013, Debby formed Texas School Procedures, LLC.

Responsibilities at the District administrative level included developing and overseeing district guidance and counseling programs, writing district regulations, forms, and letters, training and overseeing district discipline guidelines and other operational procedures for administrators, overseeing district safety programs, handling parent complaints and grievances, and chairing expulsion hearings. Over her years of service to public education and during retirement, she has presented staff development for teachers, counselors and administrators at local, regional, state, and national levels.

Debby has been married for 30+ years to a very loving and supportive husband. Her immediate family includes two sons, three inherited sons, one daughter through marriage, and six very special grandchildren. Debby loves spending time with their pets (Bailey, a rescued cocker spaniel, and LiLo, a rescued calico cat), researching, writing, and reading. Binge-watching various detective/crime series (particularly British) on Netflix has been a well-guarded secret to this point.

Rich Claypool

CFO and Operations

Rich has served in customer service and sales positions in various industries before joining Texas School Procedures from the very beginning in June of 2013. Rich was instrumental in developing the behind-the-scenes core set-up and operations of the company with company attorneys and establishing business procedures to ensure smooth operations and functioning of the company. He continues to serve in the capacity of managing all operational aspects of TxSP and as liaison to subscribing districts providing all “vendor” documents.

Rich is the proud father of one daughter, Dilyn, and will tell anyone that she is his number one priority. They enjoy being outdoors and doing anything athletic together such as swimming, hiking, running, biking, paddle boarding, fishing, camping, and kayaking. He is a very involved parent and always attends any school activity or parent conference and has supported her outside activities of karate, dance, basketball, and softball, to name a few.

Rich is also an advocate of animals and rescues his fur pets from organizations that take in forgotten animals off the streets. He currently has Kong (a “pitte”) and Bruiser (a “chiweenie”) that he adopted from South Side Street Dogs, a non-profit vegan Animal Rescue out of Houston, Texas.

Nancy Rouse

Customer Service and Website Administrator

Nancy Rouse is a retired Texas educator and Technology support staff member with 35 years in education. Her roles in Texas schools have been varied and include teaching, mentoring, instructional specialist/designer, and management of technology systems. In addition to educating district teachers in current software, she also became a subject matter expert on teacher web page development using Lotus Notes and became the District Lotus Notes Administrator and Webmaster. During this time, Nancy helped transition to a new email system as the Microsoft Exchange Administrator and helped usher in and manage a new phone system for the district as Microsoft Lync Administrator.

It was Nancy’s stent as District webmaster where she first met Debby Moore, a colleague. Debby was developing policies, regulations, and procedures for the school district and Nancy created a website to house the “Regs” and became invaluable in editing and posting the documents. In 2016, shortly before retiring, Nancy was again approached by Debby, this time to join TxSP to edit documents and help manage the new TxSP website. So impressed by the regulations and best practices that were being developed, Nancy has continued to support her in this capacity as a valued customer service representative and document and website manager.

Nancy has three grown sons, two daughters in law, and four grandchildren – three boys and finally, a girl. She enjoys her most precious gift, her family, and the time spent with them vacationing, hunting, fishing and laughing.

Tracy Laborde

Customer Service & Project Management

Tracy Laborde has over 20 years of professional communications, project management and client relations experience. A University of Texas at Austin graduate, Tracy left Texas and started her career in Atlanta, GA. There she worked at Turner Broadcasting in their educational outreach department where she supported taking CNN, and other Turner programming, and developing course curriculum and support material for schools across the country. Her final years in Atlanta were with Coca-Cola Enterprises where she was a communications manager for their change management team; focusing on a system-wide software implementation.

Tracy returned to Houston in 2006 and worked for University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center until 2018 where she spent most of her years building a project management team to support the MD Anderson Cancer Network, a program that collaborates with hospitals and health systems in Texas, the nation, and the world to improve the quality and accessibility of cancer care and research.

Currently, Tracy is on leave from TxSP and is enjoying traveling full-time with her husband, daughter and dog anywhere that the wind blows; or that her husband’s job takes them. Embracing every adventure, small or big, is what she and her family enjoy doing these days; and they do it all across the country living in an RV (aka tiny house on wheels).

Dr. Glenda Boyer

Contributor, Consultant, and Trainer

Dr. Boyer has worked as an educator, school counselor, student assistance coordinator, licensed counselor/supervisor, trainer/consultant, and adjunct teacher in DFW area with over 30 years of combined experience. She currently has a private practice in the Denton area, working with children, adolescents, and their families, as well as adults and couples. Consultation with educators, professional development for school counselors, and adjunct teaching at area universities are also a large part of her professional life. Glenda has been with Texas School Procedures from the beginning providing training and consultation to counselors and developing counseling presentations for the site.

Glenda’s passion is working with children and adolescents and consulting with others who share the same passion – sharing from her experience and learning the needs of counselors and their students in educational settings. Play interventions with children, hands-on activities for curriculum-based support groups, crisis response, suicide prevention, bullying prevention, and counselor self-care/burnout prevention are just a few of her current interests in working with counselors in school settings.

Personal time includes time with friends and family and a small family ranching operation. Glenda has two sons and one daughter as well as a daughter-in-law and son-in-law and five grandchildren. In her spare time, she maintains close to 400 acres in West Texas where she is the proud “parent” of 30 to 40 head of cattle.

Michelle Capener

Contributor, Consultant, and Trainer

Michelle Berry Capener, MS, LPC, is both a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Certified School Counselor and has twenty-four (24) years of experience in public education. She began her education career working for a non-profit organization at an elementary campus. She later served as a behavior specialist at a high school, a counselor at a middle school and has spent the remainder of her time at the District level supporting counselors and AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) staff for a District with an enrollment of about 25,000 students. Michelle also facilitated twenty-six (26) Fifth-Grade Career Fair events during her tenure which featured 75 community volunteers and served 700 students per occurrence.

Michelle’s varied experience at all grade levels, coupled with her serving in both campus and district roles, has provided her with valuable insights. Her commitment to establishing consistency within the district and monitoring compliance to state mandates was designed to strengthen and support District initiatives at all levels. In addition, her attention to detail and exceptional organizational skills allowed her to successfully orchestrate large district-wide events while simultaneously providing critical support to staff.

Michelle has been married to her husband, Todd, for 22 years. She is a proud mother to her 16-year-old son, Jordan. She is also an animal lover and enjoys spending time with her two cats, Jake and Daphne, and her beloved pup, Maggie. Michelle loves spending time on and near the water and aspires to one day live near the ocean. Personal time activities include attending church, reading, enjoying live music, exercising, and spending time with friends and family.

César Castro

Spanish Translations

César I. Castro was born in Veracruz, Mexico and immigrated to Texas at the age of 12. One year later, he was the first in his family of four to become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He graduated from Plano East Senior High School and attended Tarrant County Community College.

Besides being fluent in English and Spanish, César is also fluent in American Sign Language and has volunteered teaching the bible in the deaf community since 2010. He has worked for various school districts in office assistance administration and translation. He now has his own translation business and continues to support districts and Texas School Procedures in providing accurate Spanish translations so that parents can be partners in their student’s education and students have access to documents in Spanish while they are learning English.

At the age of 26 he married his beautiful wife, Monique Castro, a certified A.S.L. interpreter, and moved to Fort Worth, TX. Together they participate in the Local Design and Construction Department of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which builds and maintains Kingdom Halls (centers of worship) and aids in disaster relief efforts in the U.S. branch territory. Together, they have two puppies Sonny (Mut) and Jojo (Yorkie Pomeranian mix). They love camping trips and swimming at a lake, river, or beach.

Dr. Sandra McCoy-Jackson

Contributor, Consultant & Trainer

In 2017, Dr. McCoy-Jackson became the Superintendent in Sanger ISD. Under the leadership of Dr. McCoy-Jackson: In 2018, all campuses achieved “Met Standard” while earning 4 Distinctions and earning a “C” rating: In 2019, the district received a “B” rating. In addition, Sanger ISD was selected by the Texas Education Agency to receive a Pre-K Grant for $750K.

Before becoming Superintendent, she served as an Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction in Duncanville ISD and Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning in Brazosport ISD.

Dr. McCoy-Jackson also held the position of Director of Elementary Student Services, Director of Student Community Partnership, Principal and Assistant Principal in Allen ISD. Dr. McCoy-Jackson received her under-graduate degree from East Texas State University, now Texas A&M – Commerce, in Elementary Education/English. Dr. McCoy-Jackson has also obtained 2 Master’s Degrees from National-Louis University – Chicago, Illinois one in Reading and the other in administration. Dr. McCoy-Jackson was awarded her doctorate in Educational Leadership in December 2008 from Nova Southeastern University – Fort Lauderdale, Florida.