On April 22, 2026, LION founder Jesse LeVasseur delivered an Open Letter to the seven-member Allen Independent School District (Allen ISD) Board of Trustees. The letter flagged the 818-book library materials purchase known as List 4 — the fourth annual collection of titles recommended for placement on Allen ISD shelves under the district’s Local School Library Advisory Council (LSLAC) process — and asked the board to postpone the vote pending review.
LION — Local Integrity Oversight Network — is a Texas watchdog organization that documents and publishes government conduct against the primary public record. The Open Letter opened LION’s documented engagement with Allen ISD.
The letter was addressed to Board President Polly Montgomery and the six other trustees, and copied to Superintendent Robin Bullock. It identified the same statutory framework that governs the LSLAC — Texas Education Code §33.025, enacted by Senate Bill 13 in the 2025 legislative session — and asked the board to defer action on List 4 until the underlying recommendation process could be examined on the public record.
The Open Letter framed three concerns at a high level: that the volume of List 4 (818 titles) outpaced any meaningful per-title review the council could have conducted in a single cycle; that no LSLAC agendas, minutes, or recordings had been located in any public Allen ISD posting; and that the council’s composition and selection process warranted documentation before another bulk approval moved forward. The letter did not allege a violation. It asked the board to pause and produce the record.
One day later, on April 23, 2026, LION filed its first formal Texas Public Information Act (PIA) request — Texas Government Code Chapter 552, which gives Texas residents the right to request records held by governmental bodies — with Allen ISD Chief Communications Officer and Public Information Officer David Hicks, seeking the source materials underlying the proposed library lists. That request, logged as ALLENISD-PIA-001, is the subject of a separate update.
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