On Friday Burnet County Judge Allan Garratt ruled that the case brought against LlanoISD for its use of the online CSCOPE lesson plans had no merit under current state law.
Garratt questioned whether the case against Llano ISD and its superintendent Casey Callahan had any merit because it did not prove injury based on the use of CSCOPE lesson plans.
Attorneys for Llano schools argued that this type of lawsuit must go through state court and must be argued by the attorney general and involve the education commissioner.
"Well, we kind of expected this really and truly, we didn’t think it was in the right court. We figure it will be appealed pretty quickly and we will forward from that," Callahan said.
Bill Hussey, who is one of the plaintiffs in the case, said he’s not disappointed in the ruling:
"This rejuvenates the grassroots movement to get parents involved," Hussey said. "It has added an additional doubt in their minds of what their kids are being taught."
State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, joined anti-CSCOPE groups in Burnet and was listed as a witness in the case.
"We have a state audit that is going to proceed [and] there are questions about the legality of this program from day one," Patrick said. "In other words, there are lots of questions about this entire program and for the school districts just to defend this, again, I really don’t understand."
The judged decided not to call Patrick to testify.
Earlier this summer, the Texas Commissioner of Education Michael Williams ruled that the CSCOPE lesson plans were in the public domain and free for use.
