Networking 5:30pm
Meeting 6:30pm
Casa Chapala
Bastrop, TX
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Tom Maynard
- Duties of the State Board of Education
- Tom’s views on the duties of the State Board of Education
- Tom’s top priorities
- Demand accountability
- Support local control
- Prepare students for the future
- Enable good teachers
- What the State Board of Education controls
- What the State Board of Education does not control
- The importance of the State Board of Education
- How it impacts our lives
- How we can impact the State Board of Education, make our voices heard
- Why our local school board members are so important
Tom Maynard is a member of the State Board of Education, representing District 10, which includes Williamson and Bell Counties and portions of Travis County on the Interstate-35 corridor and reaches to Freestone County on the northeast corner, Waller County on the southeast corner and Burnet County on the west end.
Maynard has been actively engaged in education as a parent, teacher, school board trustee and non-profit executive for more than 30 years. Maynard worked in career and technical education for 13 years as an agricultural science teacher and earned national recognition for innovative programs and student achievement. He served for 17 years as executive director of the Texas FFA Association, the nation’s largest state career and technical student organization with an overall membership of more than 118,000 students on more than 1,000 Texas campuses. Maynard retired from this post in January 2017.
Under his leadership, Texas FFA more than doubled its membership, implemented new programs, achieved financial stability and set records for student engagement and scholarship dollars awarded. Maynard is the Texas FFA’s longest serving chief executive in the organization’s 88-year history and earned a national reputation for implementing innovative technology solutions to overcome issues created by limited staffing. He was named the nation’s outstanding state FFA executive in 2016 by the National Association of Supervisors of Agricultural Education. Maynard also served as president and regional vice president of that organization.
Maynard also comes to the State Board with fine arts experience. He has led church music programs as a choir director and worship leader for 17 years. He and his wife Freda also operate a real estate appraisal firm and a small purebred livestock operation that leverages reproductive technologies such as embryo transfer.
The product of a broken home, Maynard rose above humble circumstances, growing up at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch, northwest of Amarillo, and working his way through Texas Tech University to earn a degree and teacher certification. He served as a school board trustee for six years, as president of the Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch Alumni Association and as a member of the Texas FFA Foundation Board of Directors.
He and Freda have five children and nine grandchildren and reside in Williamson County. Maynard. a Republican, believes in accountability, transparency, local control and in a parent’s right to direct the education of their child. He believes that our curriculum should be challenging and factual, created with input from stakeholders and designed to prepare our students to succeed in post-secondary education, thrive in a competitive free market economy and function effectively as citizens and community leaders. He is committed to protecting the Permanent School Fund and revitalizing the workforce development component of public education.
As a member of the SBOE, Maynard has served as chair of the Committee on Instruction and is currently chair of the Committee on School Finance/Permanent School Fund. He also served on the board’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Long-Range Plan for Public Education and the Long-Range Plan Steering Committee. Maynard was re-elected to a new four-year term on the board in November 2016. And again in November 2020.
District 10 includes the counties of Austin, Bastrop, Bell, Burleson, Burnet, Falls, Fayette, Freestone, Lee, Leon, Limestone, Madison, Milam, Robertson, Waller, Washington, Williamson and part of Travis.