Rod Hammer

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a constitutional Christian conservative. The "Protect Conroe ISD" candidates have called me a "Christian Nationalist." If that means I believe this nation was built on Christian principles and that those principles still matter, then I am proud of the label. My forefathers fought in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, and my grandfather and father served during WWII and Vietnam. They defended a country whose foundation George Washington described in his Farewell Address: religion and morality are "indispensable supports" of political prosperity. I have family members in many Christian faiths, and I support every one of them in worshiping Christ in their own way and living by Christian ideals.

I am retired. I worked in construction close to 30 years. I was a President, Executive VP, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Controller, VP of Merger & Acquisitions and served on Executive Leadership Teams and Executive Boards for companies. I started my professional career at Ernst & Young LLP as an auditor and worked briefly over Internal Audit and Financial Reporting for a publicly traded company.

Rod Hammer is a Certified Public Accountant and retired construction executive who spent 25 years managing budgets larger than Conroe ISD's. He served as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and President of construction companies, most recently overseeing more than $1 billion in annual revenue across eight operating companies for Baker Construction. He has led turnarounds of struggling divisions, cut costs by looking outside the box, and completed 15 mergers and acquisitions. His job for 25 years was to find waste, fix what was broken, and answer to owners for every dollar. Rod began his career as an auditor with Ernst & Young and holds bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting from Brigham Young University. He paid his way through school working construction as an equipment operator and laborer, and he still believes the people doing the work usually know what's wrong before the people in the office do....

1. I answer to the people paying the bills. For 25 years my job was to answer to owners and shareholders for every dollar. Nobody let me raise prices to cover my mistakes; I had to find the money inside the operation. A school board is no different. The taxpayers own this district, and the board works for them and for the parents, not for the administration. I will treat your tax dollars the way I treated my owners' money: as something I was trusted with and had to account for. 2. I am the only candidate who has actually managed a budget bigger than the district's. Conroe ISD's trustees vote on hundreds of millions of dollars a year and on bond packages that run into the billions. I am a CPA who began at Ernst & Young and spent 25 years as CFO, COO, and President of construction companies, most recently overseeing more than $1 billion in annual revenue. I have cut bonding costs by 30 percent, turned around failing divisions, and closed 15 acquisitions. I do not need the administration to explain the budget to me. I will read it myself, line by line, and I will know where to look....

1. The district budgeted for growth that never came. The past superintendent and the board members who were voted out in 2024 built their plans on projections of rising enrollment and rising property values, and both came in short. Enrollment has now gone flat for the first time in nearly a decade, the district projects fewer than 100 new students, and the result is an $8 million shortfall, program cuts, and three new campuses opening into a district that is no longer growing. In my career I reviewed hundreds of budgets and acquisition models, and the first question was always the same: what are the assumptions, and what happens if they are wrong? Nobody asked that question hard enough. I will. I will push for conservative enrollment and tax-value projections, a zero-based review of the budget starting with central administration rather than classrooms, and staffing that follows actual enrollment instead of forecasts. The district should not ask taxpayers for one more dollar to cover a forecasting mistake. Other options should and will be explored. 2. Too many of our elementary campuses did not improve. The state's accountability ratings show some Conroe ISD schools moving up and others sliding, in the same district, with the same curriculum and the same funding. The difference is execution. In my career, when one division delivered and another did not, we did not guess; we compared them, found the gap, and fixed it. I will ask the administration to do the same for every campus: compare what the improving schools are doing with what the struggling schools are doing, especially in how Bluebonnet is being implemented, and put the fixes in place....

They are the individuals who are the ultimate decision makers for their children. They should be allowed to participate in the classroom as volunteers and participate in other activities as volunteers. They should have access to all curriculum that is being taught. The school is a partner to the parents.

You forgot DEI..... I believe in local control and a focus on the basics of Math, Science, Reading, and Writing skills should be the foundation of success which equals excellence in the basics. I got involved in the schools around five years ago because my boys told me that CRT was being taught, and they were told that they had white privilege. Anything woke needs to be ripped out of the schools.

My first priority is to slow the growth of spending and find real cuts before asking taxpayers for anything more. Conroe ISD's enrollment growth has stopped. The budget should stop growing with it, excluding certain inflationary items. I spent my career as a CFO and COO reading budgets line by line, and that is exactly what I will do with this district's: administrative overhead, contracts, consultants, and programs that do not move reading and math scores. The board does not have an open checkbook, and I will not vote to raise taxes unless absolutely necessary. Longer term, the district needs to rethink how it is funded, spent, and staffed. One opportunity is our parents. A stronger volunteer program gives parents a direct view into what their children are being taught, and it frees paid staff to focus on instruction instead of the district adding support positions to fill every gap....

Depends on State Law. I believe the more local control the better it is for the community. So, the more decisions that can and are made locally is generally health for the community and ends with better results. I do believe a course should be added on the study of the constitution, the bill of rights and our founding fathers.

Bluebonnet Learning should stay, and it should get better. After one year we have real results: some Conroe ISD campuses improved on Bluebonnet and others slipped. I have already gone through those campus-level ratings, and the difference is not the curriculum, it is how it was implemented. I will push the district to compare the campuses that succeeded with the ones that struggled, fix the training and pacing problems that show up, and make the second year better than the first. Separately, not every student is headed to college, and the district should embrace that fact and advertise options. Conroe ISD has strong career and technical programs, and too few families know about them. I will strive make sure those trade pathways are promoted as clearly as the college track.

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