The North East Independent School District Board of Trustees interviewed four finalists Monday for the District 2 seat that has been vacant since the death of Terri Williams during the summer.
After a lengthy discussion in executive session, board president Shannon Grona announced trustees would review videos of the interviews and meet again at 8:30 a.m. Friday. A decision on what would occur at the meeting was not made Monday. Aubrey Chancellor, a spokeswoman for the district, said trustees could make any type of motion during the meeting regarding the finalists.
The board’s efforts to replace Williams have been plagued by fits and starts in recent weeks as board members clashed over whether to fill the seat through an election or an appointment and how the interview process should occur.
After disagreements that spanned multiple meetings, four finalists out of eight original applicants were called back for a sometimes contentious public interview process on Monday. Trustees publicly questioned applicants for 45 minutes each on politics, school choice and book bans, among other issues.
The finalists interviewed on Monday were Jacqueline Klein, Nan Richie, Rhonda Rowland and Tracie Shelton.
Klein and Rowland both ran against Williams in the last election, with Klein losing by a small margin and Rowland trailing further behind. That led some trustees to argue that Klein should be appointed outright, but the board was deadlocked in a vote.
Applicants largely found common ground around the need for increases in state funding for schools and against vouchers or education savings account policies, which are currently being debated in Austin during a special session of the Texas Legislature.
Some of the applicants diverged on the legacy of Williams and the extent of involvement parents should have in forming district policy, curricula and programs.
Rowland, who is a retired educator, said she is involved in a literacy program where she helped individual students with reading, as well as attending student band and music shows and sports events in the community.
She also said she would like to see teachers paid six figures and an expansion of the district that’s locked in by other districts by using vacant property in the area to build new schools.
Wading into the debates about the removal of books from libraries, Rowland said that books that are “specifically lesbian or bisexual or gay … don’t have a place in media centers.” Her stance echoes a trend in school libraries across the country, according to an analysis by the advocacy organization PEN America.
Other titles, which Rowland said have been removed nationally, including Captain Underpants and To Kill a Mockingbird, should “not be banned,” she said. Those titles are not restricted in NEISD schools.
She also suggested that parents should read books before requesting that they be banned.
Runner-up denies political motivations
In the most contentious of the four 45-minute interviews, Klein clashed with trustees over her political affiliations and past comments she made about the district and board.
In a testy exchange, Trustee David Beyer pressed Klein on her political affiliations, including questions about the endorsement of political groups that he said she had solicited for support. She denied doing such a thing and said her campaign and current effort to be appointed to the board have been nonpartisan.
“With regard to your allegation that I have solicited anything from any group, that’s false,” she said. “I have not brought up a single hot button political issue.”
During a Bexar County Republican Women’s Club meeting Friday, Klein asked attendees to write to the board showing their support for her while also sharing her doubts about the process.
“At the moment, what we’re trying to do is to get support. If you can write the board … and just encourage them to appoint me as the trustee,” she said.”I don’t have a lot of faith that will happen, given how this process has gone, but all the support we can get, the better.”
During her interview Monday, Klein said, if selected, her main priority would be safety, with secondary priorities of student success and school funding.
Under the safety priority, she said the district should overhaul its disciplinary system by empowering teachers to take more direct disciplinary action in their classrooms.
“Restorative justice does not work,” she said. “And it has no place in our classrooms.”
Chancellor told the San Antonio Report on Monday night that the district does not currently use restorative discipline practices in any of its schools.
The district did pioneer the practices in the state, however, with a successful pilot program that ran for several years starting in 2013.
The practice, which focuses on building relationships and having dialogue in lieu of punishment, has continued to grow in popularity in recent years but has shown mixed efficacy in studies.
When asked about what she would use to make policies and curriculum, Klein said she would rely on experts in education, the thoughts of parents in her district and her family, who she said gives her strength.
Richie said parental input would be valued if she were appointed, but also said the district should “not be run by parents.”
Shelton, who was the last to be interviewed, said governing the district should be a collective effort between the board, superintendent and parents.
“It’s a shared responsibility between you and the parents and the superintendent and his staff and the teachers,” she said. “It takes everybody’s input and voice to make it work.”
Williams inspired friend to run
Some of the applicants also discussed Williams, who died in August.
Richie said she learned the interworking of the board through her friendship with Williams, including funding decisions. She also said she was running because of her relationship with Williams.
Klein pointed to the close margin in the last election and her conversations with parents when saying that the community was unhappy with what was happening in District 2.
When pressed, however, she didn’t identify any particular policies or decisions made by Williams that she would overturn.
Klein declined an interview for this story but said she felt that the board did the right thing by publicly holding the interviews.
San Antonio Report reporter Andrea Drusch contributed to this report.
