2020 Dripping Springs ISD School Board Candidate Survey

Beginning in 2018, Citizens for Excellent Education in Dripping Springs (CEEDS) began our annual survey of DSISD school board candidates as a service to our Dripping Springs community and in fulfillment of our mission of greater transparency, increased accountability, and more responsible stewardship of our tax dollars by Dripping Springs ISD’s School Board and School Administration.

Our broad range of supporters include parents, teachers, and taxpayers—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents—who originally joined together to fight Dripping Springs ISD's wasteful and misguided $132 million 2018 Bond, and to once again make students and teachers, instead of special interests, our School District's top priority. We were the only organization to oppose DSISD's 2018 Bond, and accordingly represent the interests and beliefs of one-half of those who cast ballots in the May 2018 DSISD Election against that Bond Referendum.

 

In 2020, our fight continues as we work to elect common-sense and fiscally responsible leaders to our school board, so that the hard-working families and fixed-income seniors of our community no longer need to fear being taxed out of their homes, while also returning our School Board's and School Administration's focus back to ensuring that all of our community's children receive an excellent and world-class education.

 

Our 2020 survey questions reflect what we believe are the top fiscal, transparency, and accountability issues currently facing Dripping Springs ISD as well as a few general issue questions—information which should be communicated to and help inform every voter prior to casting their votes for School Board.

 

All candidates received advance notice of this survey by email, and were given five days to submit responses for this survey that should have taken them roughly one hour to complete. Survey instructions were explicit and outlined that only those responses submitted through the survey form would be published, exactly as received, up to a maximum of 600 characters per response.

 

Candidates were further informed that CEEDS would advertise the survey responses to the DSISD community, and that not responding would result in a "FAIL" rating for Transparency, while not responding to any questions in either the Fiscal or Accountability categories would result in an "Incomplete" rating for each respective category. CEEDS also stated that the survey responses would inform our decision to endorse candidates in this election.

Accordingly, we appreciate all candidates' willingness to serve our community. However, we thank those who took the time, had the political courage, and were willing to be truly transparent and forthright with voters by responding to our survey. Our School Board is intended to serve the best interests of all voters and taxpayers in this community, not just special interest groups—and being transparent with voters about where one stands on all the issues is the first step in that.

Disappointingly, multi-term incumbents Ron Jones and Barbara Stroud, who have held office for 6+ and 12+ years respectively, did not respond to this survey, just like they have failed to be responsive to so much of our and our supporters repeated outreach since our 2018 founding. Unfortunately, doing so is not only failing to be accountable to one's constituents, but also presents an air of entitlement and indicates that they are taking voters for granted.

 

You can view the responses to our candidate survey by clicking on the button below. Survey topics are also listed below, and you can click any topic to go directly to that section, without scrolling through.

 

In order to allow for easy candidate comparison by question, candidate responses are listed in revolving order beginning alphabetically by surname.

 

For candidate survey responses: "[...]" indicates a clipped response that exceeded 600 characters, and a "DNR" indicates that a candidate "Did Not Respond" to that question.

 

At the bottom of this page are additional candidate surveys and interviews conducted by other organizations that may also be helpful in making an informed decision prior to casting a ballot for 2020 DSISD School Board.