In light of recent news coverage regarding conflicts of interest of Dripping Springs’ local elected officials, please disclose and describe any possible financial, property, or employment conflicts of interest—for yourself, your spouse, either of your employers, or you or your spouse’s parents or children—that could bring into question your actions as a Trustee on the DSISD School Board.

Please note that the employment conflicts of interest prohibition also extends to any and all clients of your employer, not just your employer itself—so in addition to above, please disclose and describe any and all clients of your employer who do any business with DSISD or who conduct business or operations or have holdings the school district may purchase goods or services or property from.

In compliance with Chapter 171 of the Texas Local Government Code relating to conflicts of interest, will you file transparent conflict statements prior to any vote or discussion affecting these potential conflicts of interests and abstain from any vote or discussion on such matters, including during secret/closed session?

Many members of the DSISD community believe the School Board stacks District Committees with members hand-picked to advance the Board Member’s personal agendas and beliefs or advance special interest agendas rather than prioritizing those members representativeness of the overall District.

For instance:

• the new Walnut Springs Elementary Design Committee was comprised exclusively of DSISD employees, 
• the new Elementary #5 Design Committee having a super-majority of DSISD employees, 
• the Student Health Advisory Council’s (SHAC) two 2019 “community representative” appointees both being publicly-opposed to the Scott & White sex ed curriculum that was supported by a super-majority of the community, 
• creating a secretive COVID-19 Task Force instead of utilizing the SHAC that’s charter encompassed such health-related matters and duties, 
• the creation of an employee-led Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Advisory Board that’s overwhelmingly comprised exclusively of District employees, again instead of having the SHAC oversee and implement, and 
• the Long Range Facilities Planning Committee being comprised of approximately one-half DSISD employees. 

Do you believe that DSISD’s recent committee structuring and division is sufficiently representative and without bias?

Or should DSISD do better?

How so?

Please also speak to what, if any, effect potentially unrepresentative SHAC membership may have on your response to the District's next sex ed curriculum selection.

Please note that in 2019, two of the seven Board Members voted against the sex ed curriculum approved by a super-majority of the SHAC and preferred by a super-majority of community feedback.

DSISD’s school board elections are currently plurality-at-large elections, in which multiple candidates run for a limited number of seats and those candidates who receive the plurality of votes among all are victorious.

However, plurality-at-large elections have been banned from use in federal elections as well as most state-level elections, including in Texas, and moreover, this election type has continued in local elections, despite it being subject to extensive litigation for its discriminatory impact on those elections.

Do you support continuing DSISD’s plurality-at-large election system, or would you support moving to single-member seats/districts—meaning each School Board Member sits in a specific seat/district, so a challenger could choose to run for that specific seat rather than against everyone?

If supporting a change to single member districts, would you suggest leaving all seats/districts at-large representing the entirety of DSISD, or would you support transitioning some or all districts to regional/geographic representation—for instance, meaning four members would each represent a quadrant of DSISD, divided by share of overall population?

For more on the failings of plurality-at-large elections:
Source 1

Source 2

In response to many errors and misadministration by DSISD and Hays County Elections—much of which were ultimately admitted to under oath at trial with DSISD's lawyers not disputing those failings and merely arguing that such failings would not have changed the outcome—in the May 2018 Bond Election, CEEDS filed a Election Contest against DSISD.

In response, DSISD counter-sued CEEDS, which expedited the legal proceedings, increased legal costs to taxpayers (for both CEEDS and DSISD—DSISD spending our tax dollars), and would have required CEEDS to post a $5 million forfeitable bond in order to properly litigate the case along standard timelines.

DSISD lawyers even knowingly scheduled the trial for a date that DSISD School Board President Carrie Kroll—one of CEEDS's key witnesses—would be on an Alaskan vacation and accordingly unable to be present at trial, unless CEEDS posted that $5 million forfeitable bond. DSISD lawyers did not inform CEEDS’s attorney of Kroll’s planned absence until her lawyers volunteered that her impending departure flight, on the very same evening as her deposition, required that the deposition be conducted quickly—this being just a few days before the scheduled trial.

While DSISD ultimately prevailed in the consolidated and expedited legal proceedings, we believe DSISD did so only through legal maneuver and loophole—not on the merits. In fact, in a communication produced via Public Information Request, from former Superintendent Gearing to the DSISD School Board dated December 2018 regarding the transfer of the Travis County portions of DSISD to Lake Travis ISD, Gearing specifically stated that an “election issue” continues to exist for the Travis County portions of DSISD—one of the primary issues raised in CEEDS's Election Contest.

Further, during the course of these legal proceedings, DSISD spent $456,963.53 on high-priced San Antonio attorneys from the largest law firm in Texas, while the costs to DSISD for holding the original election were only $5,864.87.

In the event that the outcome of a future Bond Election comes into question, would you support counter-suits against taxpayers and costly legal proceedings, or would you advocate for holding a new election in order to achieve a clear and definite outcome?

Additionally, please speak to what, if anything, DSISD should have done differently following the questionable passage of the May 2018 Bond by a margin of 1% and upon learning that taxpayers called for a recount and filed an Election Contest.