[ad_1]
ROUND ROCK – The Round Rock School Committee convened for the second time since last month disrupted due to limited seating due to the pandemic and made more chairs available to the public on Thursday and the meeting was quiet.
School district officials wanted Avoid the public disruption that prevented school boards from conducting their business on September 14that his usual hangout at Round Rock High School,said spokeswoman Jennie LaCoste-Caputo.
The board also made more seats available when it held a meeting elsewhere on September 23. The meeting was held at a performing arts center at McNeil High School as the board discussed the district’s masking mandate and expected a large crowd, La Coste-Caputo said.
Ahead of Thursday’s session, speakers at a press conference called on the county to increase the number of seats available to the public at the session.
“On September 14, Dr. Azaeiz (the headmaster) used school district police officers to block the doors to the boardroom to enforce an illegal seating capacity created by the headmaster minutes before the session began,” said Marcia Strickler-Watson , the founder of Williamson County Wilco We Thee People, a Christian activist group, at the event.
When Superintendent Hafedh Azaeiz limited the number of seats for the public to 21 on September 14, some members of the public started yelling during the meeting and two board members walked out of the office.
The district made 80 chairs available to the public on Thursday.
READ: Tensions Above Acceptable Capacity at Round Rock School Board Meeting
In addition to avoiding disruption, LaCoste-Caputo said the district increased seats as Travis County’s COVID-19 alert level fell since September 14. However, the alert level for COVID-19 has remained high in Williamson County. Therefore, the district has provided a certain distance between the 80 seats, she said.
LaCoste-Caputo said the district did not break the law by limiting the number of seats at the Sept. 14 meeting, as the Texas Open Meetings Act allows for reasonable seating capacity.
Speakers at Thursday’s press conference said the school district could have held the September 14 meeting in a larger facility, and also asked why capacity had not been restricted at other school events such as soccer games.
Lacoste-Caputo said many of the larger facilities in the district are already booked and that the room the board uses for its regular meetings is specially equipped for the livestream of the meetings.
She also said that there is no limit to the capacity for football matches as the games are held outdoors and school staff are not required to attend the games. Some employees are required to attend board meetings, LaCoste-Captuo said.
Two speakers at the press conference, Dustin Clark and Jeremy Story, said they were arrested for disrupting the September 14 school council meeting. They were arrested for interfering with the trial, but according to court records, they were not charged with the offense.
“What do you (the county) get if you illegally arrest citizens?” Said Story, co-director of the Williamson County chapter of the True Texas Project, a conservative advocacy group.
Former Austin city councilor Don Zimmerman said at the press conference that he had filed a lawsuit as the head of the Travis Taxpayers Union against the Round Rock School District in connection with the September 14 school committee meeting.
READ: Round Rock School Board Votes Mask Mandate Extension
The lawsuit alleges that the trustees illegally voted in favor of raising the district’s tax rate at the Sept. 14 meeting, Zimmerman said. He said the vote had to be approved by a 60% majority, but only 57% of the members approved it because two members had left the meeting.
The lawsuit was filed on September 29 and served on the district on October 6. On Thursday, Lacoste-Caputo said the district had made no comment on the lawsuit.
[ad_2]
