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Residents of the Roosevelt cluster in the North East Independent School District continue to be unrepresented, two months after their elected trustee, Terri Williams, died in August.
NEISD trustees adjourned Friday morning after motions to appoint three different candidates failed in split 3-3 votes.
Conservative trustees Steve Hilliard and Diane Sciba Villarreal started the meeting with an attempt to get moderate trustee Sandy Hughey to recuse herself, which would have given them the numbers to appoint their preferred candidate, Jacqueline Klein.
Hilliard accused Hughey of “viewpoint discrimination” for asking Klein about her affiliation with Moms for Liberty during candidate interviews Monday, and said Hughey had brought the district “significant negative national attention on social media.”
“Parents are our primary customers who entrust their children's education to our district staff,” Hilliard said. “And now we are all over the country on social media with the trustee stating parents who want to be involved in their local public schools are bad because they chose to be part of one parent group versus another.”
Sciba Villarreal jumped in next, saying Hughey had “attacked” Klein and made the district “national news in a negative way.”
“Ms. Hughey, do you have anything to say before I speak with regards to the national exposure NEISD is experiencing as a result of your comments about Moms for Liberty and the treatment of Ms. Klein,” Sciba Villarreal asked.
A video clip posted by a Hill Country chapter of Moms for Liberty and quote-tweeted by the national organization and the creator of Libs of TikTok had received nearly 67,000 views as of Friday. That means the negative attention Hilliard and Sciba Villarreal are most likely referencing was created by individuals that would like to see Klein named trustee. Klein is an administrator on the Bexar County Moms for Liberty Facebook group.
The Southern Poverty Law Center gave Moms for Liberty an extremist designation this summer. SPLC told NPR Moms for Liberty’s parental rights banner does not include Black parents or the parents of LGBTQ students.
Hughey said that she asked Klein about Moms for Liberty because she has never been invited to meet with the local chapter and was concerned about some of the actions taken by the national organization and other local chapters.
“Let me be clear, I did not call Moms for Liberty a hate group. I said they had been defined as one,” Hughey said.
“What I wanted to hear is that our local chapter does not support the ideologies that our teachers are groomers, are trying to pervert our children,” she said.
“Other chapters have been disruptive, they have been affiliated with the Proud Boys, they have supported Nazi propaganda,” Hughey added. “I wanted to hear that our local moms were not reflective of that ideology. And Ms. Klein never defended them.”
Conservative board members pushed for the second round of candidate interviews to be conducted in public during earlier NEISD board meetings, which paved the way for Moms for Liberty-Gillespie County to share the video clip.
“Because of what happened on Monday, I think she needs to recuse herself,” Sciba Villarreal said. “I don't think this can move forward until she recuses herself.”
Board President Shannon Grona refuted that point, noting that Hilliard, Sciba Villarreal, and Marsha Landry have pushed for Klein’s appointment from the beginning.
“Can you be objective? Did you listen objectively to the interviews that we've had?” Grona asked.
Hughey declined to recuse herself, and Hilliard’s motion to appoint Klein failed, with Hughey, Grona, and David Beyer voting against her appointment.
The board then briefly moved to closed session to discuss items about the other three candidates because Sciba Villarreal said she did not want to “publicly humiliate anybody, unlike what's happened to Ms. Klein.”
After returning to open session, Beyer motioned to appoint Nan Richie. That motion also failed, with Hilliard, Sciba Villarreal, and Landry voting against her appointment.
Beyer’s next motion to appoint Tracie Shelton also failed along the same 3-3 split.
Hilliard then motioned again to appoint Klein, with the same divided result.
“We've got, in my opinion, one candidate being advocated for by three of the trustees and the other three of us appear to be open to a couple of different options,” Beyer said. “And so, I don't know how we can break this deadlock. I think not making a decision is a terrible decision, but I'm not sure where we go.”
Sciba Villarreal and Landry called for the decision to be made by voters, repeating a suggestion made by conservative trustees earlier in the process, but too late to make the deadline to be on the November ballot.
However, a motion to leave the seat vacant until the next election in May also failed. Trustees adjourned after agreeing to ask for advice from the district’s attorney before the next meeting in November.
