When many of us hear the words “government corruption,” what do we typically think about? If you’re like most folks, you probably think of sleazy lawmakers in Congress or dishonest presidents. You might recall cases in which officials at the state level were caught engaging in unethical or criminal activity.
But it seems rare that people discuss corruption at the local level – wrongdoing involving mayors or members of city councils. The fact that corrupt practices are being used by school boards is even less common. These stories are a reminder of the need to pay attention to local officials. Most likely, many of them are not on the up and down.
Recently, I had an audio-only conversation with Jeremy Story. He heads a non profit that helps college students. He’s also an entrepreneur, and the Texas Republican Party’s chaplain.
In the last several months, he was in conflict with Round Rock’s School Board. Round Rock is located north of Austin. It concerns both the process of hiring a new superintendent as well as the decision-making involved.
Texas’ school boards must allow the public to review the potential candidates before they take major decisions like hiring a superintendent. These decisions cannot be made unilaterally. Furthermore, meetings regarding these issues are required to be open to the public. This means the school board can’t make these decisions behind closed doors.
Story shared his thoughts during our conversation:
“When you’re hiring a new Superintendent on a school board, what you have to do is you have to give the public a little over two weeks to vet whoever becomes your final candidate. They’re just the final candidate. You’ve weeded out all the others because you do that without telling anybody so that each of the candidates don’t know about each other.”
He continued:
“You get down to a final [candidate], and then the public gets to vet that person because it’s the first time they’ve ever heard about them. That’s mandated by law in Texas. And then at the end of that period, the board can vote ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ or ‘let’s investigate further whoever the Superintendent candidate is.’”
However, when you listen to Jeremy’s tale, you will find that this is precisely what the Round Rock school board did when they hired Hafedh Azaiez. Later, it was revealed that Azaiez had been hired by the school board regardless of residents’ beliefs. This is the story:
“One of the concerns was that we had on video that we had uncovered a restraining order that he had issued against about 68 year old woman Hispanic woman in Donna ISD a retired lady who was outspoken not against his district but against him. As a result she became vocal about other officials. And as a result, he used the school district police force to enforce a two-year restraining order on her that basically told her she could not walk on campus.”
Story was trying to resolve the problem at school board meetings, but he was stopped by officials and police before he could draw attention to the fact that this group had violated law. He stated:
“They literally grabbed me by either arm while I was speaking in a just normal voice. I wasn’t yelling or anything and dragged me out of the room, then dragged me down the hallway, then across the cafeteria and pushed me out the front door.”
It is a horrible example of corruption, but it only gets worse when Story and another victim were arrested by the police.
You will be shocked at the severity of this crisis if you listen to my interview. It is still a battle. I will continue to follow it closely and report on any developments. Listen to the audio of my interview with Jeremy Story.
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