A recent decision by a majority of Round Rock ISD’s board of trustees to award a hefty bonus to its superintendent has come under scrutiny.
Trustee Danielle Weston, who has held Place 7 since 2020, has spoken out against her colleagues’ move to pay a $20,000 performance bonus to Hafedh Azaiez, the district’s superintendent. This is half the amount the board has at its discretion to pay out as an incentive for reaching student academic targets, half of which were met this school year.
Noting that Azaiez already has an annual salary of $350,000 plus an $8,000 annual car allowance, Weston raised concerns over the hefty sum paid out despite the board “regularly assert[ing] that the school district is fiscally broke.” She also questioned Azaiez’s character, referring to the alleged existence of a permanent restraining order against him. This was the result of an alleged domestic violence incident involving his alleged mistress, which Weston and another trustee, Mary Bone, revealed shortly after his appointment in 2021.
Nonetheless, the decision to grant a $20,000 performance bonus to Azaiez passed in a 5-2 vote last week, with both Weston and Bone dissenting. Weston posted a clip of her remarks before the vote, in which she invoked her First Amendment rights after being interrupted by another trustee.
“Children are not the center of the time and energy of this school board majority. … These are some of the reasons more and more families are losing confidence in our school district, enrollment is declining, and many students cannot perform even on grade level,” claimed Weston in a post on social media.
Azaiez’s tenure as superintendent has been punctuated by disputes with Weston and Bone, as well as two district fathers, who were detained for allegedly disrupting board sessions while trustees were considering a tax increase, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Despite these controversies, Azaiez has been supported by the five trustees who hired him: Amy Weir, Jun Xiao, Amber Feller, Cory Vessa, and Tiffanie Harrison. These same individuals helped see that his contract was extended through June 2026 in a vote last September.
In-fighting and tensions have characterized the school board these past few years. For instance, Weston and Bone have been scrutinized for allegedly receiving donations from the Defend Texas Liberty PAC in 2021. Furthermore, in September, Bone attempted to oust Weir on alleged grounds of “multiple violations of the law,” as reported by The Dallas Express.
Despite these challenges, Round Rock ISD is one of the higher-performing districts in Texas. According to the Texas Education Agency’s report on the 2021-2022 school year, 64% of district students scored at grade level on the STAAR exam, beating out the state average of 48%.
Meanwhile, Dallas ISD’s districtwide performance during the 2021-2022 academic year was notably sub-par. Nearly 20% of high school students in the class of 2022 failed to graduate on time, and just over 40% of all students scored at grade level on the STAAR exam.
