Round Rock's school board has two seats up for grabs in the May 13 election.
For Place 2, incumbent Diana Maldonado is running against Karl Falken.
And for Place 7, the candidates are Edmund Buckley, Konrad Boeffard and Pat Abbott.
All five candidates hope the poor attendance at recent candidate forums isn't a sign of how many will come to the polls.
"Like we saw tonight, the interest is rather low. I felt it was important to give the voters a choice and to bring out issues that would cause controversy and an interest to get the people out to vote," Falken said.
"Any kind of voting is going to take a grassroots efforts. You can put 900 signs up and it still doesn't work, you can put e-mails out, but it's still going to take word of mouth and get everybody to the polls," Abbott said.
The winners of both seats will take over at the May board meeting and will have a heavy plate. They must approve the budget, evaluate a new superintendent and try to pass a new bond, smaller than last years failed $349 million bond.
 |  |
 | |  |
| | | | | | | |
RRISD election
Allison Toepperwein previews the RRISD school board election.
 
| | |
| | | | | |
|
"The bond committee is still looking at those needs, maybe at looking at a different price tag, maybe looking at different ways to renovate. But, none the less, the needs are still there," Maldonado said.
"It's not so much, what's lacking. It's what could be. I believe I have a good public policy background. I've been an entreprenuer background, before I was a teacher," Boeffard said.
"I got very concerned last year when the bond was turned down by the voters. There appeared to be some kind of disconnect between the board and the tax paying public. The board voted 6 to 1 to present the bond and pass the bond to the public voting sector but the public voted it down 2 to 1," Buckley said.
But, the big message at this forum was no matter who you vote for, just vote.
