Two new trustees, one incumbent elected to Round Rock school board
An incumbent and two new trustees secured seats on the seven-person Round Rock school board Tuesday night, according to complete but unofficial results.
Incumbent Estevan (Chuy) Zárate secured his Place 1 seat with 55.3%, or 42,717 of the 77,246 votes cast, against challenger Joshua Escalante.
Former Round Rock art teacher Melissa Ross clinched the Place 2 race against April Guerra, the mother of a dyslexic student who works in the financial sector.
Ross got 62.1%, 46,833 of the 75,464 votes.
In the Place 7 race, Mingyuan "Michael" Wei, a father and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality toxicologist, won 59.3%, or 45,779 of the 77,173 votes, beating out Jim Steele, a longtime Williamson County resident who is a father and grandfather.
Ross and Wei will replace outgoing trustees Mary Bone and Danielle Weston, respectively, who had each been on the school board since 2020.
During their time on the board, Bone and Weston often have had contentious relationships with the other members over issues such as mask mandates and the hiring of Superintendent Hafedh Azaiez in June 2021.
In April 2022, a Williamson County judge dismissed a lawsuit that Bone and Weston had filed against the other board members concerning proposed censure resolutions over them disrupting a meeting. A second censure resolution failed in August 2022. The motion was proposed after both trustees broke quorum during a June 16, 2022, meeting on the budget.
