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Southlake Carroll ISD about to elect a new board member in midst of controversies

Former educator Stephanie Williams is running against Southlake Families PAC-backed TV executive Andrew Yeager for the Place 7 seat.

First, there was the 2018 controversy surrounding students in Carroll ISD caught on video using the N-word.

Then came the fracas around the resulting proposed Cultural Competence Action Plan (CCAP), COVID-19 mask mandates and critical race theory.

Add in a popular NBC News podcast, a recent school board vote to reprimand a teacher for an incident surrounding a book about racism in her classroom, and last week’s national outcry after an administrator instructed teachers to have books in their classroom that would “oppose” the Holocaust, and it’s no wonder all eyes are on Southlake.

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Now, on the eve of a Nov. 2 special election to fill a vacant school board seat, parents say the future of the district may lie in the balance.

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“I think this election is even more important than when I ran,” said Kandice Kapinos, who lost in 2019 to David Almand, whose seat is now up for grabs.

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Kapinos points to last spring’s municipal election in which Southlake Families PAC-backed candidates Hannah Smith and Cam Bryan won their respective seats. In this election, another Southlake Families candidate, Andrew Yeager, a sales director at NBCUniversal, is running against Stephanie Williams, a former educator.

The PAC, which describes itself as “unapologetically rooted in Judeo-Christian values,” claimed victory for the May election, which also resulted in Mayor John Huffman taking office.

Southlake Families has raised more than $200,000 since 2020 and has about $130,000 on hand, according to campaign finance data.

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“This landslide victory is from hundreds of volunteers and donors, thousands of hours, and all of us having the spines to stand up to the rage mob,” the group posted in an email blast last spring.

With less than six months on the job, Smith and Bryan have made significant impacts on the board. Both are opponents of the CCAP and believe it would bring more divisiveness to the community. Smith said her election showed that voters did not want “racially divisive critical race theory taught to their children or forced on their teachers.”

Earlier this month, in the vote to reprimand fourth-grade teacher Rickie Farah, two of the three trustees in favor were Smith and Bryan, who did not recuse themselves despite receiving money from parents involved in the case, according to campaign finance data.

In a city-sponsored town hall meeting featuring the two candidates last week, Yeager and Williams shared their views on how they would make decisions if elected.

“The school board is not the earpiece of the students. Otherwise, we’d have Taco Tuesday five days a week,” Yeager said in the forum. “What a school board member does, is they listen to the needs of the parents. The students talk to the parents, the parents and the taxpayers then are represented by the school board.”

Williams shared a different perspective in her opening comments.

“I am running for trustee because I believe students should be at the center of what we do at CISD,” she said. “And my experience and background would bring that needed perspective to the school board. I believe all students should feel safe and welcome at school. Students, not politics, should be at the center of all we do, and we must protect the strong public schools that drew most of us to Southlake.”

Early voting is now open through Oct. 29 at Southlake Town Hall.

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