On Friday, August 20th, Spring Branch ISD and its Trustees answered the complaint filed in federal court by former SBEF Chairman Barry Abrams and former SBISD board candidate and Plaintiff Virginia Elizondo.
You can read SBISD's legal filing here. The next step in the legal process is a pre-trial conference scheduled for November 8, 2021
On June 18th, Barry Abrams, as counsel, and Ms. Elizondo, as the Plaintiff, sued the Spring Branch Independent School District and its Trustees in federal court, seeking an immediate change to the system by which SBISD elects its Board of Trustees. They are calling for the creation of "Single-Member Districts" within SBISD, a change that would disenfranchise almost 80,000 voters in the district.
Barry Abrams is providing his legal services to Ms. Elizondo free of charge, according to documents obtained by Save SBISD.
In addition to leading the legal efforts against the district, Barry Abrams has decades-long leadership ties to the Spring Branch Education Foundation (SBEF), which you can learn about here.
SBEF is a non-profit financial partner of the school district. SBEF is governed by a separate board, and is funded by private donations.
In addition to the legal battle the district is fighting against Barry Abrams and Virginia Elizondo, a political process is underway.
The Board of Trustees is the only entity empowered to actually change the way we choose our elected representatives, so the views of each Trustee matter.
Trustee Chris Earnest has gone firmly on the record stating his opposition to any change from our current at-large election system. You can read his statement here.
Save SBISD is unaware of any statements by other members of the Board of Trustees. We can be reached by email (halsey@savesbisd.org) if any Trustee would like to go on the record in one of our updates.
Contact information for the Trustees is available here.
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