Graphic by Alesandra Bell | Mercury Staff.
Officials from
the Richardson Independent School District have decided to transition from an
at-large election system to a hybrid system following the settlement of a
lawsuit filed against the district.
The school board voted unanimously to
move from an at-large system to the hybrid system on Feb. 4. In an at-large
system, all voters within RISD boundaries vote for all seven trustees of the
RISD school board. Under the hybrid system, the seven board seats will be
divided into five single-member voting districts, with two at-large members
presiding over the entire district.
David Tyson is the sole plaintiff and
only person of color to have served on the RISD school board in its 164-year
history. The settlement forced RISD to move away from an at-large district
where the entire school district voted for all seven trustees.
Tyson said he filed the lawsuit in
2018 after speaking with an attorney and concluding that the previous at-large
voting system was in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“I filed the
lawsuit in 2018 after I really wasn’t getting the type of response from the
school board as it relates to people of color not being able to get elected to
the school board under the at-large system,” Tyson said.
RISD President Justin Bono said the
hybrid scheme will help solve some of the issues with representation.
“That’s a system that can help
address some of the geographic challenges that we’ve had with some
inconsistencies with where trustees live that represent our district and
certainly provide an opportunity for more minority representation on our
board,” Bono said.
Under the settlement agreement, two of the five single
member voting districts are required to have minorities represent the majority
of the voting age population.
Marni Kaner, a past
president of Richardson ISD Councils of PTA, said she was concerned about the
district map draft.
“We’re concerned that now a
board member elected by a constituency will vote for what is only good for
their district and not the entire RISD,” Kaner said.
Mechanical engineering
senior Josef Zippi, who attended Berkner High School, a component institution
of RISD, said he did not believe the hybrid system would improve the district.
“I think
that … it shouldn’t be the people in the area (that) are voting on the school
district,” Zippi said. “It should be the people attending the school (that)
should be voting on the school district: like the parents of the kids.”
Tyson said the current
socioeconomic representation on the board is not diverse enough.
“An overwhelming majority of
the board is upper middle class … those are the folks that represent us and
those folks don’t always represent everybody within the district,” Tyson said.
“What it comes down to is inclusiveness, and that can be nothing but bright for
the Richardson Independent School District.”