Ten candidates are running for four positions on the Leander ISD Board of Trustees. Nine of the candidates took part in the second forum on Oct. 15 hosted by the Leander ISD PTA Council. Each candidate answered a variety of questions at the event held at Austin Community College’s Cypress Creek campus. LYNETTE HAALAND

By KAYLA BOUCHARD, Hill Country News

Nine of the ten Leander ISD school board candidates came together at the second forum hosted by the Leander ISD PTA Council on Oct. 15 at Austin Community College’s Cypress Creek campus. They answered questions that were submitted ranging from school safety and mental health support to zoning, debt and special education. Early voting started on Monday.

Board of Trustees incumbent Trish Bode and challengers Bryan Patton and Melissa Glaze are running for Place 1. Gloria Gonzales-Dholakia, Gary Hampton — who did not attend the forum — and Sharyn LaCombe are running for Place 2. Incumbent Aaron Johnson and challenger Mike Fischer are running for Place 6, and Elexis Grimes and Donnie Mahan are running for Place 7.

Starting off the forum, Bode, Patton and Glaze were asked what they see as the district’s role in providing mental health, behavioral and wellbeing instruction while still maintaining excellence in academics.

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By LYNETTE HAALAND , Four Points News

In May, the Steiner Ranch Master Association board voted to add some $30,000 worth of landscaping on Quinlan Park Road along Sierra Vista near River Ridge Elementary. But this has raised questions among some Steiner residents because it uses general funds rather than funds from Sierra Vista. Longtime homeowner Jannine Farnum spoke up at the most recent HOA meeting about it and came to the meeting armed with the results of an unofficial survey she conducted.

Farnum launched the independent survey in late September on a public Facebook post and in an email blast for “information gathering purposes only”. Results showed that most of the 100 individuals who took the survey were against SRMA paying for the new landscaping. A large majority also said that this sets a precedent for future such requests.  

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A Leander ISD bus driver and a Stiles Middle School student were rescued from a flooded school bus after the driver went around a barricade on Oct. 16. The driver was later arrested and the student was treated by first responders and released to parents. KAYLA BOUCHARD

By KAYLA BOUCHARD, Hill Country News

One student was saved from a flooded Leander ISD bus on route to Stiles Middle School on Oct. 16 after a bus driver attempted to drive over a low-water crossing on County Road 177, heading east from Ronald Reagan Boulevard toward County Road 175.

Ashley Ringstaff, the student’s mother said that her child called her as the bus was swept down Brushy Creek from the flooded roadway.

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