Orlando Salinas sought to change Round Rock ISD.
When his daughter was born in 2022, Salinas, like most parents, became obsessed with her future, including her education. He started doing due diligence on Round Rock ISD and discovered glaring issues, including the district’s involvement in arresting two parents for speaking out against the district’s actions, not to mention lackluster test results.
Salinas didn’t like what he saw, particularly the school district’s involvement in arresting two parents who spoke against the district’s actions. “I found that very disconcerting,” he told Texas Scorecard. “I started attending more of the board meetings, and as I did that, I learned more about the board’s performance measures and the student performance measures, and really how poorly students were performing by academic standards.”
2022 data from the Texas Education Agency tracked Round Rock ISD’s performance. That showed only 64 percent of students met grade level or above in all subjects.
These aren’t the marks of a top-tier institution of learning. Salinas found the school district’s education standards unacceptable. Education was personal for him. He hailed from Brownsville, Texas, near the border. There, he saw firsthand what a substandard education looked like. Driven for a better life, Salinas acquired multiple master’s degrees. He has a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Health Administration. Salinas catapulted from there to the Texas Department of Public Safety, where he’s been for more than nine years. He’s not employed in a law enforcement capacity but has worked in various positions and today writes grants for the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.
Salinas spoke with Texas Scorecard in a personal capacity, not as a representative of DPS.
“I realized how important it is for students to have a quality education to get a leg up in society,” he said. “I wanted better for the Round Rock children and for my children.”
Enough was enough for Salinas. If district administration wasn’t going to fix the district, then it was time for a change. If a majority of the school board wasn’t going to hold the administration accountable, then it was time to challenge the board. Salinas ran against Trustee Amber Feller in the 2022 election.
Salinas had never run for office before. He wasn’t sure what to expect. It wasn’t like he was running for the American presidency or even Congress. How bad could it be?
Election Intimidation
It was around the time of Homecoming in 2022. Salinas campaigned just outside the high school football game. He was joined by Don Zimmerman, Jill Farris, and Christie Slape. These were other candidates challenging the Round Rock ISD incumbents. “We were in the parking lot of [the] Round Rock School District,” Salinas said. “We weren’t [in] like the inside of the football stadium.”
The heat was sweltering that day. The candidates used it to their advantage. They handed out fans, printed with their campaign advertisements, to attendees. This went on for about an hour. Salinas said he enjoyed himself for the first half hour.
The second half wasn’t fun. While campaigning, one of the school district’s area superintendents came up and harassed him and the candidates. “I forget her name, but she really lost her cool,” Salinas said. “She was yelling at us. She was just very unprofessional.”
It didn’t end there. Salinas next found himself facing the Round Rock ISD police. They wanted him and the other candidates to leave—all because they were exercising their free speech rights on taxpayer-owned property. Salinas was surprised. He and his fellow challengers had researched the law. They worked to make sure they operated well within its bounds. And Salinas worked for the state police. He didn’t want to do anything that could jeopardize his career or ability to provide for his family. “We were very cautious and conscientious about what we did,” he said.
Salinas and the others asked the police why they had to leave. That’s when Superintendent Hafedh Azaiez and members of the school board came up. “At some point one of the officers, and I forget who, said it was the superintendent who wanted us out of there, and the superintendent had been told by board members to get us out of the parking lot and to make us stop doing what we were doing,” Salinas said.
At that point, backing down seemed the best option to Salinas and his compatriots. They packed up and left.
Texas Scorecard first came upon this story in the June 2023 investigative report of the Round Rock ISD police from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE). This report was referenced in part one of this investigative series. Within it was a sworn statement, dated May 2023, by former Round Rock ISD police officer Aaron Grigsby.
Grigsby confirmed that in late August/early September 2022 at Round Rock High School, the school police had approached the school board candidates. “Officers interacted with ISD board candidates on that date, and a small argument ensued over the ability to campaign on school grounds during a sporting event,” Grigsby wrote. “As a result, I remember the ISD Sergeants asking for additional volunteer officers to work the subsequent evening game as an overtime event.”
Salinas knows Grigsby. Before working for the school police, Grigsby had been with DPS. He has no negative feelings toward Grigsby but disagreed with calling what occurred between police and the candidates a “small argument.” “I didn’t see any yelling; it was all very professional, in my opinion,” Salinas said.
Salinas recalled how the school district had two parents arrested for speaking out. He noticed a disturbing pattern. “This was just something that I think the incumbents did not appreciate; they did not anticipate. It was an opportunity for them to, again, use the district police in a manner that probably [they] should not be used for.”
He also saw it as a waste of resources. The police should have been screening attendees for drug paraphernalia instead. Salinas even thought he remembered a student fight taking place, with the cops too busy harassing him, Zimmerman, and Farris to deal with it.
But there was something more in Grigsby’s statement. Something Salinas did not know until Texas Scorecard asked him about it.
Weaponization of Law Enforcement
In his sworn statement to TCOLE, Grigsby claimed that then-police chief Dennis Weiner wanted to have the candidates arrested if they tried campaigning on school grounds again. Grigsby wrote he heard about this from Sgt. Gauvin, also of the school police, when asked about support from the state police and the City of Round Rock police regarding “vans” for arrests. Grigsby had previously worked for the city police, as well as DPS, before joining Round Rock ISD police. He asked Gauvin what was going on. “He told me that Chief Weiner wanted them arrested if they attempted to hand out election materials again,” Grigsby wrote. Gauvin told Grigsby the Williamson County Sheriff already refused to help, due to “previous board member issues that Williamson County felt was not best handled by our agency.”
Texas Scorecard asked Williamson County for comment. They did not reply before publication.
Grigsby did not like what Gauvin told him. He tried presenting other options. Gauvin replied, with a strain in his voice that Grigsby could hear, these were orders straight from Chief Weiner.
Once again, Superintendent Azaiez came up. “I think the Chief was capitulating to the superintendent, but the chief seems like a straight and narrow guy,” Grigsby wrote. “Fortunately, the event was resolved without arrests.”
Salinas listened as Grigsby’s words were read to him. What he heard disturbed him. He also felt betrayed. “We were not violating any laws, or any election code, [or] school district policy,” he said. “But yet, we were targeted.” It brought to his mind all the examples of the weaponization of government happening in plain sight across the country. “[It’s] something that we see in dictatorships and in third world countries, where the goal is [to] arrest the opposition, detain the opposition, silence the opposition, and [rule] with an iron fist,” he said. But this wasn’t happening in Washington, D.C. This wasn’t the FBI or the Department of Justice doing this. This was a school district weaponizing its powers against citizens campaigning for office. His local government school district. All because he dared to challenge incumbent school board trustee Amber Feller.
Despite feeling betrayed and disturbed, Salinas did not feel shocked. “Knowing who the superintendent is, and his domestic violence incidents in the past, I’m not at all surprised that somebody of his caliber would request this type of action be undertaken,” he said.
He also wouldn’t be surprised if Feller was behind it. “She has multiple ethical violations,” he claimed.
Power Trip
Sometime after the incident at the football stadium, Salinas reached out to his former coworker Aaron Grigsby. They talked about the good old days at first. Then Salinas asked his friend about how things were at Round Rock ISD police. He listened as Grigsby warned him of how Chief Weiner’s power trip was moving to target students. “He expressed concerns that Chief Weiner had told him that if a student [was] caught with a CBD type product, that Round Rock ISD police should threaten to charge that student with a felony possession of a controlled substance for that marijuana product, even if it was the legal derivative that was allowed in the state of Texas.” Salinas listened as his friend told him that under state law, a specific strain of cannabis is allowed, while the rest are not. Chief Weiner allegedly wanted to take advantage of the fact that there’s no way to distinguish between these types.
“Aaron relayed to me that he was very uncomfortable with that because you could essentially be weaponized against students that don’t have the frontal lobe of their prefrontal cortex fully developed and may not make the best decisions,” Salinas said. “To automatically charge them with a felony could jeopardize them for the rest of their lives.”
Salinas found this idea of Weiner’s to be “heavy-handed” and said it certainly shouldn’t be the focus of the school police. “I wish that that type of attention and planning [was] being applied to school safety, rather than heavy-handed tactics against students,” he said.
Grigsby noted this conversation in his sworn statement to TCOLE. While this specific policy wasn’t mentioned, Grigsby did state they talked about “some systemic or policy issues if [Salinas] were elected.”
“[Salinas] spoke to me about overall concerns for the ISD, and we specifically talked about his perception of how he was treated by Chief Weiner during the August/September football game since he was one of the Board candidates handing out the fans,” Grigsby wrote. He also said Salinas was interested in replacing Weiner. “I dodged his questions and comments about the Chief directly and focused on some systemic or policy issues if he were elected.”
Salinas said replacing Weiner was not the focus of the conversation.
A Troubled Police Force
Salinas is one of many citizens who have noticed something has gone very wrong at Round Rock ISD.
The weaponization of the school police force against school board candidates crystallized in Salinas’ mind the danger of school districts even having such a force. Another point in his mind was the school shooting in Uvalde. A Texas House Investigation found the school district’s police failed to respond properly to the shooter. The former school police chief and another school police officer were indicted in June 2024.
Salinas thinks the problem is giving people with no law enforcement experience the sword of law enforcement. For Round Rock ISD, that’s Superintendent Azaiez, who Salinas said is not commissioned in law enforcement by TCOLE. ”That does not seem prudent to me,” Salinas said. Instead, parents and their children would be better served if the school district went back and contracted with those who are experienced: namely the City of Round Rock Police and the Williamson County Sheriff.
Round Rock ISD’s police department is still relatively new. Its creation was announced in 2018, with the district alleging gaps in police coverage in the district’s schools. The City of Round Rock claimed they did not have enough staff. The sheriff and city were scheduled to cease providing police services to the district in June 2021. Former Round Rock ISD Board Vice President Steve Math expressed reservations in 2019 about the school having its own force. “I personally believe the disadvantages (of having our own police department) outweigh the advantages because it’s going to cost a lot more money to build our own police department and the quality is unknown,” he said. Trustee Amy Weir, who is still on the board, agreed. “I do think, personally, that it would have been easier to go with Williamson County,” she said. “They’re already established, they’re our law enforcement provider in almost all of our schools.”
Math’s concerns have proved prophetic. The TCOLE investigative report noted that multiple officers left after Weiner’s arrival as chief. A Culture and Climate document, reported in May 2024, found the department to be “chaotic,” “toxic,” “full of favoritism,” and in need of reform. Part one of this series reviewed TCOLE’s investigation which found that Assistant Chief Rose White broke the law when she presented herself as a police officer, detained someone on school property, and pulled their information from the Criminal Justice Information System. White, though employed by Round Rock ISD at the time, was not a licensed peace officer in Texas. Therefore, she was using powers she did not lawfully have.
Salinas did not know about this either and it bothered him. “That is extremely concerning that somebody without TCOLE licensing and accreditation will be able to access CJIS sensitive information,” he said.
Texas Scorecard sought comment from TCOLE about their investigative report. “TCOLE investigators looked into complaints received regarding the Round Rock ISD Police Department and conducted an investigation of those complaints that fell within the Commission’s jurisdiction,” wrote Gretchen Grigsby, TCOLE’s Director of Government Relations. “The investigation into the Round Rock ISD Police Department is now closed, and we have received no further complaints regarding that department. If new complaints are made, we will investigate those at that time.” Gretchen Grigsby is married to Aaron Grigsby. She said that fact “does not change the information provided here.”
A Troubled District
The police force is only the latest in recurring and disturbing patterns of behavior at Round Rock ISD.
Salinas hoped to change that. He didn’t get his shot. Amber Feller defeated him and won re-election. But he has no regrets. “I’m grateful for the amount of support that I received from the community. I got to meet so many wonderful parents and children. That was an amazing experience,” he said. “I have nothing but love for my Round Rock community.”
One of his favorite memories from the campaign trail was when he was in the area of Stony Point High School. The majority of students there are minorities. Salinas fits right in. Coming from Brownsville, he’s fluent in Spanish. After one of the school board meetings, a sophomore, who also attended, came up to him. “He said, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing for students like me. Thank you for standing up and wanting a better education for us,’” Salinas said. That moment reminded him of why he was running. “It was inspiring to me because like I said, education has been so important for me and my career and the opportunities that I’ve had. That’s what I want for the students of Round Rock.”
Unfortunately, Salinas can see no change of direction in the district. He now has two kids, with a third on the way. As a parent, this still concerns him. After the 2022 election, seeing the school’s trajectory, Salinas told his wife they would not be sending their kids to Round Rock ISD. “I don’t trust them.”
Texas Scorecard asked Round Rock ISD for comment about the investigative report and Salinas’ comments. No response was received before publication.
Source Document
TCOLE Investigative Report, June 2023
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