Education Focus

  • Round Rock ISD's Westwood and Stony Point high schools were ranked No. 57 and No. 1,694, respectively, by Newsweek and "The Daily Beast" among the 2,000 best public high schools in the nation.
  • U.S. News & World Report ranked Westwood High School the 144th and McNeil High School the 696th best high schools in the nation.
  • Erin Balfour, an English teacher at McNeil High School, was named RRISD Secondary Teacher of the Year. Melinda Schermerhorn, a fifth-grade teacher at Elsa England Elementary School, was named district Elementary Teacher of the Year.
  • RRISD and McNeil High School teacher Lisa Windolph received honors from the 2013 H-E-B Excellence in Education Awards. RRISD received a $100,000 cash reward for being chosen as the top district in Texas in the Large Districts category. Windolph received $10,000 in cash and a $10,000 grant for her school for winning the Secondary Leadership category.
  • Rock Rock ISD ranked third in the nation by the EPA Green Power Partnership for renewable energy use in 2012.
  • The district opened its 33rd elementary school, Elsa England, on Aug. 27.
  • McNeil and Westwood high schools were among 170 Texas high schools recognized Oct. 18 with the 2012 College Readiness Award for their efforts to increase the number of students taking the ACT college admissions test and for improvement in scores.
  • On Nov. 6, Charles "Chad" Chadwell was re-elected to Place 2 on the board of trustees. Pauline Law won the election for the open Place 7 seat.
  • The district celebrated its centennial anniversary in 2013.
  • On Jan. 30, Superintendent Jess Chvez announced he would be retiring effective Dec. 31.
  • The Round Rock ISD board of trustees approved an additional $160,000 on Feb. 21 for the design of new safety-related front-entry modifications for 13 campuses in the district. On Jan. 17, the board had approved $910,000 to make the same modifications at 23 additional schools in the district.
  • On April 5, trustee Glen Colby submitted his resignation, citing time demands as his reason for stepping down. Colby had served on the board for five years.
  • On May 21, the board elected Paul Tisch as the new Place 6 trustee to replace Colby.