The Round Rock Independent School District Board of Trustees has named Dr. Hafedh Azaiez as the sole finalist to serve as Superintendent of Schools. Dr. Azaiez is currently Superintendent of Schools in Donna ISD in the Rio Grande Valley.
The decision comes after an expansive search process, which included focus groups with hundreds of stakeholders, five community-wide meetings, and a community survey that yielded 5,000 responses to determine a candidate profile. The nationwide search drew 48 candidates from across Texas and 19 other states. Following an extensive vetting process and series of interviews, the Board met in a special called meeting on Friday, May 21, to select a finalist.
Dr. Azaiez has served as Superintendent of Donna ISD since 2018. Raised in Tunisia in North Africa, he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and chemistry from La Faculte des Sciences de Tunis. He came to the United States to pursue graduate school, earning a master’s of education from the University of St. Thomas in Houston and a doctorate of education in educational leadership from Sam Houston State University.
Dr. Azaiez is fluent in English, Spanish, Arabic and French. His career in public education began in 2002 as a middle school science teacher with Houston ISD. He later moved on to administrative roles, including assistant principal, principal, and lead principal in Houston ISD and assistant superintendent of middle schools in Spring ISD.
He is credited with spurring significant improvements in Donna ISD. He developed a five-year strategic plan for the district and expanded course offerings while streamlining business operations for maximum efficiency. More recently, he worked with the district to invest $5.7 million in providing technology to allow students and teachers to continue remote instruction during the COVID-19 crisis. He has long advocated expanding course offerings for middle school students, initiating changes in the Houston, Spring and Donna school districts for middle school students to take high school-level math and science courses, which expanded opportunities for those students to pursue higher- level math and science in high school. In Houston ISD, he partnered with Rice University to create the first middle school bioengineering program and is a strong advocate for Career Technical Education courses.
In Donna ISD, Dr. Azaiez expanded pre-kindergarten, making the district the first in the Rio Grande Valley to implement a free, full-day Pre-K program for three-year-olds. His focus on student achievement brought the district’s academic rating from a C to a B (one point away from an A) in one year. Thanks to Dr. Azaiez’s commitment to effectively and efficiently managing financial resources, Donna ISD has consistently received the state’s highest marks on the Texas Education Agency’s School Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas, earning a perfect score of 100 in 2020.
“This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I am honored to be selected as the sole finalist to serve the Round Rock ISD community as Superintendent,” Dr. Azaiez said. “Round Rock ISD is a stellar district with a reputation for excellence, not just across Texas, but nationally. I am eager to begin working with the Board of Trustees, the staff and the community to build upon that foundation and take Round Rock ISD to even greater heights.”
Round Rock ISD Board President Amy Weir believes Dr. Azaiez is an excellent choice to serve the District as its next leader.
“Dr. Azaiez is a proven leader, is clearly respected and admired by the educators he leads, and has demonstrated an impressive ability to create a vision and bring that vision to life,” Weir said. “We are excited to begin this new journey and to introduce Dr. Azaiez to the community.”
The Board of Trustees will schedule an official vote on the Superintendent’s contract in June, following a required 21-day waiting period.
