Conroe ISD Swears in New Conservative Board
Conroe ISD seats the first all-female school board in Texas history: Nicole May, Lindsay Dawson, Tiffany Nelson, Melissa Dungan, Misty Odenweller, Melissa Semmler, and Marianne Horton.
November 19, 2024 | Conroe, TX
It was an evening of celebration as four newly elected conservative Trustees were sworn in at a special meeting of the Conroe ISD School Board last night. Conroe ISD now is the only large district in Texas with a seven-member, fully conservative school board, and the first all-female board in Texas history.
All four of the new Trustees were vetted and endorsed by the Montgomery County Republican Party:
Nicole May (Position 4 )
Lindsay Dawson (Position 5 )
Melissa Semmler (Position 6 )
Marianne Horton (Position 7 )
Texas Representative Steve Toth (HD 15) administered the oath of office before a recess was held for the new board to celebrate with family and friends. This was a victory not only for the new board members, but the returning members who have endured false accusations of racism and other divisive claims for attempting to remove Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, pornographic library books, and leftist personal ideologies from the classroom, and return to State Board of Education, legislative, and school board guidelines when choosing instructional materials.
As an example, ABC 13 ran an August 10, 2023, story insinuating that Conroe ISD Board Member, Melissa Dungan, was offended by “a poster showing hands of people of different races.” The story was picked up by nationwide leftist media. In reality, Dungan was speaking out against the racism promoted by the DEI poster.
According to Dungan, “DEI pushes the narrative of “Safe Spaces” which implies that the rest of Conroe ISD is not a safe space for all children. This should be completely unacceptable for CISD administrators, board members and all employees.”
“Melissa Dungan was courageous enough to call out these ideology posters at CISD,” said Representative Toth. “These Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion “Safe Spaces” have done more to divide America in the last 50 years than anything else.”
The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 3979 in the 87th session and Senate Bill 17 in the 88th session to protect students from DEI indoctrination that promotes the ideology that some students are inherently racist.
More recently, Trustees Tiffany Nelson and Misty Odenweller have been asking the outgoing board to address issues such as designating bathroom and locker room usage based on biological sex and rejecting the Biden Administration’s Title IX rewrite, receiving sharp criticism from fellow board members and leftist public testimony, despite overwhelming backing from the community. In June, Nelson asked the board to approve a resolution to support Title IX “as it was intended,” instead of including Biden’s unconstitutional amendments. The resolution was rejected by the board. Conroe voters expressed their dissatisfaction by replacing the left-leaning Trustees with the new conservative slate.
Houston Chronicle: Conroe ISD rejects resolution against new Title IX LGBTQ protections
New board members joined returning Trustees for their first official photo. Back row: Marianne Horton, Melissa Semmler, Nicole May, and Lindsay Dawson. Front row: Tiffany Nelson, Misty Odenweller, and Melissa Dungan.
After the recess, the new board was seated and heard public comment before holding a closed executive session to discuss board officer nominations. Immediately following the executive session, the board returned to public session and unanimously elected the following officers:
Board President: Misty Odenweller (Position 3)
First Vice President: Tiffany Nelson (Position 1)
Second Vice President: Melissa Dungan (Position 2)
Secretary: Lindsay Dawson (Position 5)
Assistant Secretary: Marianne Horton (Position 7)
The first regular meeting of the new board will be held this evening at 6pm at the Conroe ISD Deane L. Sadler Administration/Technology Center, 3205 W. Davis Street (view event & map). Our work as local involved Republicans isn't finished! We encourage everyone to attend board meetings and testify in support of a back-to-basics approach to education (reading, writing, arithmetic - not gender fluid ideology and DEI).
The returning Trustees will be speaking at the December 5 Montgomery County Eagle Forum meeting to outline their priorities and explain how Conservatives in our community can help support them. They also will discuss important education bills coming up in the 89th Texas Legislative Session and how we can help replicate what they doing in other school districts in Montgomery County and across the state.