TASB President Discusses Service, Public Ed, and More in Annual Talk

TASB President Rolinda Schmidt discussed the importance of service, public education, family, and more during an address to Association staff Thursday.  

About 200 staff members attended Schmidt’s talk in person at TASB headquarters and 150 more watched online. The hour-long annual talk is a popular event that gives employees the opportunity to hear directly from the TASB President, and they can also ask questions. 

Schmidt talked about her longtime service as a Kerrville ISD trustee and her work with TASB. She also praised the audience’s efforts to serve member school boards.  

“The work that you’re doing is vitally important to school boards and the students they serve,” Schmidt said. 

TASB Executive Director Dan Troxell served as moderator for the talk, which was an informative and lively exchange between two people who have known each other many years. Troxell served as Kerrville ISD superintendent from 2003 to 2016, and he joked that he was enjoying the opportunity to ask all the questions this time.  

A Kerrville ISD trustee since 1996, Schmidt was sworn in as TASB President last September at txEDCON24 in San Antonio. A Leadership TASB graduate, Schmidt also has served on the TASB Board for many years, including the past several years as a board officer. She also serves on the TASB Risk Management Fund’s Board of Trustees.  

Service to Kerrville 

Back home in the Texas Hill Country, Schmidt has served as a Kerrville ISD trustee since 1996, holding various positions, including president and vice president. The district, which has about 4,500 students, is a vital part of the community.  

“I think I’m most proud of how our community supports us,” she said. “We are so blessed.” 

The Kerrville ISD board truly works as a team, Schmidt said as she discussed the importance of training and team building. She credited TASB for providing important training for school board members, including new ones.  

In addition to her school board service, Schmidt also has been actively involved in local youth education programs and other programs in Kerrville. Schmidt also is a managing partner in her family-owned and family-operated commercial real estate development and management company. She and her husband, Arthur, have raised three children and have several grandchildren.  

Schmidt was born in Fort Worth, grew up in the Houston area, and moved to Kerrville as a teenager. A graduate of Kerrville ISD’s Tivy High School, she attended Colorado Women’s College and Texas State University before transferring to San Jose State University in California to pursue a degree in social services. After graduating from college, Schmidt lived in Washington D.C. and again in Colorado, where she briefly tried farming, before moving back to Kerrville.    

While some people carefully chart their life’s course, some even beginning when they are very young, Schmidt characterized her life as more “accidental.” She has seized some opportunities as they came up unexpectedly and made some quick choices that have had lasting, positive outcomes.  

And she has learned that things aren’t always what they seem at first. A young Schmidt thought her life was over when her family moved from the big city to the countryside, but it has all worked out. 

She also recalled how her role as local campaign chair for United Way opened the door to her school board service in a rather random way. Some 30 years ago, Schmidt went to Kerrville ISD’s central office to pick up pledge cards one Friday afternoon when an employee mistakenly thought she was there to pick up a packet to run for the school board. Schmidt decided to take the packet anyway and went back to her office, where she flipped it open and saw that the deadline to file was that day at 5 p.m.  

“I called my husband and said, ‘Hey, what do you think, should I do this? And he said, yeah, do it,” Schmidt recalled. It was about 3 p.m. when she made the decision — but she still made the deadline.  

She later found out there were seven people running for two open seats, so she jumped into local campaign mode. On Election Day, her mother called asking her where she could vote. After a long night of vote counting, Schmidt found she won one of the seats — by a single vote.  

“You all can thank her today,” Schmidt remarked as the audience laughed.   

“It was again accidental. I have an accidental life. I kind of accidentally fell into board service and I never looked back.” 

“Maybe accidental but very purpose driven,” Troxell added.    

Dedication to TASB 

That purpose has extended to TASB, where Schmidt has served about 10 years on the Board of Directors, including as the current president. She shared her first experience with TASB, which she called an “amazing organization.” In her first year as a trustee, Schmidt attended txEDCON, though she was the only Kerrville board member who did. She remembers feeling very alone at first, but not for long. 

“I went into the first general session, sat in the back of the room and watched those kids on stage. It was Electra ISD, and it was just incredible,” she said. “I thought, ‘I love this organization.’”