What's happening?
District officials and administrators are working to involve the community in the setting and advocacy of priorities that will guide district efforts at the Capitol during the legislative session, as well as through the Texas Association of School Boards, of which RRISD is a member district. Board Secretary and Place 4 trustee Alicia Markum said in an Oct. 17 that while the district had initially planned to do this via listening circles, a pilot paper and online survey of community members had been conducted to gauge sentiment regarding some of the priorities identified by the district earlier this year.
Survey results show a majority of people surveyed agreed with sentiments behind the priorities posed by the district.
In a 5-2 vote, trustees approved an updated list of priorities for the upcoming legislative session, adding recapture, mental health and school safety as well as funding for prekindergarten 3 and 4 programming to the list.
What they're saying
The two "no" votes came from place 2 and 7 trustees Mary Bone and Danielle Weston, who expressed some concern about the priorities' representation of values that they do not align with, and that district parents may not align with, similar to prior votes on legislative priorities for advocacy.
The details
Areas of priority identified by the district now include:
- Improving the accountability rating system
- Reshaping recapture to allow districts to retain more local funds
- Increasing the basic allotment and indexing it to keep pace with inflation
- Keeping public education funding discussions separate from discussions about education savings accounts and similar programs
- Increasing special education funding and improving program finance
- Increasing funding to improve hiring and retention of experienced educators
- Increasing funding for prekindergarten programming
- Increasing counselor staffing ratios to be more proactive in addressing mental health and behavioral needs
