At the Oct. 20 regular board meeting, the Conroe ISD board of trustees formalized the main priorities CISD will be advocating for at the upcoming 90th Texas legislative session.
Breaking it down
As previously reported in July, Hedith Sauceda-Upshaw, CISD assistant superintendent of governance and leadership programs, presented an initial draft of the district's main priorities for the upcoming session. The top five priorities outlined were:
Employee pay and retention
School funding “buckets"
Student discipline
Accountability subgroups
Local school facilities impact fees
Sauceda-Upshaw said that after numerous meetings with community members, elected officials and executive administrators throughout the summer, she and her team were able to identify the specific gaps CISD needs support to address.
“Everyone in the state of Texas is asking for additional funding in their basic allotment; we want to be more specific on what gaps exist in our school district, and we want to be targeted,” Sauceda-Upshaw said.
Better staff and teacher compensation is a high priority CISD hopes to address at the legislative session. CISD did receive an allotment from the 89th legislature to address teacher retention; however, the allotment does not address the new competitive salary market in education, Sauceda-Upshaw said. Additionally, the new allotment does not provide compensation to all district employees.
“If the state is going to have an allotment, it needs to be across the board for everybody and it needs to compete with the wages for all educators and the market and it needs to help us retain staff,” Sauceda-Upshaw said.
Gas and diesel prices this past year have increased, and as a result, the district currently has to pay more to bus students to and from school. The state only covers around 20-25% of school transportation costs. Sauceda-Upshaw said CISD receives $1 for every mile its buses drive and that amount needs to be updated to address the current economy.
In the classroom
At the previous legislative session, the state recognized that not all special education services are equal and some require more funding than others, so it looked to rework the weights it applied to funding.
Sauceda-Upshaw said that there are still two issues the state needs to address, however, when it comes to special education. Currently, it costs CISD $3,000 to assess a student, but the state gives CISD a $1,000 stipend to address this. Sauceda-Upshaw said this has created a nearly $7.5 million gap just to keep up with the needs of its special education students.
Sauceda-Upshaw said that CISD is also facing an unofficial "disability penalty” based on the amount of money the state gives per student. CISD receives $6,215 per student; this includes the materials, pay for the teachers and other essential items.
If a non-special education student were to leave the classroom, whether it be for competitions, band practice or other activities, their allotment would remain. If a special education student were to leave the classroom, however, Sauceda-Upshaw said that the district would actually lose a portion of that funding allotment.
The last funding priority Sauceda-Upshaw presented focuses on the security and safety inside and outside CISD classrooms. Each campus currently receives $34,000 for various security and safety upgrades from the state; this does not include the cost of on-site officers and security. The cost to train and equip these officers is around $90,000; the district would like to see an increase in funding to address this.
One more thing
After the end of the presentation and discussion, the board of trustees voted to officially formalize the legislative priorities. Sauceda-Upshaw has laid out the timeline for the remaining legislative priority sessions.
Fall: Formalize priorities
Fall: Develop policy language
Fall: Partner with school districts
November: Prefiling
Jan. 12: 90th Texas Legislative Session begins
