With the 85th legislative session convening in four months, the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD board of trustees approved four legislative priorities Monday night.

One of the board's priorities refers to the process of "recapture," whereby GCISD and some other Texas school districts are required to by law to send some of their property tax revenue to the state to be redistributed among districts deemed property-poor. In 2015-16, GCISD sent more than $27 million back to the state for this purpose.

The district's priorities read as follows:





School Finance
The district supports meaningful changes to the Texas school finance system that decrease the reliance on recapture, provide an adequate education for all students pre-K-12, eliminate unfunded mandates and accurately reflect the cost of education based on the needs of the student populations served.





Vouchers, Taxpayer Savings Grants, or Tuition Reimbursements
GCISD believes vouchers, taxpayer savings grants, savings accounts, tuition reimbursements and other diversions of public money would be detrimental to all Texas public schools. State or taxpayer funds should not be diverted to schools that are not held to the same accountability and transparency standards as Texas public schools.

Assessment and Accountability
School district officials across the state, including GCISD officials, have been expressing their concern about state testing and how it used to label students and districts. In the upcoming session GCISD will be  an advocate for a comprehensive accountability system that restores a positive focus on student learning and looks beyond high-stakes, multiple-choice, developmentally inappropriate exams. GCISD opposes a simplistic A-F campus and district labeling system, particularly one that ignores the complexity of public schools and disregards community values.

For more information on this subject, click here.









Local Control
GCISD will advocate for less intrusive state government as district officials believe the best outcomes occur when the state partners with locally elected school boards, who are directly accountable to all students, parents, local taxpayers and local businesses.