At the district office, district Superintendent Paige Meloni and Raise Your Hand Texas Regional Advocacy Director Sophie Torres updated constituents on the latest in the legislature, frustrated by the wait on House Bill 2.
In a nutshell
HB 2 would raise the base amount of money schools receive per student, otherwise known as the basic allotment, from $6,150 to $6,555, as previously reported.
Raise Your Hand Texas, a public school advocacy organization, has previously voiced its concerns that HB 2 does not accomplish enough for public schools, and that the basic allotment would need to be at least $7,500 to be sufficient with recent inflation.
Torres said that the wait on HB 2’s passage and the lack of requisite allotment increases would be harmful to the district and other schools.
“We have to make sure our legislators and our elected officials understand that this is a precarious game of chicken that is being played in Austin, and the people that really suffer are our school districts and ultimately, our kids,” Torres said.
Meloni said the wait holds the district “hostage” when it comes to future financial decision making. She said the passage of Senate Bill 2, which would give families public money to pay for private education, could also be costly to the district.
If 3% of the district’s student population was lost to private education, it would result in an annual revenue loss of $3.7 million, Meloni said.
“When you start concentrating that kind of [school choice] money into certain areas, especially in a configuration like elementary [school] where we already have declining [attendance], you might be looking at closing an elementary school,” Meloni said. “You’ve seen that around us.”
What else?
House Bill 4—which would replace the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, test with three shorter exams to be administered throughout the school year—was also top of mind for town hall attendees.
Assistant Superintendent of Schools Kelly Kovacs said the replacement tests beginning in the fall would be a “big change,” but added that students are used to similar exams.
HB 4 would also adjust Texas’ public school accountability system, matching what Kovacs said was a “growing concern” from district officials about how much power the Texas Education Agency commissioner has over school accountability indicators.
