Houston-Area Districts Join Forces for Legislative 101 Training
Educators and community members learn how to work together on legislative issues
January 27, 2011
January 27, 2011
School districts in Texas stand to lose $5 billion dollars per year under current state budget proposals. Superintendents and school boards across the state say the proposed cuts would have a devastating effect in their classrooms. On January 27, parents from HISD and other area school districts attended a meeting to learn more about the state budget crisis and the legislative process.
“We’re in this together,” said HISD Government Relations Director Rebecca Flores. “All of our school districts will be impacted by these cuts. All of our kids will be impacted by these cuts. All our teachers will be impacted by these cuts and we need to figure out what this means for our community.”
Flores organized the training session in conjunction with representatives from the Cypress-Fairbanks, Spring, and Spring Branch school districts. The meeting provided an overview of the school funding process and an update on what the cuts could mean, in general terms, for local districts. HISD could lose $202 million to $348 million. Those figures represent 15 to 20 percent of the district’s total budget.
David Thompson, the attorney for HISD’s Board of Education, told the audience that districts could have to make very difficult choices. He said a multi-billion-dollar cut to education would be unprecedented. “We are in uncharted territory. We are literally talking about something the state has never done.”
Li Doyle, a mother with three children in HISD, recently heard about the state’s budget problems and wanted to learn more about the shortfall. “I am very concerned about it,” she said. “I realize how big of a problem this is.”
After the meeting, a number of parents and community members said they planned to lobby legislators to preserve funding for education. Mariana Sanchez, an HISD tutor, said, “We need to get together—families, moms, government, everybody—so we can have an educated community.”