Dallas ISD Trustees Approve Priorities for Texas Legislature

The Dallas ISD board of trustees approved five priorities for the 88th Session of the Texas Legislature during its Jan. 26 meeting.

The priorities include funding and supporting the following initiaitives:

School Safety

Dallas ISD seeks to increase the state’s School Safety Allotment to $200 per student, which currently stands at $9.72 statewide. The additional funding would be used to implement the district’s Comprehensive Safety Plan. Dallas ISD spends about $210 per student as of now.

Additional Funding to Address Student Learning Loss, Teacher Shortage, and Inflation

The district seeks to raise the basic allotment by $200 per student to give each district in Texas the materials to accommodate rising costs such as salary increases to address the teacher shortage. Inflation has raised the cost of living for team members, but also for districts to cover operating costs for materials such as fuel, utilities, supplies, and services.

Ensure Accountability of Tax Dollars

The district opposes all efforts to use public dollars to support a voucher program, which is the diversion of public school funding to private and religious schools. The board believes that tax dollars directed toward education should only fund public schools with clear accountability systems, and the diversion of these tax dollars takes needed resources from public school classrooms, hurts the ability for the district to pay teachers and staff, and reduces transparency for the use of public tax dollars.

Preserve Local Decision-Making

The district believes that the state cannot answer every challenge with a state-wide solution, so locally-elected and accountable school boards need flexibility to meet the needs of students, manage taxpayer resources, conduct elections, and respond to the community’s needs.

Pre-K Funding

Dallas ISD currently adds $13.3 million over what it receives through the state’s Early Education Allotment and half-day ADA to serve its nearly 10,000 students enrolled in pre-K. With Dallas ISD serving low-income families, the board believes it needs funding to get children into pre-K as early as 3 years old since it increases students’ potential and achievement throughout their academic career. If funding is not available statewide, the board recommends providing full funding for pre-K for students in Tiers 4 and 5 of poverty.