Texas 2023 Legislature: Schools call for public education funding changes

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s each day e-newsletter that retains readers on top of things on probably the most important Texas news.

During a triumphant 2019 ceremony at Parmer Lane Elementary in Austin, Gov. Greg Abbott sat on a small stage in entrance of a giant Texas flag as he signed a large overhaul of the state’s public college finance system.

The new laws injected $6.5 billion into public education spending, plus about $5.1 billion dedicated to decreasing Texans’ property tax payments. It included elevating the whole quantity the state provides faculties per scholar by about 20%, setting apart funds for trainer raises and decreasing the sum of money rich districts must ship to poorer ones underneath the state’s recapture program, informally referred to as “Robin Hood.”

“You could not overstate the magnitude of the law that I’m about to sign because this is a monumental moment in public education history in the state of Texas,” mentioned Abbott, flanked by a couple of dozen Republican and Democratic lawmakers. “This one law does more to advance education in Texas than any law I have seen in my adult lifetime.”

Four years later, that very same college the place the legislation was signed is one in all a number of campuses within the Pflugerville Independent School District underneath risk of being closed. The district, which expected a $17 million windfall from the 2019 law, is now grappling with a $12 million price range deficit underneath the strain of mounting inflation and its still-high monetary dues to the state.

The pandemic additionally had a direct impression on enrollment and, maybe extra considerably, student attendance, an important metric that helps decide how a lot cash college districts get from the state. In Texas, if a scholar misses college, their district’s attendance common goes down and so does the sum of money it receives. And in a post-COVID-19 world through which dad and mom are faster to maintain their youngsters dwelling in the event that they’re feeling ailing, some districts’ funds have turn into extra risky than ever.

Districts like Pflugerville now imagine the funding formulation needs to be based mostly not on attendance however on enrollment — which they view as a extra secure benchmark — to raised mirror faculties’ actuality after the pandemic. As a brand new legislative session begins with an unprecedented $188.2 billion out there to pay for state enterprise, college leaders are hopeful however unsure if lawmakers may have the urge for food for one other formidable revamp of the college finance system.

“[Enrollment-based] funding would help us right now,” Doug Killian, superintendent of Pflugerville ISD, advised The Texas Tribune. “I’m hoping for the Legislature to save us, but I really don’t have that belief that they’re going to do what they need to do.”

Financial strains

Every weekday, Esmeralda Alvarado walks her son to Parmer Lane Elementary with sufficient time to get to work. Alvarado is accustomed to the neighborhood, which provides her a way of peace when her son and his 13-year-old sister stroll again dwelling on their very own within the afternoons.

She was shocked to listen to Parmer Lane would possibly shut. It would throw off her household’s each day routine and possibly value her her job, she mentioned.

But she was additionally pissed off. Her property taxes have solely gone up within the 18 years she has owned her dwelling, but her college district is struggling.

“We’re paying for our schools, and now I won’t have my own school close to my house,” Alvarado mentioned.

Pflugerville ISD, which serves households within the suburban metropolis of Pflugerville, north of Austin, introduced final month that Parmer Lane Elementary may shut because the district seems to save cash. Most of the district’s 10 proposed plans to remain afloat call for shuttering two to 3 elementary faculties which are positioned in older buildings and have low enrollment and attendance charges. Only one proposal would lead to no college closures and commerce them for heavy rezoning.

Parents have additionally expressed issues concerning the potential closures’ impression on class sizes, lengthy college bus drives and fairness. All of the faculties being thought-about for closure have a excessive share of Black and Hispanic college students and are categorised as Title 1 faculties, which means they’ve a excessive inhabitants of economically deprived college students.

Terrance L. Green, an affiliate professor on the University of Texas at Austin, mentioned faculties that shut due to financial struggles are normally majority Hispanic or Black, disrupting many years of neighborhood constructing and resulting in adverse scholar outcomes in studying and math.

“In these communities, schools often represent a place of hope, pride and dreams. So, when schools are closed, it not only affects students, families, teachers and staff members, it also reverberates through the entire community,” Green wrote in his analysis findings.

His analysis has additionally discovered that districts that shut faculties on account of monetary causes don’t actually get monetary savings in the long term as a result of they incur new transportation prices and sometimes proceed paying for the upkeep of the previous buildings.

“The data is clear that you don’t save money unless you are ready to fire a whole bunch [of faculty],” he advised the Tribune.

Killian mentioned the district will do every part to make it an equitable transition since — for the time being — he sees no choice aside from to shut some faculties to save cash. Since final college 12 months, the district has made cuts throughout division budgets, decreased administrative employees and stopped filling positions. Killian mentioned the district can’t discover anyplace else to chop.

“There’s not a lot of low-hanging fruit anymore, and so we’re having to look at how we staff, what campuses are open [and] whether or not they have enough kids in them to make them as efficiently staffed as possible,” he mentioned.

Killian describes the Pflugerville ISD’s deficit as a “perfect storm.”

The first issue is the state’s recapture program, which requires the state to take funding from college districts with increased property values inside their boundaries, like Pflugerville ISD, and provides it to poorer college districts that may’t increase a lot cash. Even although the 2019 college finance legislation lessened the recapture burden on property-rich districts, Pflugerville ISD nonetheless has to make a $12 million cost to the state this college 12 months.

Killian mentioned the legislation was good and did give the college district extra money, however inflation has eroded its worth: The sum of money faculties get per scholar went up 4 years in the past, but it surely has stayed the identical whereas the price of residing retains rising.

Then there’s the pandemic, Killian mentioned, which altered the way in which individuals take into consideration education and poked holes within the state’s college funding system.

Under the present formulation, faculties get cash from the state based mostly on their attendance charge, which measures what number of children truly present up throughout a faculty 12 months. Pflugerville’s present attendance charge is about 91%; it was about 94% earlier than the pandemic. A distinction of some share factors within the attendance charge can imply tens of millions of {dollars} in losses for a faculty district.

With the present attendance-based funding, faculties have a tough time budgeting the precise manner as a result of attendance is unpredictable, particularly amid a pandemic, mentioned Amanda Brownson, government director of coverage and analysis on the Texas Association of School Business Officials.

“Now, as waves of COVID and waves of flu run through a district, attendance rates fall, and they’re falling more than they used to fall,” she mentioned. “Frankly, people probably used to come to school a little bit sick. They don’t anymore.”

And Pflugerville isn’t the one college fighting attendance.

In the El Paso Independent School District, officers closed schools between 2019 and 2020 on account of price range deficits that stemmed from declining enrollment and attendance charges.

In the McAllen Independent School District, superintendent J.A. Gonzalez mentioned his district may have an additional $6.7 million this 12 months if it weren’t for an attendance charge of about 94%, the bottom determine it’s had since COVID-19 hit.

Gonzalez mentioned children are lacking college extra actually because COVID-19 scares are nonetheless frequent, the flu and RSV are additionally making rounds and, mentally, some children and oldsters are struggling to get plugged in since coming again to highschool full time.

“It’s just an interesting phenomenon that happened across our society,” Gonzalez mentioned. “After COVID, people got used to working remotely, or people got used to staying home or people got used to a different lifestyle.”

A brand new combat for a brand new formulation

In November, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, filed House Bill 31, which might take away common each day attendance from the state’s funding formulation and substitute it with common enrollment in an effort to get extra money to highschool districts.

The common each day attendance is calculated by the sum of youngsters current every college day divided by days of instruction that faculties are required to present. The college district then will get $6,160 per scholar in that common.

Under Hinojosa’s invoice, faculties would seemingly be funded based mostly on an enrollment snapshot from the earlier college 12 months. Supporters of the change imagine it needs to be extra favorable for districts as a result of it wouldn’t punish them for college students lacking college.

“The general concept is, ‘Let’s not shortchange our kids in schools; let’s fully fund our schools based on the enrollment that our schools have to anticipate and pay for,’” she mentioned.

Hinojosa estimates that switching the funding formulation to enrollment would value the state an additional $5 billion on the subsequent state price range cycle.

“Anybody who has their kids in public schools knows that our schools desperately need at least that kind of investment,” she mentioned. “Our public schools are really struggling right now, and we need to be responsive as a state to ensure that they can survive and thrive.”

However, it’s unclear whether or not lawmakers will need to replace the funding system once more, particularly as Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and different Republicans have mentioned they’ll help “school choice” this session, a time period used to explain packages that give dad and mom state cash to pay for personal education. Critics say such measures take away cash from the public education system.

State Rep. Gary VanDeaver, R-New Boston, who’s on the House Public Education Committee, believes faculties want an incentive to maintain children going to class, which he mentioned the present attendance-based funding mannequin gives. Rolling out a brand new enrollment funding mannequin would even be pricey, he mentioned.

“I don’t know that I would give [Hinojosa’s bill] great odds of making it across the finish line,” he mentioned.

VanDeaver mentioned he’d be extra in favor of elevating the fundamental allotment this session as an alternative of reinventing the funding mannequin. Doing so would give faculties extra money and likewise enable them to present lecturers raises, he mentioned.

Killian, Gonzalez and different superintendents would favor to maneuver away from the attendance-based formulation — as most different states within the nation have already got — however they mentioned they’d take the fundamental allotment improve if that’s on the desk as an alternative.

Either manner, it is going to seemingly be too late to assist Pflugerville ISD with its present monetary struggles. The district needs to decide about what steps to take, and whether or not they’ll contain college closures, by February.

Before then, the Pflugerville neighborhood may have an opportunity to suggest to Killian and the remainder of the college board options on learn how to hold the faculties open.

Rena Clegg, who has a toddler at Parmer Lane and likewise taught on the college, laments that a spot beloved by households and identified for its range and togetherness would possibly shut due to the district’s cash issues.

“It’s just one of those places where everybody is a family, and no matter what happens, they’re going to destroy something that’s been built there,” Clegg mentioned.

Disclosure: Texas Association of School Business Officials (TASBO) and University of Texas at Austin have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Find an entire list of them here.