Education
BY HANNAH NORTON
2P Education Edition
2024
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This guide features the latest updates and resources about local K-12 public school options in your community, ranging from new campuses to budget details to bond elections. All of the stories were written by our team of local journalists, and all of the advertisements are from nearby businesses who support our mission to provide free, useful news—show them your gratitude by supporting them.
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What's inside
TEA set to approve new textbooks (Page 13)
Texas State Technical College expands locally (Pages 1415)
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Bob Popinski discusses Texas public school funding challenges Amid high operating costs and stagnant state funding, many public school districts across Texas have adopted budget shortfalls for scal year 2024- 25. Last year, public education advocates urged lawmakers to increase the basic allotment—which is the base amount of money schools receive per student and has not changed since 2019. Community Impact interviewed Bob Popinski, the senior policy director for education policy nonprot Raise Your Hand Texas, to learn more. How are Texas public schools funded? Right now, Texas is in the bottom 10 [states] for per-student funding. We’re more than $4,000 below the national average, according to a new National Education Association report. [Texas uses] what is known as an equalized
system, where the Legislature sets the amount of per-student funding and a district is guaranteed that amount. [District] revenue comes from local property taxes and general revenue from the state. On average, when you look at per-student funding across the state, the funding that actually gets down into the classrooms—that pays for day-to- day operations like teachers and cafeteria workers and bus drivers and school principals—is roughly $10,000 per student, on average, across the state. What kind of stang issues are schools facing, and what can the state do to help? The state needs to implement a lot of the recom- mendations that came from the Teacher Vacancy Task Force report that was issued last year. A lot of them focused on salary; a lot focused on training and retention of teachers. School districts are strug- gling to nd certied teachers. In the 2022-23 school year, approximately 15,300 teachers were hired in Texas without certication. Hiring uncertied teachers is also causing a lot of turnover. Only about 37% of alt-certied or uncerti- ed teachers are still teaching after ve years.
COURTESY RAISE YOUR HAND TEXAS
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For a longer version, visit communityimpact.com .
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NORTHEAST SAN ANTONIO METROCOM EDITION
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