Margarita Venegas
CNHI
ALEDO —
An idea that started with Aledo ISD may not be a unique inception as much as an idea whose time has come.
In June, Aledo school board members set up a tent in town to collect signatures for a campaign they called “Make Education a Priority.”
The goal of the project is to achieve 4,555 signatures, one to match every student in the Aledo school system, and take those signatures to Austin to show legislators that the community wants them to take up the issue of school finance during the next legislative session, which starts in January.
Aledo board vice president Bobby J. Rigues plans to head to Austin once the 82nd Legislative Session starts.
“This is the year we have to make it a priority,” Rigues said.
And, other school districts are showing they agree.
The Aledo campaign’s website, www.schoolpriority.com has been up since early summer, but a big push was started Friday to get more districts involved. Since the start of this initiative, several school districts, school advocates and local legislators have contacted Aledo wanting to join forces, Rigues said.
While Aledo still has a bit to go in collecting signatures locally — about 1,900 more signatures are needed to meet the goal of 4,555 -- the school district is finding that teaming up with other districts means they’re making powerful allies.
“A lot of school complimented us [on the initiative] and it evolved,” Rigues said.
On the Aledo campaign’s website, there are links to other school districts that have decided to either pass resolutions asking legislators to make education a priority or that have shown their support of Aledo’s efforts.
One such district is Denison ISD.
“Denison ISD is interested in the Make Education a Priority initiative because public education financing system is broken and needs to be fixed right away. The Make Education a Priority promotes a simple but very important message,” said Denison ISD board of trustee member Randy Sedlacek. “Our board of trustees unanimously passed a Resolution of Acknowledgement at our last board meeting that sends a message to the public and our legislators that the Texas public school finance system is negatively affecting our school district. The resolution, which is an official document, respectfully empowers and supports our legislators to act upon the school funding problem.”
Denison district officials have also been communicating with their local legislators, which Rigues said is important. With the local legislators backing the districts, they hope to take their plea to the finance committee and ultimately have members of the legislature review and change the way school funding is done.
“I feel that previous legislative sessions have not dealt with the real problems with school finance. They have attempted to correct problems with the old system, but their solutions have not made any significant improvements to most school districts across the state,” said Sedlacek. “Our district, like most of the other districts across the state, are being funded at 2006 levels. Our expenses continue to increase year after year, but we have no further capacity to increase revenue. If public education is not made the highest priority during the 2011 legislative session then I’m afraid that our students will suffer for another two years as a result. Our students simply cannot wait for a reliable solution any longer.”
Rigues pointed out that the school districts are not trying to dictate how funding should be distributed, but simply asking legislators to go back and fix a system that has left many districts scrambling for ways to pay for necessities. Rigues said the school districts themselves also want to be accountable for spending, but need a better system to work with.
Both Rigues and Sedlacek said parents and those concerned about school funding should visit the Make Education a Priority website for ideas on how to help and communicated with their legislators.
“Education is a common denominator in achieving both financial security and happiness,” Rigues said. “We can’t wait for 2013.”
