The polls are open
Early voting is underway throughout the state for the March 1 Primary Election. Early voting will be available to all registered voters through February 25, and then of course Election Day, March 1.

Sometimes voters feel intimidated by the Primary Election because you must choose a party in order to participate. Texas is an open primary state though, and while you may only participate in one party's election (not both!), every registered voter is eligible to vote.

We hope all our schools throughout the state will promote a culture of voting in every election--with students, staff, and members of our communities. And of course that means following the same expectations we have for our students--that voters do their homework! Whether that research happens in person on the campaign trail or at a candidate forum, in a local voter's guide produced in your community, or through some of the non-partisan statewide resources such as Teach the Vote or the Texas League of Women Voters, it's important for every voter to know which candidates' priorities and views most closely align with their own.

If you are looking for more information about this election, you can find that at the Texas Secretary of State's VoteTexas.gov website. If you are looking for information about legal do's and don'ts regarding elections or a simple explanation of "who does what" when it comes to governing, please check out the information available from our friends at Texas Educators Vote.
New maps and new legislators
As you know, the Texas Legislature adopted new district maps for the SBOE, Texas House, Texas Senate, and the US Congress. Believe it or not, those new maps reflect some big changes for some legislative districts. And that means your school district may have someone new and/or different representing them when the 88th Legislative Session convenes in 2023. Take a look at this list comparing senators representing Texas School Coalition members in 2021 vs. 2023.

A few things to keep in mind...
  1. We plugged in names of current officeholders for 2023 for the ease of reading this list and put names to Senate District (SD) numbers. That does not mean every incumbent will be re-elected. We will update accordingly.
  2. We noted the known retirements in the Senate (Buckingham, Nelson, Lucio, Seliger, and Taylor) and included SD numbers and "formerly" notations in those instances.
  3. Green means "new" for 23, and yellow means "new with a change from who represented that district before." If your district's new senator(s) appear in yellow, it means you get to know a new member of the Senate.
  4. There are some instances where we list 0% representation, and you may wonder why that is there at all. In those cases, a portion of land from the school district falls into that SD, but no people/voters live there (so some percent of land, but 0% of people).

The list comparing House members will be coming soon. Please let us know if you have any questions about the members of the Texas Senate representing your district.
Resource for Schools
We hope you had the opportunity to check out these resources already, but if not here is another reminder:
We now have a website and resources dedicated to providing information about recapture in Texas. This site was created to serve as a resource for educators, students, elected officials, members of the press, community members, and many more. We've also released the report Robin Hood in Texas: A look at recapture's impact on students, taxpayers, and the state budget.

These days it seems to be harder and harder to communicate effectively, and communicating well is more important now than ever. Public schools have an important story to tell, and we're pleased to share a new free resource for public school leaders to help with that: Strategic Communications Guidance for Public School Educators in Texas

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