Happy March! I hope you all are looking forward to your upcoming spring break weeks.
Keep an eye out for the Save-the-Date for our Spring Convening coming soon. For this convening, please feel free to invite two or three folks from your teams to join us in order help with our Legislative Agenda development. We will also have some special legislative guests at the end of the event.
In addition to the above elections, here are some additional highlights that came out of the primary elections and recent election news:
Governor Abbott sets a date for a state-wide election to raise the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $40,000 for May 7th
Ina Minjarez and Peter Sakai will head to a run-off on May 24th for the Bexar County Judge seat
Representative Dutton won his primary election by 136 votes
Representative Middleton won his primary, does not have a Democratic opponent, and therefore is the presumptive new Senator for Senate District 11 formerly held by Senator Taylor
Due to redistricting, Senator Powell's new district has become more Republican leaning and has an upcoming difficult general election against Representative Phil King
Senate District 24 republican nomination is going to a run off between former Senator Pete Flores (for Senate District 19) and Raul Reyes, the Democratic nominee is Kathy Jones-Hospod
Charles Butt Foundation Releases Annual Education Poll
Recently, the Charles Butt Foundation released their third annual "Connected Through Our Schools" state-wide poll.
The poll surveyed over one thousand Texans that reflect the demographic and political make up of the state.
In the poll results, the foundation presented the opinions of residents with school-age children and without. The poll revealed that the opinions of these two populations has become more divided when it comes to Texas Public Schools.
Along with expected mistrust of STAAR testing and calls for more comprehensive education programming, there were interesting findings associated with the Texan's trust in teachers - 71% of Texans trust Teachers the most to make critical decisions for their students compared to 24% of Texans who trust State Elected officials.
To find an interactive view of the released poll click here.
BCEC has started to reach out to Bexar County Delegation Offices to share ADA data from the beginning of January for BCEC districts:
ADA average – 82%
Approx. daily loss of funding for first three weeks of January- $4.2 Million
Approx. total loss of funding for the first three weeks of January - $50 Million
Lastly, the latest intel I have is there will be some news about ADA coming out via the commissioner call after spring break. As I hear more I will of course send it along!
