On the morning of April 12, parents and students in West Houston woke up to an alarming email from their district’s superintendent.

In that email from Superintendent Jennifer Blaine, Spring Branch Independent School District students and parents learned about intense changes that would be made starting in the 2024-2025 school year if a House bill in Texas passed. Those changes included extreme budget cuts, eliminating 10 to 20 percent of the staff and defunding mental health and security resources, athletics and performing and visual arts. 

House Bill 100, written by state Representative Ken King, supported pay raises for teachers and increased funding for public education. However, educators argue that it failed to provide an adequate increase to the basic allotment per student, and only guaranteed the amount of money for a one-time raise payment. According to some teachers and school administrators, the districts would have to fund the rest themselves.

On Monday, May 29th, the state Senate and House failed to reach an agreement over the bill and HB 100 did not pass.

Several staff members from the Spring Branch Independent School District spoke about the impact this lack of funding and what they called a “prioritization” of private school students over public school students may have on their schools and the rest of the district. 

Administrators said that the SBISD will be looking at a $50 million dollar shortfall next year, which entails drastic budget cuts. 

“I don’t know how we’re going to function.” said Stratford High School Principal Raymorris Barnes. “Because it’s just won’t be teachers. That’s bus drivers, that’s police officers, that’s cafeteria workers, that’s custodians, there are so many things besides just teaching.”

In speaking about the potential cuts, Barnes recalled the budget cuts made in 2011, in which 350 staff members were let go.

“That was only $33 million dollars over a span of two years. Think how massive it will look if we have to cut $50 million out in one year,” he said. “I’m telling you, it’s hard to fathom.” 

Even without HB 100, with funds drying up and teacher shortages on the rise, Barnes and several students expressed concerns about maintaining the current block schedule model at Stratford High School. In the past, Stratford principals have asked for six to seven more teachers to keep their block schedule running which costs more to support these additional “teaching units.”

“Because we’re looking at different ways to cut funding or different staffing programs at Spring Branch in general, giving one school more units than others would not be an efficient use of our funds.” Barnes reasons. 

Spring Branch is one of the 160 public school districts that pay recapture to the state. This recapture system was originally designed for the state to take local taxpayer dollars from districts that exceeded their entitlement funding and reallocate them to fund other school districts and charter schools. 

According to RecaptureTexas.org, the amount of recapture the State has collected has tripled in the last ten years. 

Since 2014, Spring Branch has paid $472 million in recapture while only having received $86.7 million in state funding. For the 2022-2023 school year, $87 million dollars were given to the state, while the district only received $22 million in state funding.  

57 percent of students in SBISD are economically disadvantaged, as is the case for nearly all school districts that have lost revenue due to recapture. In Austin ISD and Houston ISD, the first and second highest recapture paying districts, 51 and 79.46 percent of students are economically disadvantaged, respectively. 

“So imagine if we could keep half of that [$87 million dollars], or all of that.” Barnes said. “Think about what we could do.”

Texas schools are funded by what is called the basic allotment. This is a certain amount of money per student given by the state. Despite inflation and property tax rates going up, the basic allotment has stayed at $6,160, since 2019. 

The Texas Comptroller has stated that the district needs a $900 increase in their allotment. SBISD has been asking the state to raise the basic allotment by $1,000. 

HB 100 set out to provide a $50 increase. 

Not only did the bill only offer 5 percent of what would be needed to keep the district functioning, it states that the allotment to private schools should be raised to $8,000. 

Stratford High School math teacher, Darlene Parizot, called that move, “a huge slap in the face.” 

“It is a clear step to dismantling public schools and moving toward vouchers and state subsidies for private schools,” said Parizot. “Abbott has said that he won’t approve a budget unless vouchers are included. Students will be hurt the most. They will have more long term subs, or no teachers at all. There’s already a teacher shortage – fewer and fewer applicants for each opening. Make the job harder and don’t increase pay and who is going to want those jobs?”

With the budget drops, many teachers have also been expressing their concerns over their own futures in education.

 “It is definitely causing me to consider retiring earlier than I might have,” said Parizot.

Northbrook High School teacher, Deborah Owens, has also expressed concerns for not only the effects on the district, but for her personal financial situation and retirement in the future. 

Owens even proposed her own solution, saying she would like to see the state  create a special committee that would, research how other states with strong educational outcomes fund their systems and then make decisions based upon what is working in those states. 

Barnes said that in his 19 years of teaching, he has never faced the type of challenge that he is facing now. 

“We’re talking about things that are not happening in our school because it’s a political problem,” he said. “And then you have people that are not educated trying to dictate and tell us educators what’s best for kids.”

“I will not sit here and lie to you, I have wondered: is my future still in education? Do I still want to get up and keep going back to something that so many people are trying to give their input to, when they don’t see what I see, day to day?” he continued.

But for now, his commitment to public education is staying strong. 

“Even if the state refuses to step in and do what we need them to do, or what we expect them to do, or what we elect them to do, we’re not going to sit down and take it, and we’re not gonna fold,” said Barnes. “We’re going to come back better, and we’re going to be stronger. We just need to elect some other people to help us get what we need going forward. That’s how it changes. But the spirit of Stratford, it will always stay strong. And as long as I’m there, we will find a way to still come out on top.”

As of 2022, Spring Branch served 33,474 students.