LONGVIEW, TX — Beginning at 11:30 a.m. Monday, April 19th, a six-foot-tall, three-legged stool will be displayed inside Longview High School’s Mickey Melton Center, with a simple message: Fund Texas Education.  The district will host a press conference with Raise Your Hand Texas, a public education advocacy organization that wants to remind legislators to ensure public schools receive the support they need throughout the pandemic by supporting all three legs of the school funding stool.   If you would like to set up coverage or an interview with LISD staff about this story please contact Mr. Francisco Rojas at frojas@lisd.org or call 903-381-2220.    (16)

For more information about this event please contact Ms. Tessa Benavides with Raise Your Hand Texas at tbenavides@ryht.org or call 210-445-3965.   

Billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds are earmarked for public schools. But in Texas, educators are fighting to make sure schools get what they’re supposed to. The first round of funding last spring did go to Texas schools, but lawmakers used most of the money to replace funds that schools were already set to receive. The state has yet to decide how they’ll use money from the second and third rounds. And with that decision yet to be made, advocacy groups and school leaders are making their positions known.

“This is going to affect every student that we have,” said Dr. James Wilcox, Longview ISD Superintendent, adding that COVID-19 left schools with problems that will take years to solve.

“Millions of Texas students—and that’s no exaggeration—have been without their regular classroom teacher. And a majority of those students are economically-disadvantaged, and those are the students who’ve been affected the most by not being in the classroom with their regular classroom teacher,” he said.

And Wilcox says federal funds earmarked for schools can help those students recover, but not by supplanting what schools were set to get anyway.

“That was money allocated for Texas public schools, and that’s where 100 percent of it should go,” he added.