Yet another local public school system in North Texas is facing budget constraints, and it could resort to staff cuts.
The Carroll Independent School District’s (CISD) Board of Trustees met last Monday (April 17) and heard a presentation by a district official about how the district’s 2023-2024 school year budget is projected to come up $2-4 million short.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, a former educator and current district parent, Nancy D’Amico, took to the podium and spoke out against any potential staff cuts.
“Our administration is proposing cutting teachers and staff and increasing student load per teacher. This reduces the ability for teachers to do assessments, grading, plan, co-plan for special education, and even cover classes for each other,” D’Amico claimed.
“But the bleeding doesn’t stop there. It has been said that you’ll be cutting a counselor from each intermediate school, leaving Durham [Intermediate School] with one counselor to assist 700 students,” she said.
Other community members also spoke up with questions about how such cuts would impact the district.
CISD had been counting on the state legislature to increase the basic allotment of state funding per student, but pending legislation that would accomplish that is still stuck in committee, according to Community Impact.
“It’s just a shame that we have to make some efficiency improvements in order to meet just the basics of our expenditure projections,” said CISD Board President Cameron Bryan, imploring community members and parents to reach out to their state legislators.
Superintendent Lane Ledbetter informed the trustees that overcoming the deficit could be accomplished with voluntary staff departures, stressing that, unfortunately, the budget needs to shed payroll.
“No teacher is losing their job. We’re not firing anyone … I want to make that point clear,” Ledbetter said.
CISD is not the only North Texas school district facing a budget deficit next year. Both Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District and Richardson Independent School District face similar dilemmas, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
Still, despite their financial troubles, all three districts have been regularly outperforming the Dallas Independent School District (DISD), which had a roughly $2.2 billion budget for the 2022-2023 school year.
DISD’s latest Texas Education Agency accountability report shows that only 41% of students scored at grade level on their STAAR exams. Furthermore, the district only managed to graduate about 80% of its Class of 2022 on time.
