Charting Our Course: Trustees Help Shape Advocacy Agenda

This summer has been busy for trustees and their boards. There were graduation ceremonies, tough budget discussions, and planning efforts for the upcoming school year. Amid those joyous occasions and difficult conversations, some boards and individual trustees also have been working hard to help shape the TASB Advocacy Agenda priorities and resolutions that will serve as the Association’s legislative program through the upcoming session.

Back on June 13, about 75 members of TASB’s Legislative Advisory Council (LAC) gathered to finalize their priority statement recommendations. They spent about two hours considering important education issues such as school funding, teacher retention, school safety, and local governance of schools.

LAC had first met in April to develop a draft list of priority statements, and members spent their second meeting in June reviewing those statements and voting on a draft to send to the TASB Board for review. In late September, TASB’s Delegate Assembly will have the opportunity to review, amend, and adopt the statements that will become TASB’s priorities in the 2024-2026 Advocacy Agenda.

Legislative Committee Members

At the June meeting, LAC also elected four representatives who will sit on the TASB Legislative Committee to ensure that LAC’s voice is conveyed throughout the process:

• Trish Bode, Leander ISD

• Shameria “Ann” Davis, Copperas Cove ISD

• Daniella Lopez Valdez, Brownsville ISD

• Heather Sheffield, Eanes ISD

Annual Call for Resolutions

At the same time, local school boards were submitting proposed resolutions to be included in TASB’s Advocacy Agenda. While priorities direct TASB’s legislative efforts, resolutions help the Association respond to issues that are not specifically addressed in the priorities.

About 25 school boards submitted more than 150 resolutions during TASB’s annual call for resolutions this year. The resolutions address issues ranging from specific needs like funding schools based on student enrollment instead of average daily attendance to issues surrounding school staffing. The TASB Board will present recommendations to the TASB Delegate Assembly for consideration in September, and those recommendations will be presented in the TASB Delegate Handbook for review by delegates and alternates.

Delegate Assembly Meeting

Delegates from around the state will meet September 28 in San Antonio to review and discuss the proposed priorities and resolutions before amending and finally adopting them. It is important to note that every school board that is a member of TASB is invited, and strongly encouraged, to send a delegate to serve as its voice at the Assembly. This is your opportunity to have a say in the direction of TASB’s advocacy efforts and to elect the leadership of the Association.

Boards should appoint their delegates and alternates according to who would be the best fit — and that means sometimes selecting a trustee with the experience to represent the district’s students and interests. Directions for selecting delegates are posted at tasb.org/delegate.

TASB relies on member boards sending delegates to the Assembly and engaging in our Advocacy Agenda process so that we can best represent you and all of our members who count on us to effectively advocate that agenda at the Texas Capitol and beyond.