Weslaco ISD: Christmas stipends will remain in place amid money cuts

During a special meeting last week, Weslaco ISD’s board of trustees voted to keep in place the $1,000 Christmas stipends for district employees, despite the financial hardships felt by most Valley school districts these days.

For supporters of traditional public education, which doesn’t include charter schools, it’s tough to watch the federal government freeze $6.2 billion in federal education funding nationwide across five federal programs that support our public schools.

According to the AFT (American Federation of Teachers), analysis from the Learning Policy Institute shows that Texas trails only California in the amount our schools stand to lose in this latest round of cuts. The analysis also shows that these cuts make up roughly 16 percent of all U.S. Department of Education pre-K-12 funding to Texas.

If it’s not the feds going after public education, we have our governor calling two special sessions this year to make sure that his universal school voucher program is passed, making further dents in public education.

Have to make room for the people who can make money off private education, who are also large campaign donors.

Always a case of follow the money. In this case, it leads right to the governor’s mansion.

In fact, Texas public schools are facing significant federal funding cuts, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, primarily due to freezes on key programs supporting mental health, effective instruction, and after-school care, exacerbating existing state underfunding issues and leading to budget deficits, potential layoffs, and reduced services, especially impacting low-income students and English learners.

These cuts, stemming from federal actions and the end of pandemic relief, are hitting Texas hard, with some programs facing reductions of over 16 percent of their total federal allocation.

Weslaco ISD Comes Through

In the case of Weslaco ISD, as is the case with many other school districts in the RGV, the money is so tight that even Christmas stipends for employees become more difficult to fund.

During last Thursday’s special meeting, the school board voted unanimously to fund the employee stipends, with the understanding that school finances will become a focus of further discussion in the new year.

For Weslaco ISD, student enrollment is down this school year by approximately 300 students, which amounts to a loss of approximately $2.5 million.

The cost of everything, or so it seems, is going up, while school funding, both state and federal, is going down.

There was another Weslaco ISD meeting planned for this Monday, the same day this column is being written.

No matter if one is Republican or Democrat, one has to look around at all the money we are spending on things other than public education, and ask why?

We sent $20 billion to Argentina in a supposed currency swap, which we have no hope of reclaiming.

The armed flotilla we have just sitting near the coast of Venezuela is costing us how much?

Since February 2022, the U.S. sent Ukraine approximately $187 billion.

The growing list of money sent overseas, for military campaigns, goes on and on, while we see more school funding cuts.

Meanwhile, the state cuts property taxes, further reducing local property tax revenue, putting more strain on school budgets, and that’s on top of the universal school vouchers, enacted his year, estimated to cost public education billions.

It’s almost as if there is a direct attempt to harm traditional public schools by placing them in an untenable financial strait.

The U.S. federal government, state politicians, used to care, or so it seemed, that our public schools were funded adequately.

No mas.