Your Voice

BY MARK WIGGINS

ATPE Lobbyist These are statistics that should trouble every Texan: In the 2022 midterm elections, 8.1 million voters cast their ballots, roughly 300,000 fewer than the number who voted in the last midterm elections in 2018. Turnout in 2022 dropped 11 points to just under 42% turnout, compared with a 53% turnout in 2018. Turnout was the lowest since the 2014 midterm elections in which barely a third of registered Texas voters participated.

Texas set a new record with 9.6 million registered voters declining to participate in the 2022 midterm elections. Election tracker Jeff Blaylock pointed out that combined with those who are eligible but have not yet registered to vote, roughly 11 million Texans who could have voted in 2022 did not do so.

Those who did participate reelected Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton by double-digit margins. Republicans carried every statewide office, maintaining a Texas tradition dating back to the 1990s.

What happens next is fairly easy to predict.

Armed with a perceived mandate, Abbott can be expected to charge full steam ahead on his campaign promise to pass a private school voucher, redirecting desperately needed funding from rural public schools to subsidize the tuition of elite private academies in cities such as Dallas and Houston.

Under Patrick’s leadership, the Senate will move quickly to send a voucher bill to the House and crank up the pressure on representatives who oppose diverting Texans’ tax dollars to unaccountable private and parochial schools at the expense of the public school down the street.

Patrick has already offered to “carve out” rural communities in an attempt to pacify the rural Republicans whose school districts would be forced to subsidize vouchers for the suburban country club set. Yet this sleight of hand won’t insulate rural districts from the fiscal consequences of even a limited voucher program.

The lieutenant governor has in the past held hostage critical legislation regarding school funding and educator compensation to try to force the House’s hand on a voucher bill. It is possible that we may again see important public school legislation held as collateral to pass a voucher bill.

The founders of Texas knew an educated populace was essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people. Moreover, they felt providing a free education was a moral obligation. That’s why they cemented into our constitution the guarantee of an efficient system of public free schools.

Vouchers would undermine this fundamental right by dismantling the principles of free and equal access and the constitutional mandate that the Legislature make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of the public school system.

This upcoming legislative session could well determine whether we get to keep it.

Fortunately, there is still reason for hope. Propublic education candidates fared well on Election Day, including several who campaigned on support for public schools.

These candidates will need our support in the coming months to withstand the withering pressure that will be placed on them to betray the interests of the communities that elected them. Voucher supporters will also need to hear from constituents about the consequences of their vote.

That makes this year’s ATPE at the Capitol event critically important. Join your colleagues Feb. 20–21 in Austin to share your teacher voice with your elected lawmakers at the Texas Capitol. You’ll get access to legislative training and informational sessions to help you advocate effectively and efficiently. Nothing is more impactful than a face-toface meeting! Visit atpe.org/AATC for more details. Registration will open in early December.

In addition to ATPE at the Capitol, educators can always call, email, and write letters to let our elected officials know we won’t stand by as our public school communities come under attack. Be sure to regularly log in to the member-only Advocacy Central page on the ATPE website for the latest contact tools and campaigns.

Our public schools are the backbones of our communities. They are where we learn, work, gather, and pour our hopes and dreams for each future generation. We will have our work cut out for us defending them this session. We can’t do it without your teacher voice.

Voucher proponents have long pushed for diverting taxpayer funds from an already-struggling public education system to private schools. The promise of “choice” in the matter is deceiving and, in many cases, outright false.

BY JENNIFER TUTEN

The voucher push in Texas has been a decades-long battle, but to date, none of these initiatives has passed—despite staunch philosophical and financial support from statewide elected officials and various PACs.

ATPE has long opposed vouchers under our member-written-and-approved legislative program. In addition to conventional vouchers, ATPE opposes any initiative that would direct public funds to private, home, or for-profit virtual schools.

The politicization of education, which has reached a fever pitch as of late, has voucher proponents ready to strike yet again.

The Heritage Foundation explicitly points to political strife as an opportunity to push vouchers, stating the culture war “could be extremely helpful for promoting education scholarship accounts, tax credit scholarships, and school vouchers … School choice advocates … should not squander the opportunity to use it.”

Voucher proponents have not squandered the opportunity, spending millions on Texas candidates this election year and—as ATPE Governmental Relations Director Jennifer Mitchell told Houston Public Media in October—using culture and curriculum debates to garner support for privatization. During a virtual discussion with pastors from around Texas in September 2022, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick stated: “After COVID and after [critical race theory] and after pornographic books in libraries, parents deserve choices.”

Texas’ battle with vouchers has not been fought along party lines. Historically, Democrats and rural Republicans in the Legislature have banded together to block vouchers from passing. In the 2021 legislative session, the majority-Republican Texas House voted 115–29 against allocating public funds toward school choice programs.

With Texas home to more rural students than any other state, siphoning funds out of public schools means rural areas would suffer the most if a voucher program were passed. Private school options are few and far between in rural Texas. According to the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission (TEPSAC), nearly 60% of Texas’ 254 counties do not have an accredited private school.

Public school districts are also many small towns’ largest employers—Lockhart, Sweetwater, Jacksonville, Canyon, Raymondville, and Azle, to name a few. As Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) tells The Texas Tribune: Independent school districts are the lifeblood of the communities in his West Texas district. Aware of the skepticism, Patrick is already signaling to rural lawmakers that his 2023 voucher proposal will focus on urban areas only, but that won’t eliminate the many problems associated with using public funds for private schools.

More important than the question of availability of non-public school options is the question of quality. Around the U.S., schools that participate in voucher programs vary in degrees of accountability. For example, in Maine, a private school whose enrollment of publicly funded students falls below 60% is not required to administer a state assessment. In Georgia and Florida, state assessments are not required except upon parental request. In Mississippi, schools participating in a voucher program must only provide parents an annual update of a student’s progress.

Overall, voucher programs have not proven to be of significant benefit to learning outcomes. In fact, studies found achievement loss in Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio, and Washington, D.C.

Vouchers have also opened the door to financial malfeasance. In Milwaukee, nearly half of the city’s private voucher schools operating between 1991 and 2015 have closed either voluntarily or due to regulatory action. In 2005, the Milwaukee JournalSentinel investigated a number of voucher-funded schools, 15 years after voucher legislation was passed in Wisconsin.

Their report revealed several troubling issues. The founder of Mandella Academy for Science and Math cashed $330,000 in tuition checks received for over 200 no-show students and purchased two luxury vehicles.

At Milwaukee’s Harambee Community School, a former financial officer was charged with embezzling $750,000. Teachers’ paychecks bounced, and staff turned over at an alarming rate. A longtime school board member withdrew his own son from the school.

VOUCHERS BY THE NUMBERS

Of the 29 states with a voucher, tax-credit scholarship, or Education Savings account program in place, nine rank in the bottom 10 in per-pupil funding.

41% increase in amount awarded through the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program from 2021-22 to the following year. Student participation only

75% of current-year voucher applicants in Arizona already attend private school. 102 of 247 (41%) of Milwaukee’s private voucher schools closed between 1991 and 2015.

in Wisconsin over a six-year period.

From millions to billions in three years: Voucher funding in Florida has increased from approximately $326 million in 2019 to an estimated $1.3 billion this year.

Both schools have since shut down.

A 2016 performance audit on Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Program identified a number of cases in which scholarship payments were cashed by parents who then enrolled their children in public schools.

The complexities of vouchers are many, and proponents with a vested interest— morally, financially, or both—often shroud the concept under the cloak of “school choice.”

The choices parents and students have in the public school system far outweigh those offered in private schools. Because TEA has no oversight over the private school system, these schools are exempt from the requirements outlined in the Texas Education Code, which enumerates parents’ rights regarding complaints, assessments, exemption of instruction, review of curriculum, and more.

On the other hand, in private schools, what does “choice” entail?

Ironically, it’s the schools, not parents, that have the upper hand because they are not bound to the same regulations as public schools. In other words, taxpayers would be on the hook for financing schools that have no accountability to them in terms of quality, equity, and fiscal responsibility.

In a May 2022 interview with KXAN News, ATPE Lobbyist Mark Wiggins pointed out just a few examples: “Parents would surrender the right to run their child’s school through an elected school board, the right to view curriculum, the right to demand open records, the right to accountability scores, not to mention federal rights for a disabled child.”

Students with special needs are especially vulnerable without the protections afforded to them by public education. Private schools are not subject to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires schools to provide services necessary for a child to receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE). Private schools that do not receive federal funding are also not covered under Section 504, which protects qualified individuals from disability-based discrimination.

Because religious institutions are exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), religious private schools are not required to provide accommodations so long as they do not receive federal funding.

This lack of protection and services can lead either to a student being “counseled out” or unenrolled from the school, or the parent may opt to reenroll the child in public school when it becomes apparent their child is not receiving the support they need.

In May 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott touted school choice at a campaign rally in San Antonio, promising that such initiatives would have the money follow the student. It’s not that simple.

Not only would individual students and their parents suffer, but also public education as a whole would lose out. Most school funding is issued on a per-pupil basis, so every student who leaves the public school system negatively impacts a district’s revenue for operations, facilities, personnel, etc., as those costs do not decline in proportion to the decrease in enrollment.

So who benefits from vouchers, other than those with a vested financial interest? It’s suggested the wealthy would benefit the most.

In states with voucher programs, the majority offer vouchers in the amount of a private school’s tuition or the state’s per-pupil funding amount, whichever is less. In Texas, the latest figure for base funding is $6,160 per student. However, average tuition for private schools ranges from $9,000–$11,000. Parents would be responsible for the remainder, and that may not include transportation, food, textbooks, technology, or other services otherwise provided by public schools. In other words, sending your children to private school, even with a voucher, would still require significant financial means.

Furthermore, Texans could see a significant hike in property taxes. In Wisconsin, the cost of vouchers has increased sixfold since 2015-16, starting at $21.4 million and ballooning to $144 million for 2021–22. More troubling is the lack of transparency in allocation. In an effort to give Wisconsinites a better understanding of how their taxes are being used to fund the state’s voucher programs, lawmakers have tried passing legislation requiring an outline of voucher line items without success.

During the aforementioned campaign rally, Abbott also stated that he was for “fully funding our kids’ classrooms and fully supporting parents, teachers, and students,” but he did not elaborate on how that would be accomplished. Texas’ K-12 population is second in the nation behind California, but the state ranks 39th in per-pupil funding even after a significant budget increase in 2019.

One thing is clear: Instead of diverting taxpayer funds from an already-underfunded public education system, it’s time to focus on what can be done to ensure successful outcomes for Texas schoolchildren. This means addressing educator recruitment and retention in a meaningful way, which is especially crucial given the mass exodus of teachers statewide. It also means improving the school finance system so districts can attain the resources necessary to serve all students equitably.

Despite the multitude of failures already seen with vouchers, the push continues in Texas and beyond.

Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Legislature passed a slate of anti-public education bills, including the dissolution of Milwaukee Public Schools, creation of a “Parental Bill of Rights,” and voucher expansion with a potential tax burden of half a billion dollars. Gov. Tony Evers, a former educator and administrator, vetoed the bills.

In October, Arizona voters failed to block the expansion of a controversial voucher program after a petition fell short of the number of signatures required to put the program to a voter referendum. As of 2021, Arizona was ranked last in school funding. The state department of education reported 75% of voucher applications this year were for children who already attend private schools.

Voucher funding in Florida has outpaced public school funding and nearly tripled in the past three years, from $326 million in 2019 to an estimated $1.3 billion for the 2022–23 school year. In Leon County, voucher expenditures have increased 540% from the 2019–20 school year to the current academic year.

Back in Texas, a voucher scheme was discovered and reported by Texas Monthly in October. The article revealed the Wimberley ISD superintendent had been approached regarding a potential partnership that would create a charter school on paper but in practice take taxpayer dollars to send students to private schools around the state. Although the students of this new charter “campus” would be counted as Wimberley ISD students, the tax dollars received for their attendance would be sent to the schools they physically attended.

With Abbott and Patrick’s reelection, vouchers could very well become a reality in 2023 without exploiting loopholes in the system. Abbott has promised to sign any school choice legislation that reaches his desk. The Patrick-led Senate is almost certain to pass a voucher bill as it has done in prior sessions, but will there be enough opposition in the Texas House to keep vouchers away?

As educators, it is our responsibility to secure our futures and those of our schoolchildren by speaking out to our elected officials and voicing our opposition to these damaging initiatives. One of ATPE’s five legislative priorities heading into the 88th Texas Legislature in January is preventing the passage of a voucher plan.

ATPE members interested in meeting their elected officials to discuss the association’s legislative priorities are encouraged to attend ATPE at the Capitol in Austin Feb. 20–21, 2023. ATPE also has a wealth of resources on Advocacy Central and TeachtheVote.org to help you get in touch with your elected officials and see where they stand on the issues.

LEARN MORE ABOUT VOUCHERS IN THE U.S. BY VISITING THIS INTERACTIVE DATA VISUALIZATION: ATPE.ORG/VOUCHERS-BY-THE-NUMBERS

For several years, you’ve likely heard the phrase “opioid crisis” in the news or on television, but for some of you, it hits very close to home. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a new wave of synthetic opioid overdoses accounted for more than 71,000 fatalities and is up 23% from the previous year. Public health experts say that the synthetic opioid fentanyl is largely responsible for this deadly trend.

Recently, Hays CISD lost multiple students to this drug, and there is reason to believe this is just the beginning of a new and dangerous era for an opioid crisis that has shifted in focus to the younger generation.

Tim Savoy serves as the chief communications officer for Hays CISD. In May, the district began seeing instances of suspected overdoses, and one of their schools had to use an opioid overdose treatment for the first time.

“We all have known about fentanyl for a couple of years now,” Savoy says. “It’s been around, but it was always just sort of something that you heard about in other cities or other parts of the country.”

In late July, Savoy received a call from the local Justice of the Peace, who also serves as the coroner. She broke the news that

Hays CISD had lost a student, and that was a suspected fentanyl overdose.

“When you have a situation like that, it’s tragic,” Savoy says. “It’s horrible because a fentanyl overdose is something that is preventable.”

A week later, the Justice of the Peace called to report another death.

“At that point you say, ‘Oh no!’” he says.

“I hope that this is just a horrible coincidence.

Having two so close together puts this issue directly on your radar as a school system to do something before it happens again.”

In response, the Hays CISD communications team decided to include information about fentanyl and the two tragic deaths of students over the summer in its back-toschool messaging. But just as they were putting together the message, the Kyle chief of police—who tracks fentanyl-related incidents and deaths—alerted Savoy that this is a growing issue on which they would need to further engage students.

Savoy and his team immediately began working on a campaign to get the word out to students, but the weekend after the very first week of school, they learned that a third student had died from fentanyl in their district.

“At that point, this was no longer a tragedy or a tragic coincidence,” Savoy says. “It was now a pattern and a crisis. So we just cleared the calendars and went all-in with the messaging. We had to let people know what was going on, and we could build the campaign around and behind it afterwards.”

Hays CISD held a press conference to discuss the deaths, created posters for each of its schools, and built a webpage dedicated to providing information and resources. The webpage includes a video series, “Fighting Fentanyl,” featuring law enforcement and the families of victims.

After the press conference and the third confirmed fentanyl death, an autopsy came back from a prior death over the summer confirming it was also caused by fentanyl. That brought the death toll to four students in a six-week period.

“We adopted the mindset that we have rightfully put a lot of effort and energy into information and awareness concerning the pandemic and hardening our school perimeters,” Savoy says. “But this is also a huge threat, and it deserves our attention and energy as well. We do have the power to reach people and to bring awareness. In the education setting, we are uniquely equipped with the ability to get the word directly to parents and students in our district.”

In early 2018, Wyndi Padgett and her husband Mical lost their son to a synthetic opioid poisoning at the age of 21. Blain was a fun-loving, “brighten up the room” kind of person who loved football and listening to old country music. Growing up, he wanted nothing more than to play college football like his father. Blain worked hard to earn a scholarship to Rice and was overjoyed to begin fulfilling his dream.

The previous fall, Blain suffered a shoulder injury during a game that required surgery. His injury kept him off the field and unable to work out with the team. Blain was anxious to return, and his recovery was going well.

“In January, the Rice football team hired all new coaches, and Blain had not been released yet to work out,” Padgett says. “The day before he died, we talked to him, and he was so excited about the next day.

Blain had just been released from the doctor to return to the field, and I remember him saying, ‘I feel good. I am going to work out tomorrow and show these coaches what I’ve got.’”

That night, Blain got a pill from an ex-teammate at Rice that he thought was a hydrocodone. An autopsy would later show that Carfentanil, an analog of fentanyl commonly used to tranquilize large animals, was found in his system.

“It took us three months to get the cause of death back because they weren’t looking for Carfentanil,” Padgett says. “They had never even heard of it in a human.”

By all accounts, Blain was not a drug user, nor was he addicted to pain pills. The pill he received from his former teammate contained a lethal dose of synthetic opioid. Within hours of taking it, Blain was gone.

“When we talked to him that night, he was happy,” his mother recalls. “He was laughing about things and talking about the next day. That weekend, we were going to see him in Houston. We were taking his sisters and planning this great weekend we could all spend together.”

The following afternoon, Padgett received a call from her husband.

“Wyndi, I’m headed to Houston,” she recalls her husband saying. “They can’t find Blain.”

“It’s not the sort of mistake that you can learn from. It’s two milligrams, and you don’t get a second chance to make the right choice.” — Wyndi Padgett

Blain had missed morning practice, and his father had received a concerned call from one of Blain’s teammates.

He immediately called the police and had Blain’s roommate let them into their off-campus house. On his way to Houston, he received the heartbreaking news: Blain was gone. He turned around and drove home to pick up his wife and their daughters from school before heading back to Houston.

“They would not let us see Blain,” Padgett says. “They had already taken him out of the house, and I guess they didn’t have to have us identify him because his roommate was there. At the time, I thought it was terrible that they wouldn’t let us see him, but now I don’t have that memory.

“My last memory of him was smiling and happy, so I’m really thankful that we didn’t get there in time,” she says. “That evening, the entire football team showed up at Blain’s house, and we all just cried and talked about Blain through the night.”

After reviewing Blain’s phone, the police informed the Padgett family that they found a text from Blain to his trainer at the university asking for a hydrocodone prescription. The trainer replied that they could talk to the team doctor that week, but Blain made the fateful decision to instead go through a former teammate.

“We always wondered if it was because Blain thought that if the doctor knew that he was still in pain, he might not release him to play,” Padgett says. “I think Blain felt like he didn’t want the coaches to know that he was still hurting, so he went a different route.”

Tragically, that single decision cost Blain his life.

Fentanyl is a synthetically produced opioid that is up to 100 times stronger than morphine or heroin, and it presents a unique threat.

“My husband and I have been trying to get the word out because four-and-a-half years ago, when my son died, we had never even heard of anybody dying from a single pill,” Wyndi Padgett says.

Leslie Inman lost her daughter, Marissa, to fentanyl poisoning in 2016.

“Marissa took a pill that had a lethal dose of fentanyl in it,” Inman says. “She had no way of knowing how dangerous it was. She had two small children. One of them was five and a half, and the other one was just under a year.”

Annie Hernandez lost her son Joshua Bell in 2019 to fentanyl poisoning. She believes a Xanax laced with fentanyl killed him.

Together, Inman and Hernandez have partnered with the families of four other victims of fentanyl poisoning to form the Travis County Overdose Prevention Endeavor, whose primary focus is educating the public on the dangers of drugs including fentanyl.

“Neither Leslie nor I knew of fentanyl when we first got the tox screen back for our children,” Hernandez says. “But since then, we are becoming experts on it. Fentanyl has been around since the ’80s. It’s used mainly for surgeries and end-oflife cancer patients. It was never intended to be used for chronic pain, and it is certainly not intended to be used outside of a hospital setting.”

There is a huge difference between the fentanyl you get from a pharmacy and the illicit fentanyl—its chemical precursor— that travels from China by boat to Mexico, where it is processed and pressed into all kinds of pills or mixed with other drugs, such as cocaine or heroin.

“They mix fentanyl into absolutely everything,” Hernandez says. “It’s cheap, and they don’t have to grow poppy seeds. They don’t have to go all over the world looking for XYZ. It can be done in someone’s backyard or basement, and it’s a game-changer.”

Counterfeit pills are popping up all over the state, disguised as everything from painkillers to stimulants. In 2021, almost 1,700 Texans died from synthetic opioid poisonings alone.

Both the cartels and drug dealers producing these pills use fentanyl because it is incredibly potent and increasingly cheaper to acquire. Unfortunately, this arrangement also makes potential overdoses much more likely.

“You could have a bag of 50 pills, and only two of them contain a lethal dose of fentanyl,” Inman says. “If you take the one that has just a little too much fentanyl— called a hot pill—you won’t know until you’re overdosing or dead.”

According to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a dose of as little as 2 milligrams can be lethal.

“You could get five of these fake pills that are made in somebody’s garage, and one pill could only have one milligram in it,” Padgett says. “You take it, and everything is fine. You take another one that has three milligrams in it, and you die.”

These fentanyl-laced pills can be pressed to look exactly like prescription opioids, but there is zero oversight into the levels of fentany that pills can contain, even within the same batch. Although it might seem like bad business to endanger your own customers, these illicit manufacturers are not concerned with creating a safe product.

“They make so much money off these pills that they don’t need to care if it is killing their clients,” Inman says. “They literally don’t need land, water, fertilizer, seeds, or someone to mind the crops. They just need the chemicals, a basement, and a chemist. I’m not even talking about a professional chemist—just someone who can mix it up and make it into a pressed pill. Because it’s so cheap, they could kill half of their customers and still make more money than they ever could before.”

But the problem doesn’t stop there. More recently, the DEA reports that children have become a new target market for the cartels.

“They’re going after kids now with ‘rainbow’ fentanyl,” Hernandez says. “It is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like a box of Cap’n Crunch cereal. That’s what the fentanyl looks like. Why would you even make it that color unless you’re targeting children? They call them Sweet Tarts and Skittles.”

— Annie Hernandez

“It’s not something you have to light up or inject in your vein,” Inman says. “It is literally a little pill that can be made to look like candy and can kill.”

With the rise of fentanyl products disguised as prescription pills and even candy, the language surrounding deadly encounters with the drug needs an update.

“The phrase ‘fentanyl overdose’ indicates that someone intended to take fentanyl and they took too many,” Savoy says. “But in the cases where people don’t know they’re ingesting fentanyl, it should really be seen and referred to as a poisoning.”

As drug dealers explore new avenues for pushing these deadly products, social media platforms are becoming a hotbed for illegal transactions.

“The dealers infiltrate kids’ Snapchat to sell drugs using emojis as secret codes,” Hernandez says. “For example, Xanax could be a ‘yellow school bus.’ There’s this huge list of drugs they offer and will ship directly to any address.”

Much like ordering food to be delivered straight to your doorstep, children now have access to drugs without ever leaving their homes.

“The drugs used to come directly from China through the mail,” Inman says. “Now, they’re coming through the cartels, but you can still get it through the mail. This way, you don’t have to go down to the street corner. It has completely changed the way people are getting their drugs.”

“People are poisoning pills, and it’s killing our kids,” Padgett says. “It’s different than the way our Red Ribbon Week has approached drugs in the past. I’d like to figure out a way to focus it more on what our kids are dealing with now.”

After decades of similar messaging, families of fentanyl poisoning victims are looking for a renewed approach to keeping children away from drugs.

“Yes, we don’t want them to do cocaine or heroin,” Padgett says. “We don’t want them to try those dangerous drugs, but they also need to worry about other deadly situations. Pills are more dangerous than ever. They need to know to never take any pills that were not prescribed to them by their doctor.”

As the discussion about prevention continues to make headway, another conversation has begun regarding the FDA-approved opioid overdose treatment of naloxone—commonly referred to by its first official brand name, Narcan.

“One of the things that we’re trying to do is bring awareness to the fact that there are life-saving drugs that can help reverse the effects of an overdose,” Inman says. “I carry Narcan with me all the time now because even though I don’t do drugs, you never know when someone might overdose in front of you.”

But some districts across Texas do not have any form of naloxone treatments available in their campuses.

“I went to my local district nurse trying to get Narcan into the schools,” Hernandez says. “She tried to tell me the side effects of Narcan. I said: ‘Oh, you mean life? What side effects?’ If somebody is overdosing at a school, you have to wait for 911 to come, and if you have no idea what they took, that child could die.”

Different forms of naloxone come in a nasal spray that can instantly, but temporarily, reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. And with fentanyl poisonings on the rise, there is a growing need for greater availability.

“We want to get the word out that there is this drug that can help save somebody’s life,” Inman says. “Without it, you just stop breathing, and you die. That’s what happened to my daughter. She took a pill, she laid down, she stopped breathing, and she died.”

Although Narcan—for a period of time—can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, the victim can quickly slip back into a life-threatening condition if they do not receive additional medical treatment right away. Even in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, a naloxone drip is often required.

In Hays CISD, school nurses at all levels began carrying Narcan at the beginning of the last school year, and school resource officers began carrying it a couple of years prior. Savoy believes the best way for districts and communities to address this problem is to be both proactive and straightforward.

“Some people don’t want to sound the alarm if they’re embarrassed by something,” he says. “Well, there’s no embarrassment here. We just deal with reality. We deal with the fact that what’s happening is happening, and we need to address it head-on.”

Although it is true most drug overdose and poisoning incidents do not occur at schools, Savoy says that schools still have an integral part to play in both prevention and treatment.

“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t have Narcan available,” Savoy says. “I mean, you have Band-Aids in case somebody cuts their finger. I know that’s not the same caliber, but why would you not have something available if you know it’s lifesaving? We’ve had a defibrillator in our central office here for 15 to 20 years, and I’m not aware of any time we’ve ever had to use it. But it’s great to know it’s there in case we need it.”

Hays CISD tracks how many times Narcan has been used on campuses. Since May, district officials have already had to administer Narcan three times at three different schools.

“If the nurse carries Narcan, it is not going to have any iota of an effect on whether kids are going to use a drug or not on campus,” Savoy says. “What it will do is allow you to potentially save a child’s life who’s fading out in front of you and going into fentanyl coma right before they die.”

In all of the four cases of opioid overdoses and poisonings in Hays CISD, multiple doses of Narcan had to be administered.

— Tim Savoy, Chief communications officer, Hays CISD continued on page 31

BY JACK DENSMORE

An increase in cost of living, inflation, effects on mental health, and a feeling of loss of respect for the profession has caused many teachers and education staff to leave either the public school system or Texas altogether. In response, districts are trying creative ways to tackle the resulting shortages, including incentives, efforts to ease the strain on employees, and ways to retain education staff.

Although public education has been approaching a teacher shortage for years, with specific certification areas already experiencing shortages, the COVID-19 pandemic sped up the process, and now, shortages in employees are regularly in the news cycle in Texas and across the country.

Dr. Ray Perryman, president and CEO of The Perryman Group, discussed with the Texas Teacher Retirement System board the rising concern of teacher shortages, as reported by Texas Education News.

Perryman reported that Texas will need to fill 50,000 teacher vacancies every 10 years. This is on top of a Charles Butt Foundation survey that says 77% of teachers surveyed have seriously considered leaving the profession in Texas. Often, the feedback displayed that not enough pay, support, and/or respect were the main reasons for leaving. This also includes non-instructional work and having to provide support for individual students without the necessary resources to do so, according to Texas Education News.

There are a multitude of reasons teachers are leaving the profession. According to a survey from Teachers Pay Teachers, which corroborates much of the Charles Butt Foundation survey, 65% of teachers say that respect for teachers has lessened over the past two years. The same survey also shows 59% of teachers believe the restrictions on teaching certain issues or curriculum have had a definite impact on teachers leaving— while 29% say it has had an impact to a degree. Teachers Pay Teachers also broke down the data by region, with 70% of teachers in the southern U.S. stating there was less respect for teachers.

The shortages go beyond classroom teachers to support personnel. In Lake Travis ISD, students who live outside a two-mile radius of their school will have a bus service that rotates every other week, meaning the students will go without service half the time. Even though Lake Travis ISD has raised the starting salary for bus drivers to $23 per hour, the shortage continues.

The cost of living is a major contributor to the educator shortage. Both rent and house prices continue to climb, especially in urban and suburban areas across Texas.

According to SoFi and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the average cost of living in Texas was $39,661 per year in 2020. Although Lake Travis ISD’s raise for bus drivers would cover this average, not every district has the funding available for such measures. Plus, this average does not speak to every financial situation. Home prices have also risen, in September of 2021, Zillow reported the average home price in Austin was $520,898. Teachers with families in the

Austin area must have other means to pay with these types of prices, leave the area and commute, or move to apartment complexes, where the rent is also high: • Texas median two-bedroom rent: $1,083 • Texas median three-bedroom rent: $1,268 • Texas median four-bedroom rent: $1,641

The above rent prices are reflected on a median for the entire state based on 2019 U.S. Census data—cities like Austin and Dallas typically have higher rates.

To fight a higher cost of living, raising employee pay or providing incentives is often necessary. Much like Lake Travis ISD, Bryan ISD also raised the pay for its staff in 2019. Bus driver pay was raised to $18 an hour, and teachers received an increase that varied based on experience. The largest increase was for teachers with 35-plus years of experience (an $8,100 annual bonus). Special education aides also received an increase of up to $3,000. DeSoto ISD also has a few incentives for both new and returning staff. These include one-time incentives and ongoing incentives. The one-time incentives include a $500 employee referral bonus and a $500 DeSoto alumni bonus. It is also the last year for what is called a “Difference Maker Bonus,” a $3,000 bonus, which is for paraprofessional and auxiliary staff only. Ongoing incentives include up to $29,000 for teachers who earn designations in the prior year under the state’s Teacher Incentive Allotment and a $5,000 incentive for Master Teachers, according to the DeSoto ISD website.

When asked what districts can do to retain teachers, former Texas high school teacher Danielle Bell says: “For one, they can pay us, and pay us what we’re worth.”

Bell taught high school for 20 years. She started in Texas for four years, before moving to Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New York. She worked back in Texas for the last 12 years and has worked in six different districts across the state. The last district she worked for was Lamar CISD for five years. Now, Bell works as an adjunct English professor and is a doctoral student in educational studies at the University of Northern Colorado.

Although Bell spent a long time teaching in public education, the mental toll it took became too much to handle.

Beyond compensation, there is still more to the story. In particular, the emotional and mental health of teachers has been a major contributing factor in recent departures.

“I think now, the difference is that during the lockdowns and the early months of COVID, when all of the students were at home—with their parents trying to navigate online

learning in whatever form their districts put together—teachers were lauded as heroes as they tried their best to finish the year,” Bell says. “Then, as soon as the summer of 2020 ended, and teachers expressed concern for their own health and safety going back fully in person, suddenly teachers were seen as lazy, and people said they just did not want to work. [We went] from hero to villain in the blink of an eye.” For Bell, no amount of money would have made her stay in the public teaching profession. This is largely due to the 78% uncertainty and emotional impact of returning to the classroom after COVID-19 closures had lifted. “The return in the fall of 2020 was the most difficult ‘back to school,’ and it exacerbated every emotion and stressor and magnified how bad it really was,” she says. “Teachers had to decide if they kept the classroom doors open and made themREPORT BUS DRIVER selves vulnerable to an intruder, or if they kept them closed SHORTAGES NEGATIVELY and thus did not have the ventilation to mitigate exposure.” IMPACT DISTRICT One of the many reasons Bell left Texas public education TRAVEL OPERATIONS. was due to these emotional stressors. “My decision to leave was not an easy one,” she says. “I felt immense guilt—I felt like a failure—I felt like I was letting my former colleagues, my students, and my community down. But I also felt like I had to leave for my own sanity and mental health.” Districts are looking for different ways to both recruit and retain teachers. Houston ISD implemented an 11% average raise for returning teachers for the start of the 2022-23 school year, and starting teachers receive a starting salary of $61,500. “[It is] one of the most competitive starting salaries in the nation,” Houston ISD said in a statement. “We continue holding job fairs and hiring events, partnering with colleges and universities in and beyond Texas, and welcoming international candidates with certification to teach in critical shortage areas. Where necessary, we seek certified long-term substitutes to fill in where a vacancy is not filled by the first day of school.”

Bus driver shortages have also grown worse. According to a national survey by HopSkipDrive, 88% of respondents said their school’s transportation services were constrained by a shortage of bus drivers. The top reason for the shortage, according to 67.16% of respondents, was difficulty recruiting new bus drivers. For now, districts are about 50/50 when it comes to reducing transportation services because of the shortage—55.22%

have not reduced transportation, while 44.78% have. The main reduction in transportation services comes in the form of fewer bus routes with around 60% of respondents reporting this. Other options include decreasing the range buses operate, which has students walking farther, or changing bell times.

The survey also identifies a correlation between access to transportation and attendance—with 67% of respondents stating this and 61% reporting chronic absences within their district.

However, the biggest data point is that 94% of respondents state they have a staffing shortage within their district. These shortages include teachers, school bus drivers, custodians, health professionals, librarians, and administration.

In order to help with the situation, the Texas Department of Public Safety announced a waiver for select commercial driver licenses (CDL). This waiver expired in March 2022, but it allowed the waiver of the “under the hood” engine training covered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

Lake Travis ISD is among the many school districts hit hard by the shortages. Brad Bailey, Lake Travis ISD assistant superintendent for operations/Title IX coordinator , summarized the situation: “When it comes to recruiting, Lake Travis is often hitting a wall. The main bump in the road is the timeliness with which bus drivers are looking for jobs. It takes about six weeks to become certified to drive a school bus in Texas, but most bus drivers are looking to start the next week or the same week upon being hired.”

In the state of Texas, school bus drivers must obtain a Texas Commercial Driver License-Class B with a school bus endorsement and pass a DOT physical and drug test, a state license check and criminal background check, and a 20-hour school bus certification course. On top of that, they must be CPR-certified and have a good driving record.

However, another issue Lake Travis has run into is retention.

Lake Travis has also experimented with earlier drop-offs for parents to provide an additional option for weeks when the bus does not service their route.

Bailey says the main thing he asks the community to do is spread the word about the open positions.

“It just comes down to trying to recruit drivers,” he says. “We’ll interview everybody, and if they meet the criteria for the position, then obviously we want them to join our team. We train everyone in house, so if they have not driven a bus before, they don’t have to go downtown or anywhere else to drive a bus. We have a program in place here.”

Shortages are not just occurring in big districts but in the smaller districts as well. Teresa Millard, a bus driver in a small district and who represents Region 7 on the ATPE Board of Directors, explained that substitute bus drivers are becoming increasingly hard to find.

“We do not have anyone that is ‘just a bus sub,’” she says. “Our sub drivers consist of coaches and (agriculture) teachers. We had to add two bus routes and extend one route due to the addition of the neighboring district. We had employees working to obtain their certification over the summer to fill these new positions and replace one driver that retired.”

Millard also discussed the issue of pay for the bus drivers within her district.

The issue of paid time off has had a huge impact as well, especially on female employees.

“We receive five paid days off to match the five we receive in our other district positions,” Millard explains. “The only difference is that those five days do not roll over from year to year. So, we have a hard time finding subs if we do want to use our days—but if we don’t use them, we lose them. This has been especially detrimental to some of our female bus drivers who had days saved in their teaching position for when they needed to take maternity leave.”

Districts across the state and country have looked at all these aspects to retain and recruit teachers. Stipends, incentives, and raises in salary are some of the most common ways districts have tried to tackle the staffing shortages, but there are also the unfavored options including increasing workload on teachers.

Some districts are adopting four-day work weeks with positive results. Time will tell if this solution finds its way to larger districts and if the same results are seen in larger populations. But for small districts facing their own staffing shortages, the four-day work week has been a viable option.

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Statistics from HopSkipDrive’s 2022 State of School Transportation report available at www.hopskipdrive.com/blog/6-key-takeaways-from-the-state-of-school-transportation-2022-report