Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath spent over an hour Tuesday touring classrooms at Brackenridge High School and listening to the concerns of teachers and students during a visit to the recently renovated San Antonio Independent School District campus.
Morath visited four districts during his back-to-school tour as part of monthly efforts to engage with school communities, TEA spokesman Jake Kobersky said.
Led by the school’s principal, Noemi Davila, and SAISD Superintendent Jaime Aquino, Morath took notes on teachers’ concerns about a lack of planning time, changes to certain career certifications and funding — which he reminded teachers he does not control.
But the impact of a lack of funds was threaded through many of the conversations, including a discussion about the shortage of professionals available to serve special education students and contend with a growing number of students with mental health needs.
“It’s kind of difficult to actually teach them if they’re struggling with those mental illnesses,” Angela Davis Beard, a counselor at the school, said. “I know the district has done a lot in order to support us in that, but it’s always helpful to have that extra staffing and funding resources that will allow us to extend ourselves even further.”
Alice Darland, a special education teacher, said the shortage of paraprofessionals also has become an issue in self-contained special education classes, where students who are physically aggressive need a high level of attention and care.
“I don’t know … how the state can support their salaries,” she said. “It’s hard to find them, and then to keep them here and retain them.”
“They really do it from their heart, because honestly, they can leave here for work at Amazon and get a lot more money,” she added.
Another teacher brought up what he said were inequities between SAISD and other districts. Morath and Aquino both clarified that the state funding formula is the same for students regardless of where they attend. Aquino used the opportunity to note the inequities within the district, which he said were caused by resources being stretched thin due to under-enrolled campuses.
The district is undergoing a process that could lead to the closure of those schools for that reason.
Teachers said that they loved the environment and support at Brackenridge despite the funding concerns.
Morath touts teacher salaries
Top students, who shared their college plans and chatted with Morath about his job, also asked about teacher salaries, noting recent news coverage about the issue following a legislative session that saw no raises for educators.
“Teacher pay has increased — it’s still not where we want it to be — but has increased pretty significantly in the last five to 10 years,” he said, pointing to a program rolled out in recent years that allows districts to receive extra funding for high-achieving and certified educators.
“It creates a career pathway so a teacher right out of college can start making, say, $60,000 a year, and by the time they turn 30, they might be making … $100,000,” he said.
A report released last year by EveryTexan and Texas AFT, a union, found that teacher salaries have actually decreased about 4% in the previous 10 years when accounting for inflation. The 2022 report also notes steeper drops in selected districts, including a 14% drop in the North East Independent School District.
Jaylin Al-Barati, the top student in the school, called the visit insightful, and talked to Morath about how to make sure her dual enrollment courses would transfer to Notre Dame as she makes plans to attend there next year. She also asked Morath how he was going to deliver on his commitment to increase student achievement for all Texas students.
“I see a lot of plans made and no way to get there,” she told the San Antonio Report after the tour. “They are making a lot of progress, as the commissioner said, but there is a long way to go.”
Morath answered her question by pointing to reading academies, which provide training on the science of learning to read required by all teachers of students in kindergarten through third grade.
Changes in ratings defended
Morath also shared efforts to expand Career and Technical Education across the state, and the concurrent change to the way those courses factor into accountability ratings.
That was fitting for the setting of the tour at a school with a burgeoning CTE department, which increased the number of students with certificates or degrees from around 70% to more than 95% in just the last year.
Morath used that as an example of the changes seen across the state that necessitated a recent shift in cut scores used to grade districts and schools in the state accountability system, although he said the change might come as a “jolt.”
“The state as a whole has gained nearly 30 percentage points in terms of the rate of kids that are prepared for college careers and the military coming out of schools,” he said. “Five years ago, we set the benchmark …much lower than [90%] because we were much lower than that as a state five years ago, but we have kept it steady even though the state has improved.”
Districts are bracing for low scores given the changes and have called for a more incremental process.
Despite the meteoric growth, Career and Technical Education teachers Tuesday shared concerns over funding and the lack of planning time that is afforded to other teachers.
Rafael Gonzalez, one of the culinary instructors at Brackenridge, said for the first time this year the program may have to raise money to keep operating at the top-achieving level it has been.
“We’ll do some fundraising and then it’ll go back into our consumables so we can buy products for the students,” he said.
CTE teachers also don’t have a professional learning community or PLC time like other teachers, which would allow them to collaborate and plan with other teachers, he said.
Davila, the school’s principal said that she was glad teachers had the chance to share their concerns. She said she hopes Morath and the other visitors saw the need for funding and time to implement changes coming from the state.
“The homework is to always remember the decisions that they make impact not just the students, but also the teachers,” she said. “And also the funding that we have to use to make or implement the changes that they are wanting … and the time we need to make those changes. It can’t just happen overnight.”
