{"id":22624,"date":"2025-10-27T07:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T07:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/22624\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T07:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T07:07:07","slug":"garland-isds-momentum-now-depends-on-community-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/22624\/","title":{"rendered":"Garland ISD\u2019s momentum now depends on community support"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past school year, over 500 Garland ISD students walked across the graduation stage to receive not only a high school diploma, but also an associate degree from Dallas College<\/a> and, with it, the chance to earn an estimated $600,000 more over the course of their lives.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Not too long before, few believed this was even possible.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Garland ISD set a vision of \u201cCollege For All\u201d and began the long, arduous process of placing both Early College<\/a> and Pathways in Technology<\/a> models on every high school campus. The challenges were obvious: Sourcing qualified instructors, securing state approval, navigating industry and community college partnerships, and above all having the resources necessary to truly meet the needs of the student body, over 70% of whom experience economic disadvantage.<\/p>\n

Now, 15% of Garland seniors have obtained a postsecondary credential completely debt-free<\/a>. This, combined with other important gains across a student\u2019s educational journey, has led GISD to grow college readiness by six percentage points from 2024 to 2025 and boast the highest state accountability rating<\/a> of any district in the county serving a student population experiencing above-average economic disadvantage. And they did this all with one of the lowest tax rates in the region.<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a truly remarkable achievement that serves as a model for large school districts across our state and country. Its future depends on the support of the Garland school community.<\/p>\n

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Why is that? This year the Texas Legislature took the important step of investing an additional $8.5 billion in public education<\/a> and targeting those investments in critical areas such as teacher pay, early literacy and career technical education.<\/p>\n

But the fact remains that, even with this increased funding, the purchasing power of school systems remains below where it was in 2020<\/a> due to rampant inflation in the intervening years. And, for Garland, this has resulted in a potential $60 million shortfall for the upcoming school year without major changes.<\/p>\n

Through these challenges, the district has remained an admirable steward of taxpayer resources, implementing a series of cost containment measures<\/a> that improve efficiency and reduce the size of central administration. Only 0.7% of Garland employees are central staff<\/a>, nearly half of the statewide average, making Garland\u2019s central office one of the leanest in the state.<\/p>\n

The point has now been reached where any remaining cuts would directly impact the district\u2019s ability to support its students: tutoring, technology, teachers. And that\u2019s exactly why these important student supports have been prioritized by the Garland community members who came together in a Citizen Steering Committee<\/a> to shape the district\u2019s upcoming Voter Approved Tax Rate Election, or VATRE.<\/p>\n

The recommendations of those dedicated community members directly shaped the size and goals of Garland ISD Proposition A<\/a>, for which early voting has now begun.<\/p>\n

As CEO and board member of Education Is Freedom,<\/a> a college access provider that serves all of Garland\u2019s high schools, we\u2019ve seen firsthand how the district\u2019s leadership, from Superintendent Ricardo L\u00f3pez to each of its executive directors, principals and teachers, prioritize student success above all else.<\/p>\n

We often say our public schools are engines of economic mobility<\/a>. To extend that metaphor, the support of the school community is the fuel that keeps that engine running. Garland ISD has been driving toward increased opportunities for every student for an entire generation and counting. Let\u2019s not halt that momentum now. <\/p>\n

We urge Garland ISD voters to support Proposition A.<\/p>\n

Susanna Russell is the president and CEO of Education is Freedom, the largest college access provider in Dallas County. She previously served as chief leadership officer in Garland ISD. Todd Williams is the founder and CEO of the Commit Partnership and an Education is Freedom board member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This past school year, over 500 Garland ISD students walked across the graduation stage to receive not only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2353,160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-22624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-commentary","9":"tag-plano","10":"tag-plano-headlines","11":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}