Joint meeting puts officials on same page

For the first time in recent memory, the Farmers Branch City Council and the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District (CFBISD) Board of Trustees met jointly on Nov. 19.

The organizations kept to a five-item agenda that allowed them to update each other on current and future projects, discuss the alignment of goals and priorities between the city and school district, identify areas of collaboration and discuss items proposed for the 89th Texas legislative session.

The school board asked for stronger collaboration with the city for legislative and funding purposes with the state. The board of trustees would like to see the A-F grade ratings for schools go away as well. They discussed vouchers and school accountability.

The city invited the school board to participate with them jointly for town halls and other meetings that draw residents to help inform the community about what is going on with both organizations.

“Probably the community assumes that we talk like this all the time, and we don’t,” said Councilmember Richard Jackson, District 4, toward the end of the meeting.

Superintendent Dr. Wendy Eldredge said she would like to put together a State of the District when the city does its State of the City address, which traditionally happens in January.

“We got lots going on as usual, and we are excited about building a stronger collaboration with Farmers Branch,” said CFBISD Board of Trustees President Randy Schackmann at the start of the meeting. “There are a lot of things on our plate. As we take a look at some of those things, we are excited to extend an opportunity to folks here at the council and also to Farmers Branch, both the business community and the residential community to serve as a partner.”

Schackmann opened the discussion with a brief description of the school district. He said the district has 24,500 students and more than 4,000 staff at 34 schools. He said that two-thirds of students in the district are economically disadvantaged. In addition, the average age of the school buildings is over 25 years old.

Considering Farmers Branch Elementary has been gracing the city council agendas over the last few months, Schackmann addressed the subject early in the meeting.

“That is one of the schools we’re looking at how and what we’re going to do exactly with the new bond that was passed a little bit more than a year ago,” he said.

Schackmann said the district is establishing a transition team for Farmers Branch Elementary that includes former students, parents and business leaders to determine future steps for the school.

“We are very concerned that we honor and respect the traditions there.”

Eldredge noted that the district’s Teacher of the Year awards are coming up and that the school district has award-winning fine arts and sports programs and invited the city council and residents to attend.

Mayor Terry Lynne asked council members to update the board of trustees on projects within the city, and since the request was impromptu, started the discussion.

“Our city is in really great shape financially … We were the beneficiary of an explosive redevelopment not only from a commercial standpoint, but from a residential standpoint,” he said. 

City Councilmember Omar Roman, District 1, who attended via video conferencing, said that the park in Mercer Crossing is anticipated to be completed in late 2025, the Branch Connection is planned to finish in the spring and Gateway to the Globe, the city’s multicultural event, will come back in the spring of 2025.

Roman also introduced the city’s new dashboard for the projects going on in the city. The dashboard can be found from the city’s website. The website is: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/d98704b8e5524e588b52bb77296ac81e

Councilmember Richard Jackson, District 4, asked Schackmann about news that school enrollment is down and why that is.

Schackmann said that compared to the six or seven school districts surrounding CFBISD, the district is affected only slightly. “We are the lowest number of students not here that used to be here,” he said.

There are multiple reasons why enrollment is down, including because people are more transient and move more and families have fewer children, he said. “We are in fortunate shape. The rainy-day fund … at CFBISD exceeds currently six months, which is one of the stronger fund balances in the area.”

However, consolidation is being studied. He said that schools that were built for 600-700 students may have only 400-500 students yet require the same amount of administration and counselors. 

“That’s the thing we’re taking a look at. We don’t want anybody to panic … we’re being very careful in what we’re doing to study it now so we can make effective decisions going forward.”

Shackmann and Eldredge also discussed how taxes for the school district go to the state and are redistributed to districts that aren’t as “property wealthy.”

“In 2022-2023, we sent back $55 million to the state,” Eldredge said. “This year we’ll send back $11 (million).”

The basic allotment is $6,160 per student plus multipliers if a student has other needs, and the allotment has not changed since 2019, said Trustee Cassandra Hatfield, who was the previous president to the school board. “We don’t get to determine how much money we keep,” she said, as the Texas State Legislature decides how much money the district receives. 

“A lot of our taxpayers when they see school district taxes, they think that’s the amount of money CFBISD is keeping. It is not. That is the amount of money we are taking, but some of that money goes back to the state,” she said.