‘I could not support a split’: Keller area lawmaker speaks out about district proposal
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Keller ISD controversy
Read our reporting on the possible plan to split Keller ISD into two districts.
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A state lawmaker whose district includes the Fort Worth portion of the Keller school district has concerns about a proposed split.
During a board meeting on Jan. 16, some trustees said a lack of state funding was a driving force behind a possible split though they did not say how the move would save money. The district has not released possible boundaries for a new district, but parents have said they think the cut would be made at the Union Pacific Railroad line along Denton Highway, the border between Fort Worth and Keller.
As of now, Rep. Nate Schatzline, a Fort Worth Republican, said he doesn’t see a scenario in which carving the city of Keller out of the school district would benefit House District 93. The district includes Blue Mound and parts of Fort Worth and Saginaw.
In an interview on Jan. 23, Schatzline said creating a district of lower-performing schools will result in a lower district rating and deter people from moving to the area. Property values will also be affected, he said.
“Look, I’m all about housing being affordable,” Schatzline said. “I don’t want it to be affordable because we have a lower rated school district.”
Every district school in Keller, Colleyville and Southlake received an “A” rating from the state in 2022, the highest score, while three Fort Worth campuses earned an “A” rating. Seventy percent of the district’s 189,258 residents live on the Fort Worth side, according to the U.S. Census.
Schatzline also worried that students would miss out educational opportunities, pointing to the Keller Center for Advanced Learning and access to the district’s football stadium and natatorium that residents from across the district helped fund.
“At this point, I could not support a split, and I’ve made that known to the board,” Schatzline said.
But Schatzline said he is open to the conversation and seeing what the proposal actually is.
“I’m hopeful that the school board is going to be able to answer those questions, and I’m hopeful that if the school board sees that this is going to negatively affect the 70% of the ISD that they serve on the Fort Worth side, then they’re going to do away with the plan.
Lawmakers address state funding concerns
School Board members pointed to a lack of state funding as a reason for the conversations around a split during the Jan. 16 meeting.
“We have sat here for the last two and a half years, and we have had to make awful, awful decisions about how to basically do more with less,” said board President Charles Randklev.
Texas lawmakers last met in 2023 with a voucher-like program at the top of Gov. Greg Abbott’s to-do list. Abbott has pushed for “school choice” through education savings accounts, which would let parents use state dollars for their child’s private education. Democrats and some Republicans in the House opposed the plan, and it never passed, despite multiple special sessions.
Entangled in the fight was teacher pay raises and public school funding. Lawmakers left Austin in 2023 with $4.5 billion set aside in the budget for education savings accounts and public education, but money went unspent after legislation failed to pass. Those dollars are included in the 2025 budget cycle as part a $23.8 billion surplus for lawmakers to work with this session. The 89th Legislative Session started Jan. 14.
Schatzline said he understands the tension around finances that districts are facing and has spoken with Randklev and much of the board about public school funding and cuts they’ve had to make.
“As everyone knows, I’m a pro school choice advocate, but I also believe in funding our public schools as well, and so it’s sad that we didn’t pass either one,” he said.
Funding is not the only solution, but Schatzline said he does support increasing the basic allotment for students. The rate has been set at $6,160 for each student since 2019, according to the Texas Education Agency.
Other ways to save money could be limiting administrator salaries, ending recapture for the Keller school district or basing funding off of enrollment instead of daily attendance.
“I struggle with it,” Schatzline said of the latter option. “I’m open to the conversation.”
In a Jan. 17 interview, newly sworn in Rep. David Lowe, a North Richland Hills Republican, said he’s not opposed to increasing school funding if it goes to teachers in the classroom.
Lowe said he finds the amount of bond debt and the percentage of property tax revenue that goes to service bond debt concerning.
“The state may be a part of the equation, but the school districts have to be honest with themselves and ask: Have they actually been responsible with the money they have been receiving,” Lowe said, speaking to money districts get through property tax revenue.
A lot of the blame lies in districts not prioritizing education and helping teachers, Lowe said.
“If I’m going to support more funding for public schools, I want to make sure that school districts are being fiscally responsible,” he said, adding that “evidence shows” they’re not.
“I don’t know enough about the split, but I do know that ... school districts love to blame the state for their funding problems, without ever looking at their own actions.”
In a Jan. 16 statement, Lowe said he takes no position on dividing the Keller school district, but that taxpayers should vote on any decision to restructure.
Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, a Southlake Republican, declined to comment.
The Star-Telegram reached out to the Abbott, Randklev and the offices of Sen. Kelly Hancock, a North Richland Hills Republican, and Sen. Tan Parker, a Flower Mound Republican, for comment. The large majority of the school district falls within Hancock’s Senate district, though a small part is within Parker’s.
What was said about funding during Keller school board meeting?
The landscape ahead is tough, Randklev said during the Jan. 16 school board meeting.
“We have difficult decisions ahead of us, and I am hopeful that this coming legislative biennium that there is going to be additional funding for us, but the reality is, nobody is talking about increasing our basic allotment to the level that we need to offset, essentially the inflation and all of the pressures that we deal with,” Randklev said.
The board spent “a ton of time” advocating before lawmakers in 2023, but additional funding wasn’t approved, he said. The district in turn “tightened our belt” and cut $45 million from the budget over two years.
The situation now is frightening, Randklev said, noting that district is facing a $5 million deficit.
“Despite the motive and all the innuendo and craziness that happened on Facebook, all I can tell you is we are looking for ways to basically get in front of this thing, be more reactive and be more nimble,” Randklev said.
The idea of a split is still in a “formative and conceptual phase,” he said.
“We’re going to kick it out to the community,” Randklev said. “We have committee groups that we can work with and workshop on it, and at the end of the day, if it’s not viable, if it doesn’t have legs, then you know what? I think it’s dead in the water, and I agree.”
Place 1 Trustee Micah Young told attendees that, based on numbers from a third party finance group, a newly split Keller school district would get about $9,250 per student and the “new Alliance ISD” would net $10,200 per student. The Alliance school district would also not be subject to recapture, a process by which excess local revenue is shared with other districts.
Currently the district nets about $9,900 per student, Young said.
There’s “nothing coming” from Austin, he said.
Abbott has continued to push for education savings accounts in the months leading up to the 2025 session. He has also promised to fully fund Texas public schools and provide teacher pay raises and teacher incentive pay.
“They make it sound like you can’t have both school choice and robust public schools,” Abbott said at a Nov. 6 news conference. “That’s completely false.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 12:26 PM.
