Tarrant leaders blocked money for a girls empowerment group. This teacher is raising it back
When Haley Taylor Schlitz saw Tarrant County commissioners had blocked $115,334 in state grant money from going to girls empowerment group Girls Inc. of Tarrant County, the first thing she did was grab her phone.
She drafted out what she wanted to say. And then she posted the video to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
Taylor Schlitz told her followers that County Judge Tim O’Hare and commissioners Gary Fickes and Manny Ramirez were “politically grandstanding” when they chose to block the funds from going to Girls Inc.. She said it shouldn’t be tolerated.
And then she took matters into her own hands. Taylor Schlitz created a GoFundMe to raise the $115,334 for Girls Inc. of Tarrant County herself.
“Let us unite in sending an unyielding message to Republicans,” Taylor Schlitz said in the video. “We will not stand by as they attempt to silence the voices of our girls.”
In an interview with the Star-Telegram Wednesday evening, Taylor Schlitz, a 21-year-old fifth grade teacher at a Fort Worth charter school, said the news caught the right person on the right day.
“Somebody needs to tell Judge O’Hare no,” she said. “Like, somebody needs to stand up to him and tell him, ‘We’re not going to let you, like, we’re not going to silently sit by and just watch you shut down programs and groups and organizations and events that have been specifically crafted to serve African American and Latino girls.”
Girls Inc. of Tarrant County primarily focuses its work on girls in the Northside and Diamond Hill neighborhoods.
“I don’t know who you think Tarrant County is, or who we’re becoming, but that’s not it,” Taylor Schlitz said.
Those who showed up to Tuesday’s commissioners meeting to speak out against giving the state money to Girls Inc. of Tarrant County mostly complained about the national organization’s views on supporting the LGBTQ community and abortion. Some called Girls Inc. a political organization that was “highly partisan” and “hate group.”
Leigh Wambsganss, who led efforts with O’Hare to create a political action committee to fight against a cultural competence plan in Southlake Carroll schools, told the commissioners the group was using low income children to promote a political agenda.
Girls Inc. of Tarrant County leaders who attended Tuesday’s meeting said the local chapter and national organization operated separately and that there were times the local chapter disagreed with the advocacy issues taken at the national level.
Taylor Schlitz, who has followed the group and worked with them in a professional capacity, said she knows the group builds up girls, serves the underserved and gives them a voice. She will be a featured speaker at the organization’s Day of the Girl event Oct. 13 at the Tarrant County Courthouse.
The commissioners’ decision hit close to home, Taylor Schlitz said.
“They’re playing games of politics with the lives of our girls,” Taylor Schlitz said. “And I don’t know why they thought nobody would, what, notice?”
Taylor Schlitz said the county took money from Black and Latina girls in the community who had been underserved and silenced.
“I don’t know who they think they are, but we don’t need them,” she said.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the GoFundMe had raised $1,620.
Girls Inc. of Tarrant County was one of five groups to receive approval from the $675,000 state grant. County administrator Chandler Merritt did not immediately return an email asking where Girls Inc.’s portion of the funds will go instead
Taylor Schlitz said girls empowerment wasn’t political and that the commissioners were trying to play to the worst part of their political party.
“For me, I’m like, no, we can step in,” she said. “We are empowered. That’s the whole point of the program. That’s the point of you know, I mean, just really, that’s what it means to be a girl is to be empowered. So I’m like, we can take the reins on this, we can do this. And that doesn’t mean that you don’t advocate, you don’t vocalize how horrible this was. But at the same time, Girls Inc. and girls in Tarrant County don’t rely on men for anything.”
The commissioners’ decision Tuesday is a part of a larger story telling itself in school boards across the county as topics like race and sexuality come under attack.
To see it come to the highest level of government in the county, to Taylor Schlitz, just motivates her more to fight back.
“You’re just rocking the boat, from their point of view,” she said. “Like, they don’t want this to happen. I don’t know why they think drawing attention to their racism and sexism is going to help or quiet us down. I don’t really know what their goal is, but I know what my goal is, and it’s materializing.”
