Texas made a school district take in more students. But will it help fund them?

[TexasTowelie]

TEXAS CITY — Over the past couple of months, Texas City ISD Superintendent Cynthia Lusignolo has driven from her coastal industrial city to the state Capitol to meet with lawmakers and fight to keep one program entrenched in the state’s messy school finance system.

Additional State Aid for Tax Reduction, or ASATR, provides her Galveston Bay district with millions of dollars each year — and it’s set to expire in September. For Lusingnolo and her team, those millions mean more money to fix crumbling buildings and help a high-need student body that increased by nearly 40 percent last year.

That’s because Texas City ISD was forced by the state to annex neighboring La Marque ISD, which had seen declining enrollment and test scores for years. The annexation moved about 2,500 former La Marque students — mostly low-income and black, with high academic and social needs — into Texas City’s district.

But the state might not give Texas City ISD the money its administrators say they need to help all those new students.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/04/18/texas-made-school-district-take-more-students-will-it-fund-them/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I thought school districts got a specific amount of money per student.

So I somehow doubt this district will take in a lot of new students with zero additional funding. Of course, what they get may not be adequate to their needs.

[TexasTowelie]

2. They will receive a set amount per student,

this is over-and-beyond funding that comes from absorbing the other school district and is used to bring the new students up to standard.