Alief ISD Parent Mary Tisdale, School Board Patron Presentation

At Alief ISD’s October 20, 2020 school board meeting Alief administrators stated that the district “lost” 3,530 students and could not find them”.  

The current Alief ISD enrollment is 3,530 (8%) less than the district projected enrollment, and 4,060 less than the district 2019/2020 enrollment numbers. Additionally, Alief ISD attendance rates are approximately 80% vs. the typical attendance rates of approximately 95%. This has an estimated negative financial impact for the district of a loss of $37 million dollars, attributed solely to the continued student attendance decline. 

I would argue that the 3,530 students are not lost, the district may not be able to find them, because parents do not want or need Alief ISD to find them any longer. Parents now want their new schools (usually charter schools) to continue finding their children each day, that is why they unenrolled them from Alief ISD and enrolled them into a charter school, because the district has made it a practice of minimizing and belittling the rights and relationships of parents with the district. This point was abundantly clear during the same October 20, 2020 school board meeting when a current Alief ISD parent, Mary Tisdale, poured her heart and soul out to the school board and administrators only to storm out of the board meeting not even wanting to continue her patron presentation. When Ms. Tisdale unenrolls her children from Hastings High School, and Youngblood Intermediate School because of how she continued to be treated by the district, superintendent chambers, and the school board, the district will classify her children as lost too, as they sit in the classrooms of one of the multiple charter schools welcoming our Alief parents and students with open arms. 

Let me be clear, parents and students ARE NOT leaving the Alief COMMUNITY, they are leaving the Alief SCHOOL DISTRICT. Several of my neighbors have school age children, they wake up each day and drop their kids off to one of the FIVE charter schools that are all less than a five-mile radius from the Alief Administration Building, and our homes. Parents are tired and have figured out that we have options. That is not being lost, that is called being informed and exercising our rights.