Place 7 candidate Robert Morrow was not present at the forum.
The details
The candidates each submitted three topics to discuss, which chamber officials used to formulate six questions. Four questions from community members, collected from an online survey, were also selected at random.
Not all questions are included in this article, and candidate answers have been edited for length. The full forum can be viewed here.
Q: Eanes ISD is projecting a $6.4 million deficit. The district is facing several financial pressures. ... Without relying on the state to change its funding model, what financial decisions would each of you make to ensure long-term sustainability?
Troy: We can't rely on the state to solve this problem. ... We have some tough decisions ahead about cutting costs. There's just no way around it. We need to keep those cuts as far away from students and from teachers as possible. ... We need to be doing all we can to maximize revenue, and looking at creative partnerships about, can we generate more revenue with our facilities, what can we do to bring in more money to the district from grants, ... [and] finding public-private partnerships.
Sheffield: I have been working hard at the Capitol for years to make sure that we are getting something, and unfortunately, the state is prioritizing other interests over students, and that is very upsetting. However, the work is not done. ... I've also served on the Long Range Facility Planning Committee. ... Some of the things that that group has been looking at are the revenue generating opportunities for our district, and also some of the great things that we can do to modernize our facilities and to get more money out of our maintenance and operation budget to allow us to shift that to our interest and sinking so that we can have more money.
Walker: Before we start talking about cuts, we need to think about the things that we can do to change the state of affairs in our district, and that starts with our students and our student enrollment. Our student enrollment has been going down for five years. ... We have to be competitive and bring those Eanes families back to the district. How do we think we're going to pass bonds coming up to refresh and renew our district when those families are choosing private school? ... We need to take a critical look at what's in our budget. ... I will be asking very hard questions, very pointed questions, serious questions, to try and help us understand how to manage the issues in the budget.
Q: Eanes ISD's teacher attrition has increased to over 20% today, which equates to 1 in 5 teachers leaving the district each year. Many are replaced by first-year educators. What should the district be doing to attract and retain high quality teachers and staff?
Sheffield: I'd actually like to make a correction. I asked [Superintendent] Dr. [Jeff] Arnett to run the numbers for us, and that is actually not a correct percentage. Eanes’ attrition rates are actually lower than the state average. For the 2023-24 school year, it was 18.6 for Eanes ISD versus 19.1% for the state. In the 2022-23 school year, Eanes was 20.6% versus 21.4% of the state. And so while we do have attrition, so does everybody else. The teacher pipeline is dry. It is so sad to see what's happening in education programs all over the state, and we need to make sure that we are incentivizing people to go into the teaching profession.
Walker: It costs us a lot of money when our teachers are leaving—1 in 5 teachers. And when we bring new teachers in, 43% of them have no years of experience. ... We're bringing in new teachers, hiring them, and they’re using Eanes as a resume booster, and then they’re leaving us. We have to stop this cycle. ... I want to also just add we're spending $1 million on contracted staff through our substitutes and contracted teachers. $1 million. This is not sustainable. I would rather be able to provide our teachers a raise. A 1% raise is about equivalent to $400,000. I think we can find sufficient money in our budget to pay our teachers properly, to stop the drain, to stop being a resume builder for the rest of the Austin area, and get back to the critical few things we need to do to turn the district around.
Troy: Losing 1 in 5 every year—turnover costs associated with that are huge. And then when we bring in more inexperienced teachers, and then we have to train them up, that has a cost on the district as well. And so this is an area that we need to lean in and find a way to do even better than we have been, especially when you look at the cost of living here. Teachers can't afford to live in our district for the most part, and so they are commuting to come teach in Eanes, and when they can have a shorter commute and make more money in a different district, that's a problem. ... What matters even more than money, though, is the culture and the environment and the support you get. ... I think we can do more to make Eanes a destination district for staff, so that we have a greater delta between us and the state.
One of the most impactful topics facing the district is the Long Range Facility Planning Committee’s upcoming final recommendations, which will be presented to the board after this election. Although recommendations are not finalized, the committee is currently considering major changes in response to declining enrollment and aging facilities. Key highlights that have been considered include:
- Consolidating elementary schools from six to four campuses with rebuilt modern schools sized for 750 to 850 students, which would include closing Eanes Elementary and repurposing it as an Early Childhood Center
- Major renovations at Westridge Middle School and a complete rebuild of Hill Country Middle School
- New academic buildings, expanded Fine Arts and CTE facilities, two to three parking garages and improved campus flow and safety at Westlake High School
Troy: Our facilities need this. There’s no doubt. ... We need some new, fresh investment in the facilities to prepare our kids for the future, to meet the challenges of the 21st century, to recruit great staff. ... I'm not going to get ahead of the Long Range Facility Planning Committee. I have a lot of questions here. I want to dig into it. I am all for cost efficiency when we are evaluating these. I think we have to be looking at efficient sizes for our campuses so we can operate and we can run them as efficiently as possible. ... I am concerned about the size of what these packages may be, and are we going to be able to pass these with the community, and is that the right ask of the community? ... It needs to be discussed, as we always do, in a transparent way that brings voices to the table where folks can raise their concerns. ... If we're going to go sell this to the community, it needs a 7-0 vote.
Sheffield: I know that some people in the community are trying to stir things up and say that Eanes Elementary is closing. That hasn't even been presented to the board. ... It's really imperative that everyone takes a little bit of a deep breath and understands that these are just thoughts and ideas that members of the community, who've been brought together to serve on this committee, have been discussing in a way that we can modernize our facilities, ... and making sure that we have revenue opportunities. ... I hope you'll tune in or go to the May 20 board meeting to hear all the exciting things that they've been discussing. There are some really great things that we can do to generate revenue and to improve our schools for not just the generations we have here, but for the next 50 years, because that's how long we usually keep our buildings, or longer. And so we want to make sure that we're being very responsible with our taxpayer dollars. We're listening to the community's desires for what we want for our kids and for our community.
Walker: The Long Range Facility Planning team worked really hard on the plans that they brought forward a few weeks ago. ... After 18 months, and many, many long evenings, they came together and presented a plan that was very massive and very impressive and it was a moonshot plan for our district. That's not usually the way that you go about planning for big things. You have to start with financial constraints. That was a lot of work. What a sad day it would be if we went to go try and get this in front of our community, and the community voted it down. You have to start understanding a market-driven approach. What is the community willing to absorb out of their pocketbooks? ... We don't want to dampen down the community excitement, we just have to bring it down to earth. ... After you get through your priorities and you get through your enhancements, then you can start thinking about the bigger, global things. But first and foremost you have to be able to prioritize the work.
What else?
Election day is May 3. Polling locations and times can be viewed here.
Sheffield and Walker's candidate Q&A with Community Impact can be read here, and Troy and Morrow's here.
