Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde urged district stakeholders to vote in the Texas primaries last week.
In a news release published by Dallas ISD on February 28, the superintendent encouraged parents and staff to head to the polls and vote in races for the Texas House and Senate.
“Only 18 percent of registered Texas voters participated in the state’s last primary in March 2022. Because of the way legislative district lines are drawn, the primary elections usually determine who will be representing us in Austin,” Elizalde said.
“It is our state lawmakers who decide how much funding local schools will receive, whether salaries will be increased for teachers and other district team members, and if state dollars will be re-directed to help parents pay for their children to attend private schools,” she added, seemingly registering her well-known disapproval of school choice legislation.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Elizalde has made it no secret that she is adamantly against families being allowed to use taxpayer money to help defray the costs of homeschooling and private school, claiming that such a policy would result in smaller budgets for traditional public schools even though they would be responsible for educating fewer children.
Elizalde has used her position at Dallas ISD to assail school choice at school board meetings, in district news briefs, and at civic speaking engagements.
“Please forward this email to everyone you know (spouses, friends, siblings, college roommates, relatives, parents, grandparents, significant others, etc.) who is eligible to vote in the March 5 Texas House primary. Do not think that others will ‘do the right thing’ on your behalf, or on behalf of our students. Remember — kids can’t vote so they need us to vote for them. Let’s get out the vote, Dallas ISD!” the superintendent wrote.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a number of school officials in various public school districts around the state have seemingly been urging their employees to vote for primary candidates who are against school choice, prompting a lawsuit in at least one case by Attorney General Ken Paxton who called such behavior unlawful electioneering.