True Texas Project Q&A

I submitted the following responses on March 30th to the request I received from the True Texas Project.

First set of questions were my name, email address, phone number, etc. so I skipped that this time. If you’ve been reading these, you don’t need that again. With that said, I’ll include the substantive questions and questions that have not been asked before.

Campaign Team

Are you running as part of a slate? If so, who else is on it?

No. I am running for one of two seats. There are four candidates running.

Who is your campaign treasurer?

Stephanie Jimenez

If you have a campaign manager, please provide their name, email, and cell number.

None

If you have a campaign consultant, please provide their name.

None

Campaign Finances

How much money do you believe is needed to win this race?

$5,000

How much money do you intend to spend on this race yourself?

$3,750

How much do you believe you can fundraise for your campaign?

$1,250

Election Expectations & Civic History

How many voters do you expect to vote in this race?

15,000

How many doors do you intend to knock for this race?

2,000

Who else is running for this position?

There are three other candidates. Carolyn Benavides, Cinthya Noda, and Luis Palomo.

What endorsements have you received so far?

No official organizational endorsements at this time.

Have you ever held any elected offices?

No

What history of civic involvement do you have?

This is my first time running for office. My civic involvement has been rooted in this community through my family's 30-year connection to CFBISD. My wife Stephanie served the district as a teacher, administrator, and principal at Newman Smith. Through her career, we've been embedded in the life of this district, watching governance decisions affect real people we know personally.

Over the past year, I've attended board meetings regularly, made public comments to correct inaccurate information presented by sitting trustees, and researched the state funding system and voucher legislation in detail. Professionally, I've spent 25+ years managing organizations with budgets exceeding $150 million. That experience in holding leadership accountable for how they spend money and deliver results is exactly what's missing on most school boards.

I decided to run because I got tired of watching from the sidelines while the board adopted deficit budgets, closed schools without adequate community engagement, and faced a lawsuit over transparency. At some point you either keep complaining or you step up.

Briefly describe what is motivating you to run for public office.

CFBISD adopted consecutive deficit budgets before closing four schools. Thirteen parents sued the district over how those decisions were made. The community has lost confidence in its board, and the people paying the bills have limited visibility into where their tax dollars are going. Those are governance failures, and fixing them is what I've done professionally for 25 years.

At the same time, the state froze per-pupil funding for six years while expanding mandates and creating new programs that pull money away from traditional public school districts. CFBISD needs board members who understand both the local financial problems and the external forces making them worse, and who will hold leadership accountable on both fronts.

My wife spent 30 years inside this district. I've seen how board decisions affect classrooms, teachers, and families. I'm running because this district deserves competent, transparent governance and I have the skills to deliver it.

Policy Positions & Beliefs

Which programs relevant to your position would you like to cut and which ones would you grow?

Cut: Central office administrative overhead that doesn't directly support campuses and classrooms. I want a line-by-line benchmark of CFBISD's administrative spending against peer districts. If we're overspending on bureaucracy while teachers are underpaid and buildings are closing, the priorities are wrong. I'd also scrutinize any contracts, consultants, or programs that can't demonstrate measurable results tied to student outcomes. If you can't show me the data that it's working, you need to justify why we're still paying for it.

Protect: Classroom instruction and teacher compensation. Up to 85% of a district's budget is people. The teachers, bus drivers, custodians, and cafeteria workers who keep schools running are not where you cut. That's where you invest.

Grow: Career and technical education. Not every student is on a four-year college track, and the district should stop pretending otherwise. Expanding CTE pathways, industry certifications, and partnerships with local employers gives students real options with labor market value. I'd also grow the district's capacity to compete for families through stronger academic programs and responsible management of the $716 million bond. Every family that leaves CFBISD takes funding with them. The best budget strategy is a district strong enough that families choose to stay.

What are your budget priorities?

Transparency first. The community needs a multi-year financial plan they can actually see and understand, not just an annual budget that gets approved behind closed doors. You can't fix what you can't see.

Protect classroom spending and teacher compensation. That's where the money should go. Teachers are the single largest factor in student outcomes, and CFBISD has to be competitive enough to attract and keep good ones.

Scrutinize administrative overhead. Benchmark central office spending against peer districts and cut where we're out of line. Every dollar spent on bureaucracy that doesn't improve what happens in a classroom is a dollar taken from a student.

Manage the $716 million bond with discipline. Voters trusted the district with that money. Roughly $131 million of it was earmarked for campuses that have since been closed. How the board handles that reallocation will tell taxpayers everything they need to know about whether their trust was well placed.

Advocate aggressively at the state level for meaningful increases to the basic allotment. The state froze per-pupil funding for six years and increased it by $55. Local fiscal discipline matters, but it cannot solve a funding problem Austin created.

When a candidate wins an election, is the goal to enact that candidate's campaign agenda, or to meet in the middle and get along with the entire board?

Neither. The goal is to govern effectively on behalf of the students and taxpayers who elected you. That means standing firm on the principles you ran on and not abandoning your convictions just to avoid friction. Voters didn't send you there to go along to get along. They sent you there to do a job.

But a school board is a governing body, not a one-person show. An individual trustee has no authority outside of a legally called board meeting. If you can't build a majority for your position, your principles don't become policy. They just become speeches. The skill is knowing how to advocate for what you believe, bring the data to support it, and persuade your colleagues without selling out what you were elected to do.

I'm not running to make friends on the board. I'm also not running to be a permanent dissenter who loses every vote 6 to 1 and calls it courage. I'm running to bring fiscal accountability, transparency, and a focus on student outcomes to the decisions this board makes. Where the board is already moving in that direction, I'll support it. Where it's not, I'll push back with data, not drama. And I will never vote for something I don't believe is right just to preserve a comfortable relationship with other trustees.

What is the proper role of TASA and TASB with respect to independent school boards?

TASA and TASB exist to provide training, resources, and advocacy for school administrators and school board trustees. That's a legitimate function. New trustees need training on governance, open meetings law, school finance, and their fiduciary responsibilities. Both organizations provide that, and I have no issue with the service side of what they do.

Where I think the relationship needs to be watched carefully is on the advocacy and lobbying side. TASB and TASA lobby the Legislature using dues that come from school districts, which means they're funded with taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers have a right to know what positions are being taken in their name and whether those positions actually reflect the priorities of local communities or just the priorities of the organizations themselves.

Independent school boards are exactly that. Independent. TASA and TASB should serve local boards, not lead them. When a superintendent comes back from a TASB conference and presents information to the board as settled fact without verification against the actual statute, that's a problem. I've seen it happen in CFBISD. Figures from a TASB federal advocacy conference were presented in an open board meeting that were materially inaccurate, and no one on the board caught it or corrected it. That tells me the board is consuming information from these organizations without enough independent scrutiny.

The proper role is advisory and supportive. The moment a school board starts deferring to TASA or TASB instead of doing its own homework, reading the actual legislation, and exercising independent judgment, it has outsourced its governance responsibility. I will use the resources these organizations provide, but I will verify what I'm told, and I will make decisions based on what's right for CFBISD, not based on what any statewide organization recommends.

Do you believe mask and/or vaccine mandates are ok in schools? Under what conditions? Where should these mandates originate, if at all? What experience do you have with this issue?

I do not support mask or vaccine mandates imposed by school districts. Those are decisions that belong to parents, in consultation with their own physicians, not to school boards or administrators.

During COVID, families across this district and this state watched government entities at every level make decisions about their children's health and education without meaningful input from the people most affected. Schools were closed, rules changed constantly, and parents were told to comply rather than consulted as partners. That broke trust in ways we're still recovering from. Enrollment declines that started during COVID have not fully reversed in CFBISD or in districts across the state.

If there is a genuine public health emergency, the authority to mandate medical interventions does not belong at the local school board level. That is a state and federal public health decision, and even then it should be subject to robust parental opt-out protections. A school board's job is to educate children, not to practice medicine or enforce health policy on families.

Texas law already reflects this. The Legislature has made clear that parents have the right to make medical decisions for their children, and recent legislation has strengthened parental consent requirements for health-related activities in schools. I support that direction. The district should provide information to families, make accommodations when needed, and respect the decisions parents make for their own kids.

My experience with this issue is personal. My wife was a principal in CFBISD during COVID. I watched her navigate the impossible position campus leaders were put in, caught between mandates from above and frustrated families below, with guidance that changed by the week. That experience reinforced my belief that decisions about children's health belong to their parents, and that school districts should never again be put in the position of enforcing medical mandates on families.

What is a school board member’s role and responsibility? How does that role differ from the role of the superintendent or administration? What is the best way to address differences of opinion on the board or between the board and the admin?

A trustee's job is governance. Set the vision and strategic direction for the district. Approve the budget. Hire and evaluate the superintendent. Hold the administration accountable for results. That's it.

The superintendent's job is management. Run the day-to-day operations, manage staff, implement the programs, and deliver the outcomes the board expects. The superintendent works for the board, not the other way around. When a board starts micromanaging campuses, directing curriculum, or telling principals how to staff their buildings, it undermines the leadership structure the district depends on to function. When a superintendent starts setting the board's agenda or controlling what information trustees see, the accountability runs the wrong direction.

The distinction matters because blurring those roles is how districts get into trouble. A trustee who thinks their job is to run schools will make a mess. A superintendent who thinks the board works for them will avoid accountability. Both are governance failures, and both hurt students.

On differences of opinion within the board, the answer is straightforward. Debate belongs in the boardroom, at legally called meetings. Trustees should argue their positions with data, vote their conscience, and then respect the outcome of the vote. You don't have to agree with every decision, but you do have to govern like an adult. Taking disagreements to social media or the press before you've exhausted the conversation at the table is a failure of discipline, not a show of principle.

On differences between the board and administration, the board sets expectations and the superintendent delivers. If the administration is not meeting the board's goals, the proper channel is the superintendent's evaluation, tied to clear, measurable metrics. Not public grandstanding. Not backdoor conversations with campus staff. You evaluate against the goals you set, on a timeline that allows the work to show results, and you make decisions based on evidence.

The board governs. The superintendent manages. When both sides respect that line, the district works. When they don't, the kids pay the price.

Is the current funding allocation within district spending categories (between administration, facilities, teachers, etc.) adequate? Why or Why not? If not, what areas of spending can be changed and how do you propose to correct it?

I can't answer that with confidence because the district hasn't provided the transparency needed to make that judgment. That's the first problem. Taxpayers should be able to see a clear breakdown of where their money goes and how CFBISD compares to peer districts. Right now, that comparison isn't readily available.

What I can say is this. Up to 85% of a school district's budget is people. The question is whether we have the right people in the right places, and whether central office exists to serve campuses or to serve itself.

I would scrutinize central administration headcount and compensation relative to peer districts, contracted services that can't demonstrate measurable impact on student outcomes, and any duplicative functions between central office and campus-level administration. The district just closed four schools to save roughly $9 million annually. Taxpayers have every right to ask whether that savings is being reinvested in classrooms or absorbed into overhead.

I would protect teacher and staff compensation, direct classroom instruction, and career and technical education programs that connect students to real economic opportunity.

Every dollar should be traceable to a purpose, and that purpose should connect to student outcomes. If it doesn't, it needs to be justified or eliminated.

Should resources be devoted to political lobbying?

If you mean the district hiring paid lobbyists with taxpayer dollars, that deserves serious scrutiny. Taxpayers should know exactly how much is being spent, what positions are being taken on their behalf, and whether it's producing results. If the district can't point to a specific outcome that benefited students or taxpayers, that money should go to the classroom.

If you mean trustees and administrators showing up in Austin to testify and fight for fair funding, that's part of the job. The state froze per-pupil funding for six years, increased it by $55, and passed a billion-dollar voucher program. If we're not at the table making our case, we're on the menu.

Every dollar spent on political influence is a dollar that didn't go to a teacher or a student. The burden of proof should be on the expenditure, not on the taxpayer questioning it.

What is your understanding of CRT? Does it belong in schools? If not, how do you determine if it is in our ISD and what should be done?

Critical Race Theory is an academic framework from law schools. It is not part of the Texas state curriculum, and the Legislature passed HB 3979 and SB 3 explicitly prohibiting the teaching of concepts that assign blame or guilt based on race. I support that prohibition.

The broader concern is legitimate. No student should be taught that their race defines their worth, their capability, or their moral standing. Parents who raise that concern deserve to be taken seriously regardless of what label gets attached to it.

The board's job is to ensure the curriculum aligns with state standards and that instructional materials are transparent. Parents have the right under Texas law to review what's being taught in their child's classroom. The board should make that right easy to exercise, not buried in bureaucracy. If specific concerns are raised about content in CFBISD classrooms, they deserve a genuine review through an established process, not a political spectacle. The board sets expectations. The administration ensures compliance. Parents verify that both are doing their jobs.

What is your long-term strategy or strategies for improving the quality of education and keeping pace with student growth within the district?

CFBISD is not dealing with student growth. It's dealing with the opposite. The long-term strategy has to address both quality and competitiveness, because a district that delivers strong outcomes is a district families choose, and a district families choose stabilizes its enrollment and its budget.

On quality: tie every board decision to measurable student outcomes. Expand career and technical education so students have pathways to real economic opportunity. Invest in early literacy because third-grade reading proficiency is the single strongest predictor of long-term success. Support teachers with competitive pay and campus leadership that has their back.

On competitiveness: manage the $716 million bond with discipline so modernized facilities give families a reason to stay. Build an academic reputation strong enough that CFBISD is a destination, not a default. Explore online programs that could attract students from outside district boundaries without adding facility costs.

On sustainability: advocate relentlessly at the state level for meaningful increases to the basic allotment. No local strategy survives a state government that is systematically underfunding public education while redirecting tax dollars to private schools.

There is no single silver bullet. It takes financial discipline, academic rigor, community trust, and a board willing to make hard decisions based on data rather than politics.

What are your areas of concern regarding student achievement in your district? Do you have specific suggestions for improvement? Given all the issues that arise, how can the board stay focused on student achievement?

CFBISD has campuses performing well and campuses that are not. The achievement gaps between them, often correlated with income and geography, should concern every trustee.

Specific suggestions: prioritize early literacy intervention in grades K through 3, because catching a struggling reader early costs a fraction of what remediation costs in middle school. Make sure the curriculum is evidence-based and teachers are supported in delivering it. Use assessment data to identify struggling students and intervene before they fall further behind. Expand CTE pathways so students who are not thriving on a traditional academic track have a meaningful alternative, not a lesser one.

On staying focused: the board gets distracted when it drifts into management, personality conflicts, or political theater. The discipline is structural. Set measurable student outcome goals. Tie the superintendent's evaluation to those goals. Dedicate the majority of board meeting time to reviewing progress. When something comes up that doesn't connect to student outcomes, ask why it's on the agenda.

The single biggest factor in student achievement is what happens between a teacher and a student in a classroom every day. The board's job is to make sure the district is organized, funded, and led in a way that supports that interaction. Everything else is a distraction.

Is teacher performance adequate within your district? Are teacher’s salaries adequate given current state budget condition? What can be done to improve overall teacher performance? What is your opinion of teacher morale in the district? Do you know the current teacher turnover rate?

CFBISD has strong teachers. My wife spent 30 years working alongside them. The question is whether the district is doing enough to keep that talent and attract more of it.

On pay: Texas teachers make over $7,000 less than the national average. The Teacher Retention Allotment under HB 2 helps, but the board has to make sure those dollars reach teachers and don't get absorbed into overhead. Pay matters. Let's not pretend otherwise.

On performance: the best way to improve it is to support it. That means campus leadership that provides real feedback, professional development teachers actually value, and reducing the administrative burden that pulls them away from teaching.

On morale: teachers feel squeezed. Schools closed, budgets tightened, state mandates increased while funding stayed flat for six years. Many feel central office decisions are made without their input. When educators don't feel heard, they leave. Every experienced teacher who walks out takes institutional knowledge no new hire can replace.

I don't have the current CFBISD turnover rate, but statewide the trend is troubling. Districts across Texas are hiring increasing numbers of uncertified teachers because they cannot fill positions with certified ones. If CFBISD is experiencing the same pattern, the board needs to treat it as a crisis, not an inconvenience.

What are your thoughts on your school district's programs for special education students, English Language Learners (ELL), and gifted students?

All three populations deserve intentional focus, not afterthought status.

Special education: Texas spent years illegally capping the percentage of students identified for services, and the damage is still being repaired. The ESA program offers up to $30,000 per special needs student for private placement, but private schools don't have to meet the same IDEA protections public schools do. CFBISD's special education program needs to be strong enough that families don't feel they need to look elsewhere.

ELL: over 40% of CFBISD students are in bilingual or English language learning programs. That is nearly half the district, not a niche population. The state provides one of the lowest bilingual education weights in the country at just 10% additional funding per student. The board needs to advocate for better state funding and make sure the district is engaging ELL families in their own languages, not just in English.

Gifted: high-performing students deserve to be challenged, not just maintained. A district focused only on raising the floor while ignoring the ceiling will lose families who feel their children are not being pushed. Strong gifted and advanced academic programs are a retention and recruitment tool in a district dealing with declining enrollment.

The common thread is that the board should be asking for outcome data on each population. Not just whether programs exist, but whether they are working. If they're not, the board should demand a plan to fix them.

What changes should be made on the state level regarding public education?

Fund public schools adequately. The basic allotment was frozen for six years and increased by $55. The Legislature needed to increase it by at least $1,300 just to keep pace with inflation. Districts across the state closed schools and hired uncertified teachers because Austin wouldn't act.

Attach accountability to every public dollar. The ESA program sends over $10,000 per student to private schools that don't have to administer standardized assessments, hire certified teachers, or accept every student who applies. Taxpayers deserve to know their money is producing results regardless of where it's spent.

Fix the accountability system. The TEA commissioner changed scoring benchmarks retroactively, over 120 districts sued, and the Legislature responded by making it harder to challenge ratings in court. That is not accountability. That is a rigged system.

Stabilize recapture. Nearly $5 billion in local property taxes are recaptured annually, and most of it now funds charter schools rather than helping underfunded traditional districts. Taxpayers deserve to know where their money actually goes.

Respect local control. The TEA commissioner is an unelected official appointed by the Governor with the power to replace locally elected school boards. That authority should be exercised sparingly and transparently, not used to consolidate state power over communities that elected their own representatives.

What should your school district do to better prepare students as citizens?

Teach rigorous civics and American history. Students should graduate understanding how our government works, what the Constitution protects, and what their responsibilities are as citizens. Too many students graduate without a basic understanding of how a law gets passed, how their property taxes work, or why they should vote in a May school board election.

Create opportunities to practice civic engagement, not just study it. Student government, community service, and direct interaction with local institutions give students a tangible connection to the principles they're learning. CTE plays a role here too. A student who graduates with a marketable skill and an understanding of free enterprise is better prepared for citizenship than one who can pass a test but has no plan for what comes next.

What the district should not do is substitute political activism for civic education. Teaching students how to think and how to participate in self-governance is the job. Teaching them what to think is not. Parents are the primary authority on values. The school's role is to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and habits they need to be informed, productive, self-sufficient citizens.

What role does public education have in sex education and when, if ever, should it be taught?

Sex education is primarily the responsibility of parents. The district's role should be limited and should never override a family's values or beliefs.

Texas law requires parental opt-in with written consent before a student participates in any human sexuality instruction. I support that fully. Parents should be able to review the exact materials being used, and no student should receive this instruction without explicit written permission. That is the law, and the board should ensure compliance at every campus, every time.

If the district offers a health curriculum that touches on these topics, it should be age-appropriate, factual, and focused on biology and health outcomes. General health education covering human biology, anatomy, and the reproductive system has a place in a science-based curriculum at the appropriate grade level. Anything beyond that belongs in the home.

The board's job is to make sure policies are clear, parents have full visibility into what is being taught, and the opt-in requirement is treated as a hard line, not a formality. On a topic this personal, transparency and parental authority are not negotiable.

Every campaign has some sort of rumor control needed. How would you manage a crazy story about you?

I run my campaign the same way I run my life, grounded in honesty, candor, and respect. If something false is being said about me, I'll correct the record once with facts and move on. I'm not going to get into a back-and-forth on social media or let a rumor dictate the direction of my campaign.

I've been consistent across every survey, every forum, and every door I've knocked. That consistency exists because I say what I believe and I don't change it based on who's asking. When you lead with honesty, you don't have to remember what you said to which audience. When you lead with candor, people know where you stand even when they disagree. When you lead with respect, you don't need to tear someone else down to build yourself up.

Voters in CFBISD have real problems. They deserve a candidate focused on solving them, not one distracted by gossip. The best defense against rumors is a record that speaks for itself.

What else should we know about you or your campaign?

I'm not a politician. I'm a taxpayer, a husband of a 30-year CFBISD educator, and a professional who has spent his career holding organizations accountable for results. I am running because I watched this district adopt deficit budgets, close schools without adequate community engagement, and face a lawsuit over transparency, and I decided to stop watching and start doing something about it.

What sets me apart is the combination. My wife Stephanie lived this district from the inside for three decades. I bring 30 years of private sector experience managing large organizations and large budgets. I will read every line item, ask the uncomfortable questions, and not vote for something I don't believe is right just to avoid conflict.

Three things drive my campaign: fiscal accountability so taxpayers can see where their money goes, student outcomes as the filter for every board decision, and a willingness to fight for public education against the forces in Austin that are actively working to defund it.

Early voting starts April 20. Election Day is May 2. dave4cfb.com.