District OKs TEA foreign student exchange waiver
DRIPPING SPRINGS — In order to reduce recapture, now known as excess local revenue, the Dripping Springs ISD Board of Trustees unanimously approved an agreement for the purchase of attendance credits at its Aug. 26 meeting.
Recapture — the process in which school districts send some of their local property tax revenue to the state — payments had grown so large that the state used those dollars to support a considerable amount of the state’s funding obligation for education, therefore freeing up state funds to help balance the rest of the state budget, according to DSISD Chief Financial Officer Gina Mitschke. The intent of recapture is to help all school districts have roughly similar amounts of money to spend per child, Mitschke said.
According to agenda documents, Chapter 41 of the Texas Education Code (TEC) was repealed in a previous legislative session and many of the sections were transferred to Chapter 49. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is now referring to recapture as excess local revenue. Chapter 49, Subchapters A and D of the Texas Education Code, require districts with excess local revenue above the Tier I Entitlement to pay funds into the Foundation School Program for distribution to other districts within the state.
Recently, TEA notified DSISD that the Tier I local share will exceed the district’s entitlement under TEC, Section 49 (previously Chapter 41/Robin Hood). Senate Bill 2 was approved by voters in November 2023, which increased the homestead exemption to $100,000, resulting in a decrease in the amount of recapture DSISD owes to the state, agenda documents stated.
“When we adopted the budget back in June of last year for 2023-24, initially we were projecting about $33 million in recapture. Then, they had Senate Bill 2 that was passed and we had the $40,000 homestead exemption that was increased to $100,000,” Mitschke said. “We saw that [recapture] drop and now, it’s closer to about $9 million. It made a significant impact, so it’s not just we are getting less in property value, but we are seeing less in recapture payment.”
While the amount of recapture due the state has decreased, the district continues to pay recapture, thus requiring compliance with the recapture statutes.
Based on current estimates, DSISD will be required to reduce its excess local revenue level for the 2024-25 school year using one or more of the statutory options available. One of the five options for reducing revenues is the purchase of attendance credits, which is the most often utilized by school districts, and is the option that DSISD has elected to use in previous years, according to Mitschke.
“[Attendance credits] is the name given for the way a district can equalize the wealth … We get funded based on attendance and [average daily attendance] and you’re kind of purchasing those credits for another district or another child,” Mitschke said. “The option to purchase attendance credits was approved by the voters here back in 2005 and it’s not whether or not you want to do it, it’s how you are going to do it. The TEA is going to get the funds in some manner and the most popular way is to purchase attendance credits.”
There are only a few actions that will impact recapture, Mitschke explained. This includes increasing basic allotment (not anticipated for 202425), increasing homestead exemption (like Senate Bill 2) and additional compression of the maximum compressed rate. She emphasized that lowering the tax rate will not lower recapture payments.
Following the chief financial officer’s presentation, trustee Kim Cousins said that it’s critical that DSISD gets the message out to parents of how important it is for students to be attending school, especially during the periods where attendance is taken.
“That’s money that we get to keep here. Nobody takes that away from us. I continue to have conversations, and I have lived here since ‘08, there’s a lot of people that do not understand attendance credit. The more kids that come to school every day, the more money we get, and it's just critical to me. I don't think people really understand the attendance time. You've got trips to take, you've got places you need to go. If you can get it done later in the day after the attendance is taken [or] bringing medical notes from being absent during attendance taking time gets that credit [for that] student attending school.”
The intent/choice selection form has been submitted electronically to TEA, indicating the use of Option 3, the Purchase of Attendance Action Credits; TEA approval of this intent/choice selection is required before the district can move forward with adopting its 2024-25 tax rate, according to agenda documents.
The district is required to submit to TEA the Agreement for the Purchase of Attendance Credits. While districts have the option to submit the agreement electronically through the Excess Local Revenue online subsystem, the school board must delegate the authority to the superintendent to obligate the school district under TEC, Chapter 49, with specific language included in the motion.
The DSISD Board of Trustees unanimously approved the agreement for the purchase of attendance credits, which delegates “contractual authority to obligate the school district under Texas Education Code (TEC) 11.1511(c)(4) to the superintendent,” according to agenda documents.
Foreign exchange students
The board unanimously approved a foreign exchange student waiver that will allow DSISD to limit the number of foreign exchange students to a number that is five or more per high school, under Texas Education Code 25.001 (e).
According to agenda documents, per FD (LEGAL), a board or its designee shall admit into the public schools of a district free of tuition all persons who are over 5 years old and younger than 21 years of age on Sept. 1 of any school year in which admission is sought, and may admit a person who is at least 21 and under 26 for the purpose of completing the requirements for a high school diploma, if any of the following condition exists: The person who is a foreign exchange student placed with a host family that resides in the district by a nationally recognized foreign exchange program, unless the district has applied for and been granted a waiver by the commissioner of education.
Waivers are considered for the following reasons:
• This requirement would impose a financial or staffing hardship on the district;
• The admission would diminish the district's ability to provide highquality education services for the district's domestic students; or
• The admission would require domestic students to compete with foreign exchange students for educational resources.
However, due to the three conditions presented above, including the population size and resource availability at Dripping Springs High School, the district’s administration requested for the board to approve the waiver to submit to TEA to limit the number of foreign exchange students for the 2024-25 school year.
Assistant Superintendent for Learning and Innovation Karen Kidd explained that, while they are recommending to keep the number of foreign exchange students for the 2024-25 school year to 11, she will be asking the board to consider decreasing it to five next year. She also said that the state of Texas requires school districts to have at least five.
“Usually, we do this in three-year increments. This year, we are at 11 [foreign exchange students] right now, so [we are recommending] keeping it at 11 and then next year, possibly moving it down to five, if that’s what the state allows. And then the years after that, staying at five until we can get some relief for our high school,” Kidd said.
Board Vice President Dr. Mary Jane Hetrick said that she has seen frequent posts circulating social media in search of host families; she asked to ensure that the district is in contact with the groups who are facilitating foreign exchange students to let them know about the cap.
“They know. They actually saw that our waiver wasn’t for 2024-25 because we didn’t have a board meeting in July,” Kidd responded. “The company actually reached out. We are usually at 10 and now we have 11. Yes, they are watching because a lot of districts do have a waiver.”
Another board member, Olivia Barnard, asked what resources are strained at DSHS, as that is the reasoning behind the waiver being recommended at the meeting.
Kidd explained that the high school has seen tremendous growth, which has led to large class sizes, and that there have been discussions of adding portables to accommodate that until there is a second high school campus built.
To listen to the full meeting, visit www. dsisdtx.us/page/boardmeeting- livestream. The board will meet next for an agenda review meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 16, at the Center for Learning & Leadership Board Room, located at 300 Sportsplex Drive.
