Two College Station ISD trustees are asking voters for new three-year terms on Nov. 3, and each faces a single challenger. Before the four meet in public at the district's candidate forum on Tuesday, their written questionnaire answers, posted by the district as the candidates submitted them, show broad agreement on what is squeezing the district: money from the state, shrinking enrollment and keeping teachers.
The races
At-large Place 6: Michelle Gallagher, who lists her occupation as owner of Peachy Keen Home Staging & Styling, is first on the ballot. Incumbent Kim Ege, now finishing her first term and serving as board president, is second.
At-large Place 7: Incumbent Heather Simmen, co-owner of Pride Cleaners, is first on the ballot, followed by Karen Strope, vice president of marketing at StataCorp.
In their own words
Gallagher describes 21 years as an educator, 18 of them in CSISD as a dual language, general education and gifted and talented teacher. She writes that more than 84% of the district's general budget goes to staff pay and benefits, and says she would audit spending and look at repurposing existing resources before cutting programs that reach students. She calls retaining current staff "an area of struggle" for the district and says she wants to ask teachers regularly what keeps them in their jobs.
Ege points to an accounting background, with a bachelor's and master's in accounting from Texas A&M, a stint at a public company and time teaching middle school math, plus years of PTO and district committee work before she joined the board. She names flat state funding during several years of high inflation as the biggest challenge facing Texas districts and ties it directly to recruiting and keeping staff. Her answer: balance the budget while still finding raises, and have the district and community push together for more school funding.
Simmen, a 1993 CSISD graduate and lifelong College Station resident, writes that declining enrollment is pressuring the budget because Texas pays districts by average daily attendance while building and staffing costs stay mostly fixed. She says she has talked with state Rep. Paul Dyson about changing that formula, backs the district's new out-of-district transfer policy as a response, and cites rising state accountability ratings and recent teacher raises as progress she wants to continue.
Strope, whose two daughters are CSISD graduates and whose son attends middle school in the district, lists PTO roles at three campuses plus the district's School Health Advisory Council and Community Advisory Committee. She says her work overseeing a company remodel and now a new building would help as the district plans construction. Her list of challenges includes teacher workload and retention, falling enrollment, state funding pressure and students who are behind, and she says the district should identify struggling students earlier and give teachers the resources to help them.
