Lisa Alpe, SBISD Trustee Position 5

Congratulations to the two new trustees and to my friend and colleague, Caroline H. Bennett, on her re-election.

Thank you to the SBISD voters for their support of bond Propositions A, B, and C. I continue to be amazed at the support our community has for our great school district and public education. Renovating and upgrading our aging athletics facilities is great for the kids in our community and I look forward to seeing them thrive and succeed in the years to come!

Update re: Elizondo vs. SBISD

Good afternoon, SBISD community! I have been reading messages on many community groups over the last several weeks and wanted to share a few thoughts. In the last two years, I’ve learned that being a good trustee requires many varied skills. It’s great that we all bring our professional experience to the table-two teachers, lawyer, engineer, lawyer/expert in employee compensation, speech therapist and a business executive. Those are valuable skills, but the most important qualities for a trustee to have are integrity, be honest with the community and a willingness to do the hard work. Trustees have access to a tremendous amount of information- a large amount of data, sensitive financial information, high level contracts, and confidential legal information. There are many people that count on us to make sound decisions for the good of the entire community-our kids’ futures depend on it.

We have had an incredibly tough year with budget cuts. The administration and board have spent hundreds of hours considering all options. When making decisions, we have tried to think outside the “education” box. We have considered impacts to all affected communities; we always ask “how will this affect academic outcomes?” We have incorporated long term planning and considered how our decisions fit in with where we ultimately want to go as a district. We considered our great teachers and staff. We considered the messages, public and private, that we get from the legislators about public school funding. We always want to be fiscally conservative and responsible. When we were meeting in executive session every Monday night for months, we were asking hard questions of the administration’s plans, asking them to come back with other options at times and thoughtfully thinking about the entire district. That is why almost every single budget decision, except for schedule alignment, was a 7-0 or 6-1 vote.

There is a pretty sad narrative by some that seeks to divide the board and community, implying it is 3 conservative trustees vs 3 conservative trustees. If that were the case, you would see votes that reflect that and public disagreement amongst the trustees in meetings. During my first year as a trustee, we did vote 4-3 on a lot of items, and there were heated public discussions about those decisions. During my second year, with two new conservative trustees, there was only one 4-3 vote.

During the 88th legislative session and four special sessions last year, the board and community were vocal advocates for SBISD and public education funding. We created the School Finance Advocacy Team (SFAT) in the fall before the legislative session began. It was comprised of 70 community members, trustees, elected officials and others. The purpose was to educate everyone involved about our advocacy messages and the FACTS about our budget and the upcoming challenges we would have if the legislature did not increase the basic allotment (our main source of funding.) Those on the SFAT had a front row seat to the SBISD budget and it was explained by experts. What we learned very quickly was that some elected officials in Austin either did not understand how school district budgets worked OR they preferred to spread inaccurate information for the good of their anti-public school campaign for vouchers. Either way, trustees, the SFAT and engaged community members spent many hours dispelling those inaccuracies as they were detrimental to our advocacy efforts. The board sent out communications specifically correcting two elected officials’ public statement with misinformation about our budget. Our budget is all public record and accessible online. The board gets MONTHLY budget updates in our public meetings with hundreds of pages of budget documents available to the public. This is why it is upsetting to me to see those same lazy, anti-public education, anti-SBISD misstatements about our budget during this year’s trustee campaign. Claiming that we have increased our personnel costs by $100 million in the last two years is a blatant lie and easily disprovable, but it will again hurt our advocacy efforts that will start again this summer and fall for the 89th legislative session in January.

I am available (and always have been) to the community to answer questions or concerns as are the six other trustees.
We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us in the coming year. As we begin early voting this week, it is imperative that we prioritize the qualities that would make a great trustee. 35,000 kids are depending on it.

This is a message from the Board of Trustees that went out to the SBISD community yesterday.

We are excited about this opportunity for the Raiders! We also look forward to expanding early college to all of our high schools in SBISD. With the ever rising costs of a college education, SBISD is setting its graduates up for success!

Spring Branch Independent School District (SBISD) proudly announces the launch of RISE College Academy at Northbrook High School Featured News - Spring Branch Independent School District

Thank you to the brave SBISD PD officer who put his life on the line to keep our children, teachers and community safe. We are very fortunate to have this hero in SBISD!

Senators Huffman and Bettencourt, you’re invited! The SBISD Board of Trustees asks you both to join our upcoming board meeting on Oct. 23 where we will continue the difficult decisions about where to find at least $35 million to cut from our 2024-25 budget. Because you both represent SBISD, we welcome your participation in these discussions. We look forward to seeing you!

To the SBISD community,

As you know, the Board has been advocating for an inflationary increase in funding since last fall, months before the regular legislative session. Many of our great community rallied and loudly advocated for our children! Our work is not done. We are told that an October special session for public school funding is imminent. Please continue to call, write and email your elected representatives in the House and Senate and tell them that it is their job to fully fund public education.

We will not stop fighting!

Spring Branch ISD issues ‘Come and Take It’ challenge. Lawmakers should listen. (Editorial) Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature have held increased school funding hostage to...

Good morning, SBISD community.

I’m writing to let you know that with three weeks left in this legislative session, there appears to be no real progress in our Texas Legislature to address public school finance. That means that our state continues to take millions of dollars from our taxpayers in “recapture” payments (approx. $80 million in 2024), but refuse to give us any money to account for inflation. Did you know that public schools haven’t received more in funding per child from the State of Texas since 2019? In 2024, SBISD is looking at a $50 million shortfall which will require the Board of Trustees to make drastic, devastating cuts to our budget. SBISD is not alone in this plight- districts brave enough to speak up are alerting their communities to the trouble looming on the horizon, urging parents and taxpayers to let our elected representatives know that this is NOT what is best for children.

Two weeks ago, President Chris Earnest, Secretary John Perez, Dr. Blaine, Asso. Superintendent of Finance Christine Porter and I met with our elected officials in Austin. Sen. Joan Huffman, Sen. Paul Bettencourt, Rep. Lacey Hull, Rep. Mano DeAyala, Commissioner of Education Mike Morath and their aides met in a conference room where both sides hashed out school finance issues. After that meeting, we were hopeful to see some changes in conference committee- more flexibility in how SBISD could spend some of the money allocated and more in the basic allotment. To date, none of those things have materialized. We agreed after that meeting that we had to “trust” the process and allow our representatives to go to work to get more money for public education. Then, Sen. Paul Bettencourt sent out a communication last week taking another public shot at SBISD. Disappointing to say the least.

It is now time for our community to let our representatives know that we will remember this at the ballot box. That means that we need to call, email and visit the Capitol and let them hear our loud and proud SBISD voices. Our children are our most precious resource and this is an important fight.

To our elected representatives, please know that SBISD will not back down. We will explore ALL legal options to find recapture relief. As the Texas Supreme Court wrote, recapture is a “byzantine” system and should be fixed. Recapture is BROKEN and unjust.



Lisa Alpe
SBISD Board of Trustees Vice-President

Good morning to our great Spring Branch community,

It’s been a whirlwind week! Public school finance is front and center- our community’s amazing response to a call to action, media coverage of SBISD’s looming financial cuts if our legislature doesn’t fix, and some one on one attention from our state reps.

I have been banging this drum all week- the reason that no additional money to our basic allotment (how much money we receive to educate each child-$6160) is especially devastating to SBISD is because of our unique makeup. We pay the 9th highest amount of money to the State of Texas in “recapture” payments, but also have a 59% student population that is low income. We love all of our SBISD children, and the fact is that is costs more to educate those in a socio-economically disadvantaged category. There are only two districts in the entire state that are similarly situated (Richardson ISD is the other).

We held a board retreat on Friday and had a very robust discussion about these issues. As soon as that meeting is posted, I encourage you to listen.

So what now? John Perez, Dr. Blaine, Christine Porter and I met with Sen. Bettencourt on Friday night for an hour and had a productive meeting filled with straight talk, lots of spreadsheets and handouts and a first step towards getting SBISD some additional funding. Both sides have promised to get additional information and crunch more numbers. On Thursday, this same group and Chris Earnest will travel to Austin to meet with Sen. Huffman. We appreciate her time and look forward to solving this problem.

I can’t thank our community enough for their quick response to our call to action. This is what democracy and community engagement looks like, and it’s why SBISD is a great place to live and raise our families.

We will keep you posted on our efforts to solve this problem!




Lisa Alpe
SBISD Board Vice-President

Here is a message that just went out to the SBISD parents and community:

bit.ly/DrBlaineUpdate-April 11, 2023

Dr. Blaine's Blog - Spring Branch Independent School District Dr. Blaine's Blog - Spring Branch Independent School District

Spring Branch community,

I am posting some information about SBISD’s dire financial situation compiled by Trustee John Perez 4 SBISD. If we don’t get recapture relief by May 29, we will be forced to make deep, painful cuts to our budget to the tune of $50 MILLION. This isn’t going to happen in a few years from now-it will begin next year. Please contact our “representatives” who have thus far been unwilling or unable to put anything on the House or Senate floor that will help our district, despite the fact that we are sending $88 MILLION to the State of Texas. I refuse to sacrifice safety, security and learning so Austin can take our money for their slush fund and pet projects. In keeping with my Texan heritage, I’m starting to believe that our path forward may be to tell them to COME AND TAKE IT.

Please contact Sen. Paul Bettencourt, Sen. Joan Huffman, Rep. Mano Deayala and Rep. Lacey Hull TODAY. Tell them to fight for SBISD!