Begging for funds for Uvalde schools

The rural town of Uvalde is known across the country and beyond for the Robb Elementary School massacre on May 24, 2022.

The lack of response from law enforcement who waited 77 minutes while 19 students and two teachers were killed was devastating. In many ways, that lack of urgency endures among the institutions and officials who should have protected them.

But Ashley Chohlis, whose first day as Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District superintendent was Nov. 29, is on a mission.

She’s focused on trying to create a safe, loving place for Uvalde students and their families. She’s searching for reinforcements, and it’s clear she won’t stop until she gets them. During Texas Public Schools Week, Feb. 26-March 1, she was in Washington, D.C., appealing to Congress for funding.

It’s a trip she shouldn’t have had to make. Her calendar and inbox are beyond full. She’s overseeing a school district of 4,000 students and 450 teachers and staff, many of them traumatized.

After all that it’s endured, Uvalde CISD should be flush with cash to meet its needs. But this is Texas, where public schools, especially rural ones, are historically and severely underfunded. Incredibly, depressingly, even Uvalde CISD.

But Chohlis can’t afford to dwell on the inequities or failures of our elected officials. She’s practically begging for funds.

She’s witnessed what happens to communities torn apart by a gunman. She lived 2 miles from the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, where on Nov. 5, 2017, a gunman with an assaultstyle rifle opened fire during a Sunday service, killing 27 people and wounding more than 20, several of them children. Chohlis’ cousin was in the church that day. He was shot multiple times and spent months in recovery.

At the time, Chohlis was working in the nearby East Central ISD. She led safety and security. She knows what it feels like when a community loses its sense of safety. That sense of fear and loss.

She said she did a lot of work to get back a sense of security. She helped harden East Central ISD. “We installed vestibules, learned, trained, we did all the things,” she told me.

In the aftermath of Uvalde, as she served as Poth ISD superintendent, Chohlis offered advice and help to Uvalde as much as she could.

And when it was time to hire a new superintendent in Uvalde CISD, Chohlis stepped up.

“It was just on my heart,” she said.

That love for serving torn communities is what guided Chohlis’ sense of urgency as she visited the offices of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, and several other members of Congress and their staffers.

In their offices, she told the story of the immense needs of her district, where two school buildings are 95 years old and its newest buildings are 40 years old. The last bond passed in Uvalde CISD was during the ’90s. Despite large donations, the district still hasn’t gathered enough funds to replace Robb Elementary. There’s a $20 million deficit for that alone.

Some teachers are experiencing mental breakdowns, but the district can’t afford to give them more time off.

She appealed for a more even playing field to secure grant funding so she can provide a safe space for staff to teach and children to learn, and for all to heal.

Rural schools can’t afford grant writers, yet they compete with large districts that do, so rural schools often lose. She used the COPS School Violence Prevention Program grant that funds equipment and training as an example. Last year, more than 1,000 districts applied; only 206 grants were awarded.

This past week, I asked Chohlis if anything surprised her during her lobbying trip.

“That I had to be there at all,” she said, adding, “Public education is the cornerstone of our nation.”

But it’s not. If it was, the superintendent of Uvalde CISD,

the site of America’s secondworst school shooting, wouldn’t have to beg for funding in Congress or Austin, where elected leaders chose not to invest one bit of its $33 billion budget surplus

in public schools.

When will they listen to Chohlis’ urgent plea for help?

Omri Rahmil/Green Lights Grant Initiative Ashley Chohlis, Uvalde CISD superintendent, second from left, with White House officials Rob Wilcox, left, and Gregory Jackson Jr., are joined by Nichole Henderson, Uvalde CISD director of recovery services.