Mihaela Plesa

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Survey Responses

HAS NOT RESPONDED TO THE 2026 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY.

RESPONSES TO THE 2024 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY:

1. If elected, what are your top priorities for public education?

Rep. Plesa’s top priorities for public education are making sure that public education is fully-funded, reforming recapture, defending public education from voucher schemes, and expanding access to early childhood education and intervention programs.

2. Voucher programs take many forms (tax credits, scholarships, education savings accounts, etc.) and are either universal or aimed at specific subpopulations (special education students, low-income students, students attending schools with poor A-F accountability ratings, etc.). Would you vote to create a voucher program of any type to pay for students to attend non-public K-12 schools, such as private or home schools?

No. Public education money must only be spent on public schools. Taxpayer funded private school vouchers remove critical resources from public schools and give it to private institutions, harming students, schools, and communities. Rep. Plesa is firmly opposed to any and all voucher schemes no matter how they are packaged and sold to the Legislature. Every time a vote on vouchers has come before the House, Rep. Plesa has faithfully voted against them.

3. In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 3 requiring a number of new school safety measures. However, many believe the Legislature did not adequately increase funding to cover the cost of the mandates in HB 3 or other locally adopted school safety measures. How would you work to make schools safer and ensure such initiatives are properly funded?

Abbott had vowed to veto any new public education funding if it didn’t come in hand with a voucher proposal, his top legislative priority last year. This is why HB 3 remains an unfunded mandate. As a co-author the Fully Fund our Future Act during the multitude of special sessions, Rep. Plesa supports using part of our $20 Billion (projected) surplus next session to appropriate the monies needed to close the funding gap. School officials were already struggling to meet the safety requirements in HB 3, like the mandate to staff every campus with an armed officer--a policy that is projected to cost Plano ISD millions of dollars.

4. Despite a record-breaking surplus of $38 billion during the 2023 legislative session, school funding formulas were not increased to keep pace with inflation since they were last adjusted in 2019. Do you believe Texas public schools should receive additional funding? If so, how should the state pay for it?

Yes, Rep. Plesa supports increasing funding for Texas public schools. She co-sponsored the Fully Fund Our Future Act, which would fund schools based on enrollment and not attendance, increase the basic allotment, and index school funding to inflation to keep up with rising costs. In collaboration with local school districts, Rep. Plesa crafted Recapture & Transparency Reform legislation that would improve transparency for taxpayers, allow school districts to save money, and ensure that recapture payments are spent only on much needed school funding.

5. Texas has faced growing teacher shortages in recent years, with many schools hiring uncertified teachers to fill the gaps. How would you work to ensure Texas public schools have an adequate number of trained and certified teachers?

Rep. Plesa believes that students, educators, and communities-at-large are best served when educators are fully supported. Texas must improve teacher pay and working conditions if we are going to be able to recruit and retain the talented and passionate individuals that feel called to teach. It’s what our students and our teachers deserve. We should ensure that the teaching profession continues to be seen and respected with proper pay and benefits and one that harvests an environment for educators to want to stay in and be able to retire with dignity and security.

6. Inadequate compensation hampers the recruitment and retention of high-quality educators. Do you support a state-funded across-the-board pay raise for all Texas educators?

Yes, Rep. Plesa supports increasing teacher salaries by at least $15,000 across the board along with raises for all of the support staff, paraprofessionals and school district employees. She believes that investing in our schools and the people who make them successful incubators of talent and genius, is a worthy investment and one that will yield the highest returns for our society and nurtures the Texas Miracle.

7. The high cost of health insurance available to educators is a significant factor decreasing their take-home pay. How would you address the challenge of rising health care costs facing Texas educators and ensure access to affordable health care?

Teacher health care expenditures are skyrocketing, taking up more and more of teacher take-home pay. The Legislature should consider several ways to lower the teacher’s share of premiums, such as increasing the state contribution percentage and allowing school districts to choose from multiple health care plans to meet teacher needs. Rep. Plesa also wants to prioritize teacher wellbeing through mental health supports, expanded access to childcare and other benefits. By taking a more holistic look at the problem of high health spending, which is not unique to teachers, and tackling the root cause of rising health spending: higher health care prices. Because of the unique nature of how teacher health insurance funding is split between districts, the state, and teachers, the political debate has often focused on how to allocate the share of responsibility. While this debate is important, a more pressing objective should be to identify strategies to reduce total cost and empower plan administrators to implement those strategies with the full backing of the legislature.

8. What do you feel is the proper role of standardized testing in the Texas public education system? For instance, should student test scores be used as a metric in determining teacher pay, school accountability ratings, evaluating teachers, measuring student progress, etc.?

Texas public schools should be held to appropriate standards of quality through comprehensive assessment and accountability systems that accurately reflect academic performance and other measures of student progress. Rep. Plesa supports real-time assessments that inform instruction, measure individual progress, and serve as one of multiple measures reflecting a student’s entire educational experience. An overemphasis on standardized testing puts too much pressure on students and teachers, and does not account for all that goes into what makes a good school. Standardized testing should inform instruction in the classroom and not be a major, or the only factor, in determining how our students and schools are performing. Adding indicators that provide a more accurate depiction of life in our schools – from academic achievement, extracurricular activities, enrichment programs, social emotional learning, and more – will give parents a better understanding of what is taking place and working well in their child’s school.

9. In your opinion, what is the proper balance between accommodating an individual parent’s or student’s wishes and the taxpaying community’s interest in directing and maintaining an optimal educational environment for the student population as a whole?

Rep. Plesa trusts that educators are capable of guiding the academic growth of students in a way that is appropriate relative to their stage of development. Educators are trained and experienced professionals that are committed to nurturing students in an environment that is safe and that promotes their well-being. There may be some subjects that are sensitive that parents may wish to opt-out of their children receiving instruction on. However, requiring parents to opt-in regarding certain lessons, such as lessons about abuse and neglect, is unduly onerous and risks children not receiving vital information for keeping them safe.

10. Do you believe the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) should be maintained as a traditional defined-benefit pension plan for all future, current, and retired educators, or do you support converting TRS to a defined-contribution structure that is more like a 401(k) plan, in which future benefits are not guaranteed?

Rep. Plesa believes that TRS should be maintained as a traditional defined-benefit pension plan for all future, current, and retired educators.

11. State law allows educators and other public employees to voluntarily choose to join professional associations such as ATPE and have membership dues deducted from their paychecks at no cost to taxpayers. Do you support or oppose letting all public employees continue to exercise this right?

Rep. Plesa supports ATPE members, as well as members of other professional associations, in their right to pay dues directly from their paycheck. Workers have a right of association, and there is no legitimate reason to restrict this right. It does not benefit taxpayers or any particular public interest to treat professional associations differently than other organizations eligible for contributions to be deducted from worker paychecks.