Roxanne Lathan

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Survey Responses

RESPONSES TO THE 2026 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY:

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

Please describe any specific goals or legislative initiatives you would pursue to strengthen the state’s public education system.

My goals for public education is to repeal the voucher law, fight for a pay increase for teachers, and fund public education. Right now the idea of using some of the Texas budget surplus to fund our school system is short sighted.

2. Public Education Funding:

The 89th Legislature passed an $8 billion school funding bill, HB 2. However, despite years of unanswered “inflationary challenges, a large majority of that funding was earmarked to specific programs and did not supply districts with significant flexible funding, leaving the majority of Texas students in districts with deficit budgets and other significant funding challenges. Do you believe Texas public schools should receive additional funding? If so, how should the state pay for it, and should that funding be earmarked at the state level or provide districts with flexible dollars?

We have a commissioner who is against public schools. He is not fighting for us. Yes, Texas public schools should receive additional funding and any new mandates should come with more funding. Raise Your Hand Texas proposes creating a new Legacy Education Fund endowment that will move Texas beyond two-year budget cycles and establish a lasting investment in our public schools. I believe this endowment is a step in the right direction. Funding should be earmarked at the state level and provide districts with flexible dollars at the same time. Public Education must be well funded every year and not provided with "just enough."

3. ESA Vouchers:

Education savings accounts (ESAs) redirect public funds to private or home schools. How do you believe Texas should fund public schools, traditional and charter, alongside ESA vouchers? How should ESA spending be held accountable to taxpayers?

The Texas legislature should appropriate the required funds to provide what public schools need. It took Texas a long time to come up with the School Finance System that is used to fund our public schools. Since the governor has thrown a wrench into that system, a new formula must be created. There should be requirements for private and home school accountability such as being held for students to pass state testing, adhere to the same ADA  standards as public education, and they must take any and all students who apply for enrollment. It is not right, nor just, to get funding with little to no accountability.

4. Teacher Recruitment and Retention:

Under HB 2, passed in 2025, all educators in core content courses (math, English, science, and social studies) must be certified by 2030. While this is a good start, more can and should be done to ensure high-quality teachers continue to enter the classroom. What are your suggestions to improve the quality of the new teacher pipeline?

High quality teachers can teach the content skills and they have great behavior management. I have witnessed first-hand, time and time again, teachers doing a great job teaching the concepts when students are behaving and while an administrator is in the classroom, but as soon as admin. steps out there is chaos. The real problem is that when we get certified teachers we can't keep them. They quit not long after starting because they didn't truly understand how to handle conflict/defiance, cursing, and bad behavior in the classroom. Those that don't like dealing with conflict refuse to call parents because they are afraid, so the issues continue. People are not entering the field of education, as in the past, because they hear the horror stories and don't feel they will be equipped with the skills to handle classroom discipline. 
Without adding another mandate that districts will have to pay for, I believe the colleges/universities and alternative certification programs should add a few more courses to their programs, which teaches about all the different behavioral disorders (ED, ODD, CD, ADHD, etc.) and teaches how to help students as well as how to use strategies to handle those behaviors. These prerequisite classes must be role play type of courses because it's easy to say or write how to handle outbursts in the classroom. The education students cannot take the next class without making A's.

5. Educator Pay and Benefits:

The 89th Legislature passed legislation creating a new mechanism to provide only classroom teachers with tiered raises based on early years of service and their district’s student enrollment. While the raises were significant, they did not apply to all campus educators, and the program created a significant negative funding stream at the district level due to unfunded increased costs for non-salary compensation tied to payroll, such as TRS retirement contributions. Do you support a state-funded across-the-board pay raise for all Texas educators? How would you ensure that compensation keeps pace with inflation and remains competitive with other professions?

Yes, I support a state-funded across-the-board pay raise for all Texas educators. The Texas legislature must increase the per student basic allotment to $7,500 and the federal government must provide more funding to ensure public education is well funded. If the federal government can spend/allocate about $30 billion on ICE agents/personnel and operations, and $45 billion for detention camps, then they can spend just as much on making sure our teachers' salaries remain competitive.

6. Educator Health Care:

The high cost of health insurance for active and retired educators continues to reduce take-home pay, with educators shouldering the vast majority of their ever-increasing heath care costs. How would you address the affordability and sustainability of educator health care, particularly the TRS-ActiveCare and TRS-Care programs?

TRS can negotiate with medical administrators and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for favorable contract terms and the TRS-Care program for retirees can be funded like an endowment, or how pension funds operate. At the same time the Texas legislature and school district can increase their mandatory contributions to reduce the cost burden on individual educators and improve sustainability.

7. Retirement Security:

Do you believe the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) should remain a defined-benefit pension plan for all current and future members? If not, what is your plan to provide a secure retirement for Texas educators, particularly considering that state law has been set up such that most districts do not participate in Social Security?

TRS should remain a defined-benefit pension plan. There are some states that have an optional defined contribution plan that depends on investment performance, like a 401K. No one wants to depend on investments because the money could be gone or decreased when you need it most. Since most Texas teachers do not pay into the Social Security system teachers need to know how much they will get each month for budgeting purposes.

8. Accountability and Assessment Reform:

The Legislature has passed a new “through-year” multi-test model under HB 8. What role should standardized testing play in evaluating students, teachers, and schools? Should test results continue to determine A–F accountability ratings or teacher pay?

Standardized testing results should be nothing more than a tool to help teachers understand where the learning gaps are and to go back and plan instruction to fill those gaps, so students are successful. Teachers' T-TESS and campus administrators' T-PESS ratings can be tied to the EOY tests results, which holds them accountable. However, I don't believe schools should be subjected to A-F accountability ratings because bad ratings makes it more difficult to hire good teachers. Good teachers want to go to "good" schools. I like the idea of giving teachers, whose students pass the STAAR tests, merit/incentive pay.

9. Parental Rights and Community Voice:

Recent legislative debates have focused on “parental rights” in education. In your view, what is the appropriate balance between accommodating the often conflicting wishes of individual parents while maintaining policies that reflect the broader community’s educational priorities and still providing consistency and an appropriate level of professional deference to educators?

Districts will abide by all legislative mandates and create partnerships between parents and schools. There are always those parents that complain and argue. It will be those same parents who will still complain, but if they see that the schools are following all school board policies and laws the complaints will cease. This issue will play out in the courts and the decisions will help to guide school districts on creating policies that will provide an appropriate balance in accommodating parents, students, and teachers.

10. School Safety:

HB 3 (2023) imposed new school safety requirements but did not fully fund them. Although the 89th Legislature increased the School Safety Allotment, many districts continue to face substantial unfunded staffing and facility costs associated with school safety laws. How would you make schools safer and ensure the state provides adequate funding to meet safety mandates?

There should never be any mandates without required funding, so districts aren't made to go into deficit spending. I will make Texas schools safer by ensuring that every staff member on campus is trained in the Texas Behavioral Threat Assessment protocol, which district officers attend the training that is facilitated by Texas School Safety Support Program (SSSP), TEA, and Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC). Basic safety protocols should be followed like keeping all doors shut and locked and not propped open, knowing what behaviors to look for and who to report to if something seems weird. Schools have to constantly train to take teacher turnover into account. Even if there is enough funding for safety there are not enough officers to apply for those jobs, so these safety measures are needed.

11. Curriculum and Local Control:

What do you believe is the proper role of the State Board of Education, the Texas Education Agency, and local school districts in setting curriculum standards and selecting instructional materials?

The State Board of Education (SBOE) sets curriculum standards (TEKS) and approves instructional materials; the Texas Education Agency (TEA) supports the districts by providing approved resources, and implementing oversight; and local school districts adopt specific resources and materials from the TEA approved list or districts can pick their own, making sure to abide by state rules. Individual school districts have a lot of choices within that framework.

12. Educator Rights and Professional Associations:

State law allows educators and other public employees to voluntarily join professional associations such as ATPE and have membership dues deducted from their paychecks at no cost to taxpayers. Do you support or oppose allowing public employees to continue exercising this right? Why or why not?

When I was a teacher I was happy about all professional associations that helped to provide legal advice and support to teacher members. As a campus principal I continued to tell teachers about the benefits of joining a professional association. I allowed different association's teacher representatives setup tables on my campuses during staff development days. I support public employees voluntarily joining professional associations because if someone is unsure of how to handle situations, or if they are afraid that they are breaking the law, or getting sued by a parent, then they deserve to have someone to talk to and have their questions answered.