Parents in Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District are fuming over an expensive immersive event based around the character of Willy Wonka after a massive budget downfall led to the district dramatically cutting bus service.
CFID in Houston is the third-largest district in the state. Like many districts, it is facing a budget shortfall thanks to Governor Greg Abbott’s stonewall of increased funding until he gets his way on school vouchers. Currently, the district is $140 million in the hole.
That didn’t stop new superintendent Dr. Douglas Killian from hosting a back-to-school event for teachers and staff that involved a $30,000 appearance from a Nevada-based guitarist and at least $5,000 worth of bottled water. Killian himself took the stage dressed as Willy Wonka, the fictional chocolatier best known for strange stunts that often appear ludicrous and expensive.
Teachers and staff were bused to the event, which was mandatory.
Meanwhile, the district made the controversial decision to severely restrict bus access. Elementary students lost bus service if they lived within one mile of their zoned school, while middle and high schoolers lost service within two miles. That’s miles as the crow flies, not based on actual walkable routes which often exceed the intended radial distance.
Houston’s ABC13 spoke to several teachers outraged over the funds spent on the Willy Wonka event as kids are forced to hike to school in temperatures that often exceed a hundred degrees.
“The amount of time they have spent on telling us how bad our budget shortfall is to then cart us all over there and require us to see this thing that had very little point – it felt like a bad magic show,” one teacher said on the condition of anonymity.
The busing matter was further exacerbated by glitches with the CFISD website, which erroneously restored some kids’ bus access in early August only to later rescind it.
The Houston Chronicle reports that parents have been forced to wait in long lines to drop off and pick up their kids because of the cuts, some of which are now an hour long. Some campuses are seeing massive increases in local traffic and congestion as harried parents scramble to shuttle their children around work schedules.
The increase in traffic, use of gas, and air pollution is somewhat ironic. In addition to the budget cuts, CFISD’s new, almost entirely Republican, school board voted to remove any mention of manmade climate change from textbooks. The removal is likely from pressure from the oil and gas industry, who have tried to paint scientific consensus on fossil fuel-driven climate change as a partisan political issue.
Parents are stuck watching its reality happen in front of them while the superintendent cavorts around in cosplay.
