Nearly a year after Cy-Fair Independent School District (CFISD) omitted more than a dozen chapters from our textbooks, the discourse continues over the future of the school district.
As a student in Texas, I’ve lived through the drastic changes that have come over the last few years. From removing librarians on campuses to requiring teachers to cut personal pronouns from their email, the quiet attacks on personal expression and free speech have become more apparent throughout the district. It’s hard to reconcile that a school district once known for welcoming students of all backgrounds and encouraging free thought now seems to be moving in a direction that feels more restrictive than even broader state trends. But here we are, and I’m scared. I’m scared of what’s being lost in our classrooms: critical thinking, open dialogue, and the freedom to be ourselves.
Last May, the CFISD board of trustees voted to strip out 13 chapters from state-approved textbooks, chapters that covered evolution, climate change, vaccines, identity, and diversity. Topics that exist in the real world. Topics we need to understand to be responsible citizens, scientists, and human beings. While some of the school board trustees argue that emphasizing issues like race and identity “seeds hate” and makes students feel hopeless about their future, history has proven time and time again that ignorance fuels division and misunderstanding. Students deserve the truth—not sanitized or politicized—because we’re the ones inheriting these crises.
Across Texas, broader political decisions are also affecting students. With House Bill 900, more than 800 books have been pulled from Texas public schools and libraries. Books addressing critical topics like race, gender, anti-semitism, and the lived experiences of marginalized communities have continued to be banned or challenged in Texas. And now, with the passage of Senate Bill 10, requiring all Texas public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, the political influence over public education is only growing. Public schools are meant to serve everyone, but policies like this blur the line between church and state and alienate the very students our system is supposed to support. Cy-Fair ISD is at the forefront of efforts that aim to reshape curriculum through a religious ideological lens.
A district that proudly sends students to higher education institutions every year—places where progress and inclusion are celebrated—is the same district that is stifling the very values that helped get us there. As a senior in the midst of the college application process, there has never been a second thought in my mind: I want to get out of Texas. Why? Because like many of my peers, I’m unsure if Texas is the place I want to build my future. The term “Brain Drain” characterizes this: talented, driven students are planning their futures in other states—ones that don’t criminalize identity or control reproductive rights. Between the state’s abortion ban, censored education, and now religious mandates in public schools, Texas is pushing away the very people who could help it thrive. In fact, out-of-state migration for Texas high school graduates grew 106 percent from 14,300 in 2004 to 29,485 in 2022.
Yet despite all of this, after recently attending Texas Girls State, a camp for students in Texas interested in government and politics, I have a newfound sense of hope in the next generation of leaders who are committed to building a better future for Texas, and for the first time in a while, I feel like change here is still possible.
That change starts at the local level. With school board elections coming up this November, we have an opportunity to protect our public schools and push back against the political overreach that’s threatening education. Three seats are up in the Cy-Fair ISD school board election in 2025. These positions have the power to influence what students learn, how teachers are supported, and how inclusive our schools will be.
So to every parent and community member reading this: Get involved. Learn about the candidates. Show up on November 4. And to current students and CFISD alumni, whether you still live here or not, I challenge you to use your voice, your education, and your vote to fight for equitable change in the place you call or once called home.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
