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In January 2025, Aria Dean went to a school board meeting because she was scared. She had heard that schools in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District (CFBISD) might close. She wanted answers. What she found instead was a question she had never thought to ask: why?
The answer sent her down more than a year of self-education in how Texas funds public schools. She spent more than a year learning the funding mechanisms that determine whether schools stay open or close, concepts like recapture, homestead exemptions and student allotment that most families, she said, have never heard of.
"I thought I knew what was going on," said Dean, who now serves as advocacy chair for both the CFBISD Council of PTAs and her home campus, Rosemeade Elementary. "And then when it hit me that my child's school might be closing, I realized I actually didn't know what was going on. That's when everything started snowballing."
That journey brought CFBISD to one of the newest education advocacy programs in Texas. The district was selected as one of 29 grant awardees in the inaugural cohort of the Raise Your Hand Texas Community Leaders Fellowship. The 18-month, grant-funded program equips local teams with the skills to advocate for public education at the state legislative level.
Founded in 2006, Raise Your Hand Texas is a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to build public support for Texas public education and equip communities to advocate for it at the state capitol. The Community Leaders Fellowship builds on its earlier Trustee Advocates Program, which trained school board members and superintendents, but goes further by requiring each team to include at least three community members who are not district employees or trustees.
"Our goal is to build more and deeper relationships between local leaders and their communities, so that they can work together to identify what's important to them with respect to public education," said Amy Dodson, dean of advocacy for Raise Your Hand Texas. "This new model creates powerful local teams that can advocate for meaningful change for their students and teachers."
The CFBISD committee reflects that intent. Its 12 members include principals, teachers, parents, school board trustees Ileana Garza-Rojas, Kim Brady and Cassandra Hatfield and Farmers Branch City Council Member Elizabeth Villafranca, along with Superintendent Dr. Wendy Eldredge.
Dean first spotted a posting about the fellowship in November 2025 and brought it directly to Eldredge. She completed a written application, attended an orientation and participated in a joint interview with the superintendent. Raise Your Hand Texas wanted to see a genuine partnership, not two parties working in parallel.
"They wanted to see that it was a real partnership, not just one person doing one thing and someone else doing another," Dean said.
Eldredge said the district's prior experience with Raise Your Hand Texas helped. CFBISD trustees had completed the organization's Trustee Advocates Program, which included two days of training in Austin. The board arrived knowing what Raise Your Hand Texas stood for.
"Raise Your Hand Texas is not an organization that teaches you who to advocate for," Eldredge said. "They teach you how to advocate. There's a difference. And nobody really teaches that anywhere."
The partnership between Dean and Eldredge did not start smoothly. Less than a year before their Raise Your Hand Texas interview, Dean had stood at a school board podium demanding transparency about school funding. By the time of the fellowship interview, the two were laughing about it.
"You can start with being angry," Dean said. "But then you have to build relationships. And we built a relationship."
That shift is central to what Dean hopes the fellowship accomplishes. Community frustration over school closures and budget cuts, she said, is often directed at the wrong people. The school board is not where the problem starts.
"People get very upset when schools might consolidate or close," Dean said. "But they don't understand that the reason all of this is happening is because of the state's refusal to adequately fund public education. That is where we need to put our energy."
Over the next 18 months, the CFBISD team will complete in-person training sessions, virtual coursework and a summer retreat. The program builds toward direct advocacy at the 90th Texas Legislative Session, which begins in January 2027, where the team plans to meet with lawmakers and make the case for increased public education funding.
Eldredge said the fellowship's focus on proactive, community-rooted communication is what sets it apart.
"It's not reactive communication," she said. "It's a narrative that we share with our community and tell our story about our school district. It's very programmatic, but it's also very authentic based on our needs."
Dean said the committee is a starting point. She and Eldredge plan to expand it into a larger district-wide network before the session begins.
"Number one is sharing information with my community," Dean said. "Parents need to know what's happening, and they don't know. Number two is talking to our legislators and saying, give us a seat at this table. We want you to listen to us before you even get to the legislative session."
Eldredge said the effort is stronger for having Dean at the front of it.
"As you want to grow student performance, you also want to grow your community engagement," she said. "I'm just proud that we have a parent in Aria who stood up and is leading the charge. I support her 100%."
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