Spring Branch Independent School District trustees criticized state lawmakers over a new law governing educator sexual misconduct reporting and funding rules.
During a Monday evening workshop meeting, Trustee Chris Earnest criticized Senate Bill 571, which requires school districts to report allegations of educator misconduct to a law enforcement agency outside of the district’s own police department. Earnest said that over the past five or six years the number of weekly emails and reports about alleged teacher misconduct has likely tripled, or even quadrupled, but argued that he does not believe there are that many more actual “legitimate cases.”
“But that reporting is intentional because at some point, someone’s going to write an article that says that the number of reports of inappropriate interactions between teacher and student has skyrocketed in the state of Texas over the last two years since we started this reporting, and it’s a dangerous place to have your kids,” said Earnest.
The Texas Education Agency received 19,766 educator misconduct reports filed in the 2026 fiscal year ending August 31. This is triple the number of reports filed in fiscal year 2025.
Board President Courtney Anderson told other members that the rules surrounding funding enacted by lawmakers and the Texas Education Agency “feels like a clown show” and are like “playing a board game with my four-year-old niece that changes rules every hand she gets.”
She said that the rules “are set by legislators who’ve probably never been in a classroom as a teacher, much less a leader” and that “none of those legislators would stay in an industry if somebody did this to them all the time.”
Earnest said he believed “the police officer thing” was authored by State Rep. Mitch Little (R-Lewisville) and that “it’s very intentional. I’ve talked to Mitch about it. Mitch doesn’t trust local PDs, including our own.”
Earnest said that he doesn’t know why Little has an opinion on Spring Branch ISD officers as “he doesn’t live here” and that “he doesn’t trust them. And he thinks that every case that’s brought to the local school district PD is just covered up, brushed under the rug, and there’s not a legitimate investigation.”
Earnest added that Little holds this opinion of Spring Branch ISD Police Department Chief Larry Baimbridge, whom the district considers “one of the best chiefs in the region.”
According to Texas Legislature Online, Little did not author or sponsor SB 571. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) is listed as its primary author, sponsored by State Reps. Jeff Leach (R-Allen), Brad Buckley (R-Salado), Candy Noble (R-Lucas), and James Frank (R-Wichita Falls).
Little authored companion legislation, House Bill 4623, which only relates to “liability of public schools and professional school employees for sexual misconduct involving students.”
In a social media post, former Texas GOP General Counsel Rachel Palmer Hooper wrote this discussion came out of a broader conversation by the trustees during the Monday evening workshop meeting. She wrote that right after Board President Courtney Anderson highlighted Bettencourt’s recognition of the district during the State Board of Education’s meeting earlier this month, Earnest said that he “can’t stand Bettencourt.”
Hooper points out in her post that “local control isn’t a trophy for a good rating. It’s trust, and you don’t earn it by trashing the people you’re asking for it.”
Anderson told Texas Scorecard that the board of trustees’ discussion included “the growing impact of unfunded and underfunded state mandates on the district’s budget, including an anticipated $30 million deficit in 2027–28.”
She said that “safety and security and student academic success” remain the district’s priorities, but that “more than $31 million in safety and security requirements are unfunded or underfunded” while special education services are underfunded by approximately $16.5 million, and that “fully funding these state-required obligations would significantly change the district’s projected budget outlook.”
The district’s ability to provide these “high-quality educational opportunities our students deserve and community expect depends on the state providing adequate funding to meet the requirements it places on public schools.”
“This issue is particularly important as SBISD continues to demonstrate strong student and district performance,” said Anderson. “The district was recently recognized as the only Texas district—and one of 108 nationwide—as an Education Scorecard District on the Rise. SBISD also ranks in the 96th percentile for Relative Performance based on TEA data.”
Earnest told Texas Scorecard that his remarks regarding Senate Bill 571 “wasn’t really criticism.”
“It’s just it’s really more the way that it’s played out in that when we have something to report to TEA or CPS, and some of which are legitimate, and a lot of which end up being unfounded reports,” he said. “That bill doesn’t allow our own police department to launch an investigation or to respond to it.”
He said most of the Spring Branch ISD schools are located within the jurisdiction of the Houston Police Department, which does not always immediately respond, leaving teachers waiting late at night.
“But when you’re dealing with HPD, they don’t either respond or they respond very late, and a lot of these claims go uninvestigated while we’ve got an entire police force ready to investigate it, but the Senate bill won’t allow them to do that,” Earnest said.
He also addressed his comment on Little. “I think Mitch Little was involved in the House version of the bill that got passed initially,” he said. “I think there’s a skepticism of the ISD police departments, and so carving that out from their jurisdiction was very intentional.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion regarding the scope of the term “law enforcement agency” under SB 571, which can be viewed here.
