Public hearing: Northwest ISD outlines 2025–26 federal grant uses; administrators recommend transfers to support Title I campuses

Administrators opened a public hearing on the district’s 2025–26 federal-funded programs and summarized planned uses for Title I, II, III, IV, Perkins, and IDEA grants.

The presenter said the district bases federal grant requests on its vision, mission and needs assessments across district and Title I campuses. “For our ESSA grants, we did get a little bit more money in title 1, and this money is what we use for title 1 intervention specialists, behavior interventionists, and then also for parent family engagement and education,” the presenter said.

Nut graf: District leaders told the board and public that federal funds are critical to support specialized positions and services that would otherwise require local funding; during the hearing attendees asked about total grant amounts, application workload and the district’s dependence on federal funding.

Key points presented: Title I increases were to support intervention specialists, behavior interventionists and parent engagement; Title II funds will support new teacher and leadership support specialist positions plus training and ESL certification reimbursement; Title III and Title IV increases will be used for bilingual family education and, in the case of Title IV, the administration recommended transferring some Title IV funds to Title I to address growing Title I campus needs; Perkins will continue to fund CTE programs; IDEA-B and IDEA-B preschool funds will support diagnosticians, teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing, and paraprofessionals.

During public Q&A, a community member asked whether the district “chases every grant” and how long applications take; the presenter said the district pursues appropriate grants and that the time-intensive work involves compliance, needs assessments and ongoing management rather than the application form alone. A trustee asked whether the district “relies on this federal money,” and the public speaker noted the amount would “be a big dent in the budget” if federal funds were lost.

Ending: The public hearing closed with the district noting that detailed amounts and carryover will be provided in follow-up materials; one guest asked for a ballpark total of all grants, which staff offered to provide after the hearing.