President’s Message

Hello, ATPE. My name is Jason Forbis, and I have the great honor of serving as your ATPE State president. I come to you now as the 89th legislative session is about to kick off. Our lobby team has been working hard on getting our priorities together, and some of the things that we’re going to be looking closely at this session are public education funding and educator compensation—things that we have certainly talked about before.

We want to continue to feed that teacher pipeline so that those of us who are getting to the point of retiring will have somebody to come take our place. Additionally, we want to look at working conditions in our schools. We definitely need to improve those in certain areas, and again, coming back down the road is the threat of private school vouchers. Fortunately, we—as ATPE members—can help. You can go to Advocacy Central and send messages to your senators and your legislators.

You can also be a part of the ATPE Member Advocate Program (ATPE-MAP). You can go through the training—like I have—and come to the capitol to advocate for the interests of educators and students all over Texas. I encourage you to jump on this opportunity so that you can share what you have learned with others.

Last, I want to wish you all a happy 2025, and may your year be filled with great things!