Linton Davis, Candidate for AISD Place 7
1. Taxpayers' Dollars – please respond by February 26, 2026
Currently the AISD has the highest M&O rate of any ISD in Tarrant County. Staff has started budgeting for the paying of recapture (“Robin Hood”). How fiscally responsible should the board be with taxpayers' dollars and why? How high of a priority should fiscal responsibility be and why? What are your suggestions to be more fiscally responsible?
t is absolutely critical that our constituents feel that they are getting excellent value for their property tax dollars. Right now, we are a C rated district with an A rated budget. That is not excellent value. We need to utilize zero-based budgeting across the board to assess our spending, and this includes bond packages. It seems to me that it doesn’t make sense to spend money on new facilities and rehabilitating older facilities until we look at the impacts of declining enrollment and make some tough decisions about our facilities footprint. Of course, we need to re-assess our programs and student discipline process to ensure that our teachers are able to focus on teaching. One thing, given our student population, we need to ensure that every student has access to breakfast and lunch. All students need to be able to function at the best of their ability while in the classroom while not worrying about their next meal while socializing with other students.
2. School Closures – please respond by March 5, 2026
On January 20, 2026 the board voted to close Blanton Elementary at the end of the school year. Do you agree with this decision? Why or why not? How difficult of a decision is it to make?
I understand and have empathy for parents going through changes like this; however, the premise of my campaign is to bring objective and non-emotional analytical capabilities to the Board. I support the decision to close Blanton, and I’ll say up front that I don’t think that this will be the last school closure, given the decline in our student population. Hopefully, we can turn that around by focusing on teaching kids how to think and improving student performance across the board. School Choice is here to stay, and the focus is on making the AISD the schools of choice in Arlington and across the metroplex. Once we achieve that and our student population starts growing, then we can have the conversation about expanding our facility footprint. But for now, the right answer is to get the most bang for our buck and that includes right sizing of our facilities and our property.
3. Teachers' Salaries – please respond by March 12, 2026
Is having the highest teachers' salaries in the north Texas area a good thing? Why or why not?
4. Student Achievement Goals – please respond by March 19, 2026
The district has performance improvement plans where the goals are for less than 50% of the students meeting or exceeding grade level expectations on the state achievement assessments. Is this acceptable? Why or why not? What are your suggestions regarding student achievement goal plans?
5. Communications – please respond by March 26, 2026
If you receive an e-mail from a constituent on an AISD issue and the constituent logically laid out and well documented the issue, will you respond to the constituent? Why or why not? What actions will you take?
6. Issues – please respond by April 2, 2026
What is the most important issue the board is currently facing? Why? What are your suggestions for addressing this issue?