School board trustees across the Rio Grande Valley said they want their voice heard in Austin.

School districts depend on lawmakers in Austin, and they’re hoping the newly-formed South Texas School Board Association ensures local needs are met.

Edinburg CISD School board Trustee David Torres leads the association that is made up of school board representatives from the Rio Grande Valley, and Webb and Zapata counties. 

Torres said the goal is to give a unified voice to local school boards for lawmakers across Texas.

The man who created the South Texas School Board Association is former Democratic State Board of Education Member Ruben Cortez.

Cortez declined to speak to Channel 5 News on camera, but said he pitched the association to Edinburg CISD trustees in late August.

Cortez described the association as “a regional voice movement and a structure that reflected our diversity, rural, urban, small, large, but moved with one purpose — and one purpose alone — to protect public education."

The group elected board members from several local board of trustees that included the PSJA, Mission, Monte Alto and Edinburg school districts.

The new association plans to speak before other school boards of trustees in hopes of recruiting more members. 

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