2026 Texas General Election

Denise Dick

Her Campaign History

Danielle ran in 2022 for a Precinct 4 HCDE seat, won the Republican primary, and lost the general election to the Democrat incumbent. In 2024 she ran for Position 3 at-large, won the Republican primary again, and received 688,557 votes in early returns against Democrat incumbent Richard Cantu. Early voting represented 76.9% of total ballots in that race. The final certified count was completed after the canvass. Cantu won re-election.

Her Campaign History

Her Campaign History

In 2024 she ran for Position 3 at-large, won the Republican primary again, and received 688,557 votes in early returns against Democrat incumbent Richard Cantu. Early voting represented 76.9% of total ballots in that race. The final certified count was completed after the canvass. Cantu won re-election.

Denise previously ran for the HCDE Position 3 at-large seat in 2024. She also ran for a Precinct 4 HCDE seat in 2022 and lost the general election.

Every piece of content used in any HCDE program serving children — every curriculum guide, training material, contractor content, grant-required program, video, or reading material — will be publicly posted online before board approval. Parents cannot exercise authority over what their children are taught if they do not know what is being taught.

Parental Rights and Family Values

Danielle will push for a formal Parent Advisory Board with standing authority to review HCDE curriculum in Head Start and the special schools and bring concerns directly to the Board of Trustees before materials are approved. This is not a public comment process. It is a structured role for parents in the oversight of what their children are being taught.

Specific Policy Commitments

A thirty-day public comment period, with materials posted publicly, before any curriculum content touching on social, political, or values-related topics is adopted by HCDE
No age-inappropriate sexual content, gender ideology, or critical race theory in any HCDE program serving students, and an annual board review of all curriculum materials to confirm compliance

Specific Policy Commitments

No age-inappropriate sexual content, gender ideology, or critical race theory in any HCDE program serving students, and an annual board review of all curriculum materials to confirm compliance
A meaningful, easy-to-use opt-out right for any family from any program content that conflicts with their faith or values, with no penalty or adverse treatment for families who exercise it

Specific Policy Commitments

A meaningful, easy-to-use opt-out right for any family from any program content that conflicts with their faith or values, with no penalty or adverse treatment for families who exercise it
Head Start family engagement programming reviewed annually to confirm it treats parents as the authority on their own families and does not attempt to redirect parental values or decision-making

Specific Policy Commitments

No HCDE policy permitting staff to discuss a child’s gender identity, preferred name, or pronouns with that child without the parent’s explicit knowledge and consent
Support for school choice and education savings accounts that give families direct control over their children’s educational environment

Danielle supports SB 10 and will direct HCDE administration to implement it fully across all HCDE facilities, including its special schools, Head Start centers, and adult education campuses. Implementation will be treated as an operational matter with a clear deadline, not as a policy question requiring extended deliberation.

Faith and Values

Danielle will bring SB 11 implementation to a board vote as early as possible. For HCDE’s specific student population this is not a peripheral matter. The twelve-step recovery framework underlying most evidence-based addiction treatment — the framework used at Fortis Academy — is built on spiritual principles.

Opposes curriculum containing “gender ideology,” “critical race theory,” or age-inappropriate sexual content in Harris County Department of Education student programs.

Proposes allowing families to opt out of program content that conflicts with their faith or values without penalty.

Plans to bring Senate Bill 11 implementation before a Harris County Department of Education board vote.

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- Opposes curriculum containing “gender ideology,” “critical race theory,” or age-inappropriate sexual content in Harris County Department of Education student programs.
- Proposes allowing families to opt out of program content that conflicts with their faith or values without penalty.
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- Plans to bring Senate Bill 11 implementation before a Harris County Department of Education board vote.

The 90-Day Zero-Based Audit

Within ninety days of taking her board seat, Danielle will formally request a comprehensive zero-based budget review of all HCDE divisions. Zero-based budgeting means every program justifies every dollar of spending from scratch. Not from last year’s budget plus an inflation adjustment. From zero.

Fiscal Responsibility: The Full Plan

Every major vendor contract will be reviewed for three things: whether the scope of work is still necessary, whether the rate is competitive with what HCDE could procure through a rebid or through Choice Partners, and whether the vendor’s performance against deliverables has been formally evaluated. Danielle will implement a mandatory three-year competitive rebidding cycle for all major contracts and require documented performance evaluation as a condition of renewal.

Danielle will push for mandatory quarterly financial performance scorecards for every major HCDE division, presented publicly at each regular board meeting. These scorecards will be built around the metrics that matter for a service delivery organization: budget-to-actual variance by line item, revenue performance by source against forecast, cost-per-student or cost-per-service-unit for every program, administrative overhead ratio by division, and year-over-year trend lines.

Danielle will vote against any proposed tax rate increase, without exception. She will support continuing the pattern of annual reductions wherever the budget allows and will treat any proposal to hold the rate flat rather than reduce it as a question requiring justification, not as a default.

New services and new capacity will be funded through revenue growth — growing the cooperative, capturing new grants, optimizing service fee pricing, increasing out-of-county revenue — not through asking Harris County property owners to pay more. HCDE’s zero debt service rate will be maintained.

Any DEI office, coordinator position, or administrative role whose primary function is diversity, equity, and inclusion programming rather than direct student or educator services will be eliminated. Any DEI consulting contract, equity audit, inclusion assessment, implicit bias training, or similar outside services contract will be terminated.

Spending Priorities

The dollars recovered from the cuts above do not go into reserves and they do not fund administrative restructuring. They go directly back to the people HCDE exists to serve. In order of priority:

Closing documented gaps in occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech-language pathology caseloads across the twenty-five districts, with specific attention to the districts currently experiencing the longest wait times for evaluations and services
Sustaining full staffing and therapeutic resource levels at all four specialized schools, with particular attention to Fortis Academy’s recovery programming and Highpoint’s intensive support services

The dollars recovered from the cuts above do not go into reserves and they do not fund administrative restructuring. They go directly back to the people HCDE exists to serve. In order of priority:

Maintaining Head Start capacity at maximum federally supported enrollment, minimizing the local administrative match required, and ensuring that every eligible family in Harris County who wants a slot can access one
School safety upgrades at all HCDE campuses, including facility hardening, active threat response training, and mental health first aid resources for all campus-based staff

The wait time from IEP identification to first OT service delivery is one of the most meaningful performance indicators for this program and one of the most direct sources of parent frustration. Danielle will track this metric by district, identify the districts with the longest wait times, and analyze whether the root cause is therapist shortage, scheduling inefficiency, administrative delay in IEP processing, or some combination.

Special Education Services

Speech-language pathology addresses communication disorders, language delays, articulation, fluency, and augmentative and alternative communication. It is chronically undersupplied in special education nationally, and Harris County is not an exception. Danielle will treat SLP access as a priority metric and will evaluate whether HCDE’s current SLP capacity is sufficient to meet county-wide demand within clinically appropriate timeframes.

Specific Commitments for Special Education Infrastructure

Track and publish annual performance metrics for all four specialized schools: cost per student per year, stabilization rate, average placement length, and return-to-home-campus rate
Evaluate the equine therapy program at the end of its first full year against documented cost and outcome data and make a continuation decision based on evidence

Plans to request a review of all Harris County Department of Education divisions’ budgets from the ground up within 90 days.

Prioritizes reducing gaps in occupational, physical, and speech-language therapy caseloads and reducing wait times across 25 districts.

- Plans to request a review of all Harris County Department of Education divisions’ budgets from the ground up within 90 days.
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- Prioritizes reducing gaps in occupational, physical, and speech-language therapy caseloads and reducing wait times across 25 districts.
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The dollars recovered from the cuts above do not go into reserves and they do not fund administrative restructuring. They go directly back to the people HCDE exists to serve. In order of priority:

School safety upgrades at all HCDE campuses, including facility hardening, active threat response training, and mental health first aid resources for all campus-based staff
Adult education GED and English language acquisition capacity, ensuring program availability matches the demand from working-age Harris County residents who need credentials and language skills to support their families

She will also support the placement of school chaplains at HCDE campuses under the Texas law authorizing that role since 2023, and will ensure that student-led faith groups have full access to HCDE meeting spaces and campus resources.

Where parents consent and clinical judgment supports it, Danielle will ensure that HCDE’s therapy providers are never prevented from incorporating a spiritual dimension into their work with students. This applies in particular to Fortis Academy’s recovery programming, where the spiritual framework of twelve-step recovery is not peripheral to the treatment model but central to it.

Supports placing school chaplains on Harris County Department of Education campuses and providing student-led faith groups access to campus resources.

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- Supports placing school chaplains on Harris County Department of Education campuses and providing student-led faith groups access to campus resources.
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Danielle will require that every professional development expenditure be tied to a specific, documented learning objective, that attendance be tracked against application of the material in the workplace, and that the cost-per-participant be benchmarked against alternatives. Development that is not producing measurable improvement in how staff do their jobs will not continue to be funded.

The dollars recovered from the cuts above do not go into reserves and they do not fund administrative restructuring. They go directly back to the people HCDE exists to serve. In order of priority:

Adult education GED and English language acquisition capacity, ensuring program availability matches the demand from working-age Harris County residents who need credentials and language skills to support their families
Building fiscal reserves that support further annual reductions to the property tax rate

Specific Policy Commitments

No HCDE policy permitting staff to discuss a child’s gender identity, preferred name, or pronouns with that child without the parent’s explicit knowledge and consent
Support for school choice and education savings accounts that give families direct control over their children’s educational environment
A plain-language annual report on all HCDE programs, in English and Spanish, designed to be read by parents rather than administrators

Prioritizes adult high-school-equivalency and English-language programs to meet demand among working-age Harris County residents.

- Prioritizes adult high-school-equivalency and English-language programs to meet demand among working-age Harris County residents.
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Buket Urgen

Denise Dick previously ran for the HCDE Position 3 at-large seat in 2024. She also ran for a Precinct 4 HCDE seat in 2022 and lost the general election.

Pledges to "push for a formal Parent Advisory Board with standing authority to review HCDE curriculum in Head Start and the special schools and bring concerns directly to the Board of Trustees before materials are approved."

- Pledges to "push for a formal Parent Advisory Board with standing authority to review HCDE curriculum in Head Start and the special schools and bring concerns directly to the Board of Trustees before materials are approved."
- Opposes curriculum containing “gender ideology,” “critical race theory,” or age-inappropriate sexual content in Harris County Department of Education student programs.
- Proposes allowing families to opt out of program content that conflicts with their faith or values without penalty.
- Plans to bring Senate Bill 11 implementation before a Harris County Department of Education board vote.

School Curriculum

- Plans to request a review of all Harris County Department of Education divisions’ budgets from the ground up within 90 days.
- Prioritizes reducing gaps in occupational, physical, and speech-language therapy caseloads and reducing wait times across 25 districts.

School Facilities & Resources

- Supports placing school chaplains on Harris County Department of Education campuses and providing student-led faith groups access to campus resources.

Student Wellbeing

As of September 11, 2026, Denise Dick’s website did not contain information on this issue.

Teachers

Supports school choice to give "parents direct control over their children’s educational environment."

Access to Education

Silky Joshi Malik

- Votes on various issues, including funding, tax rates, new construction projects, educational programming. They also hire the county superintendent for day-to-day operations.
- Works to equalize educational opportunity for emotionally disturbed or disabled students, students expelled from home campuses, and students recovering from substance abuse or dependency. Also provides adult education and after-school programming.
- Provides county with purchasing cooperative to streamline vendor obtainment process for government entities, including construction, school supplies, education technology, and food.
- Supports educators and school staff with school safety and emergency preparedness training and alternative certifications.
- Are elected in a partisan election for six-year terms. Candidates must be registered to vote in county and precinct (if running for a particular one), cannot be connected to public schools of any district, be at least 18 years old, cannot be a convicted felon, and must have lived continuously in Texas for at least a year and six months in the county.
- Board is paid through tax rate of 0.48%, grants, fees charged for additional services provided, and purchasing cooperative run by board. Members get paid $6 for every meeting they hold.

Establishes policies and provides services to local alternative schools.