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Listen: Why El Paso school districts face layoffs, school closures [1]

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Date: 2025-04-04

Diego: El Paso’s public school districts are in a tough spot. Administrators throughout the school districts here are dealing with a few challenges. Major student population decline, inadequate state funding, and a push by Governor Greg Abbott and state lawmakers to direct public school funding to private and charter schools.

Some districts are dealing with self-inflicted problems like overspending. Meanwhile, most of the major school districts in El Paso are getting ready to hold school board elections next month, which will determine who will make the high-level decisions that impact education in El Paso, like how much to pay teachers and what schools to keep open.

To put it concisely, the public education system in El Paso is going through a period of turmoil and transition.

I’m your host, Diego Mendoza-Moyers, and this is another episode of the El Paso Matters podcast. Today, we welcome El Paso Matters education reporter Claudia Silva to explain why El Paso school districts are in tight financial situations and what to expect for public education in El Paso going forward. Thanks for joining me, Claudia.

Claudia: Hi Diego, thanks for having me.

Diego: So to start, can you walk us through the main reasons that school districts in El Paso are dealing with financial problems and in some districts getting ready to either close schools or lay off employees?

Claudia: Well, there’s a lot of factors at play and every district is a little bit different. First, you might want to look at things at the state level. Statewide, Texas has not increased public funding for schools since 2019. Texas schools also recently lost funding under the School and Health Related Services or SHARS program. Essentially this program used Medicaid funds to reimburse school districts for services like counseling, physical therapy, specialized transportation, essentially anything medical-related that a student might need while they’re in school. This came after the Office of Inspector General found that the state had incorrectly reported reimbursements. So this basically affects every school in Texas.

Now, locally, all districts across El Paso County are dealing with declining enrollment. A lot of this is caused by falling birth rates. As we know, people just aren’t having as many kids as they used to. And as students graduate, there are fewer new students coming in. Then we also have the problem with outward migration in El Paso, where we have these centralized school districts like EPISD and Ysleta ISD, who are basically landlocked, and people are moving out to the outskirts of the city, so places like Canutillo, Horizon, and for some time, people were also moving to Socorro.

Declining enrollment is actually the main issue with Canutillo, El Paso, and the Ysleta school districts. You know, you’ve probably heard the news that EPISD is planning to close several elementary schools. This is partially because many of these schools are at low capacity and have very few students.

Superintendent Diana Saavedra has alluded that there may be layoffs if they don’t actually close schools. Notably, both EPISD and Ysleta ISD have already closed schools in the past. Collins Elementary and Terrence Hills Elementary became Bobby Joe Hill pre-K through 8th school. Clardy Elementary and Henderson Middle School are now Tina Heddle. Beale and Burleson and a few other schools closed a few years back under this really controversial project at EPISD. East Letta did their own closures. For example, Desert View and Indian Ridge Middle School were consolidated to create Hanks Middle School, and there were a few other closures that happened throughout the years.

Now, when we look at Ysleta, they really aren’t in as dire of a situation as EPISD or Canutillo, but they are still looking into taking out a $25 million loan in order to cover payroll. Essentially, Texas sends scheduled payments to school districts every month, but there are a few months where those payments don’t get sent out. Normally, districts would have enough money in their savings to cover payroll during that time period, but because of declining enrollment and certain budget deficits, the district may need to actually get a loan this time in order to pay for it. Also, Canutillo recently announced layoffs. Unlike other school districts which are landlocked, Canutillo ISD is actually in an area with a growing population. A lot of people are moving out to Canutillo ISD, and you’ve probably noticed that there’s been a lot of construction in the area. The voters in the district recently approved a bond, and now the district is hoping to make improvements that will bring in more students and ideally fix some of their financial situation.

Now, some of the issues that districts are facing were made at the actual district itself. A lot of them were decisions made by the board. A lot of it had to do with overspending, and that’s essentially where SISD is right now. Socorro ISD recently announced that it was going to be laying off 300 employees. And a lot of that was the result of overspending. Some of the purchases that were approved that were outside of their budget or outside of the revenue that they were making included developing some specialized academies, replacing turf in some of its athletic fields, paving a new parking lot at Montwood High School. And I think one of the biggest things was giving pay raises to teachers.

Now, the legislature was looking to increase school funding in 2023. And before the legislative session ended, Socorro ISD, the school board, approved pay raises for all of its teachers. A lot of that was in the hope that there would be more money coming into the district. Those raises and funding didn’t happen back in 2023, but those pay raises still need to continue. So that’s kind of what brings the district to where it is right now.

For a time, the district was able to use its savings to cover a lot of its expenses. It had growing enrollment, so it had a lot of extra money coming in. But now that enrollment is declining, the district is dealing with a budget deficit. Its savings have dwindled, so it’s no longer able to continue spending and now is having to make some really severe budget cuts in order to stay afloat.

READ MORE: See more on Claudia Lorena Silva’s education coverage here

Diego: And whose decision was it to give out pay raises and do some of that additional spending?

Claudia: So it was actually the board’s decision. The school administration had come forward and recommended pay raises at the time. And the board actually decided to give pay raises that were higher than was recommended. Their goal was to try to retain and attract more teachers. There have been issues in recent years where teachers have been leaving the job. Many districts are having a hard time keeping good, experienced teachers.

Diego: Yeah, and we see there’s a lot going on right now in the Texas legislature that probably will affect education in Texas going forward. Can you talk about some of the education-related policies that state lawmakers are looking at and how they might impact education in El Paso?

Claudia: Yeah, definitely. One of the issues that we talked about before was the fact that Texas hasn’t increased school funding since 2019. The way school funding works is it’s based on average daily attendance and there is a student allotment, which is basically the amount of money that the state sends a district for every student that it has, and it’s all plugged into this formula. Now the student allotment has been $6,160 per student since 2019. Right now, the House’s omnibus school finance proposal would raise the allotment by $220.

Now, one of the issues with that is that a lot of lawmakers and education advocates say that this is not enough to keep up with inflation. Many lawmakers that I’ve spoken to, district leaders and other educators, say that they would need closer to about $1 ,000 to $1 ,500. to keep

up with inflation.

Diego: On top of the current allotment?

Claudia: Yes. Another big issue that is being looked at at the legislature is vouchers or an education savings account. This has actually been a top priority for Governor Abbott since 2023, and it’s one of the reasons that there was no increase in public school funding. So what this voucher program or this student savings account program does is it allows parents to take their children to private schools using taxpayer funds.

In 2023, lawmakers attempted to include vouchers in the school funding bill, and that’s one of the reasons that funding never got approved. The bill got voted down in order to try to prevent vouchers from passing. So the purpose of these voucher programs is to help low-income families access private schools. But a lot of opponents feel that the selective nature, you know, transportation barriers and other things may actually keep these low-income families from accessing private schools.

A lot of them feel that it will only actually benefit wealthier families who already have their kids enrolled in these schools. Many also feel that this legislation is going to be siphoning money from public education. This year, the bill would allocate $1 billion to these private school vouchers. Some feel that that money should be actually allocated to public schools, and others worry that parents may be incentivized to take their kids out of public schools and move them to private schools. What that would essentially do is… move that funding into a private school.

Now, there actually aren’t very many private schools in El Paso. The largest was Laredo Academy and only takes in about 600 students. So even if every private school in El Paso took in 600 students, that actually wouldn’t be enough seats to take. It would only be a fraction of the students in El Paso. But there is a concern that these vouchers may actually incentivize more private schools to open in the area. And a big concern is that private schools don’t have as much oversight as public schools do. They don’t have to, you know, do standardized testing and follow a lot of the, you know, strict regulations that are set by the TEA and the Department of Education.

Diego: Yeah, and is it looking likely that vouchers will pass this legislative session?

Claudia: So it’s a little bit hard to say, but Abbott has said that he has enough votes in the House to pass vouchers. I know a lot of lawmakers here in El Paso are going to attempt to vote the bill down. Some of them may try to add requirements to the voucher program that would make private schools have to follow a lot of the same regulations that private schools do. But a lot of that is what we’ll have to see.

Diego: Yeah, so back at the local level, we have school board elections coming next month for almost every school district in El Paso, other than Ysleta, which I believe all of the candidates in Ysleta are unopposed. But I wonder if you can talk about what school board members do and why people should vote in this election.

Voter Guide Election 2025: Everything you need to know about the May 3 school board elections in El Paso Who’s running for school board at EPISD, SISD? Who’s running for EPCC trustee? When is early voting? Am I registered to vote? Where can I vote?

Claudia: Yeah, yeah. So as you mentioned, two of the largest districts in the county are having elections, EPISD and Socorro. Ysleta, they didn’t have any opponents. So this is actually… There’s actually not the first time that the school board hasn’t had any opposition. So a lot of these board members have been in place for quite some time. Now what board members do is they essentially represent voters in different areas of a school district. Usually a school district will get divided into seven regions and every board member is essentially expected to represent their constituents.

Board members are in charge of hiring and firing the superintendent. They are basically the superintendent’s boss. They also make a lot of major policy decisions. So they’re the ones that decide what kind of police officers may be in the school, what kind of curriculum, the punishments and policies for behavioral issues and things of that nature. They also make purchasing decisions and are the ones that have a lot of final say in a lot of things that school districts do.

So one thing to keep in mind is that board members aren’t paid. A lot of them, especially right now that they’re making budget cuts and cutting teacher salaries or laying off employees, are asking to cut the board member’s salary, but they actually don’t make any money and are actually volunteering a lot of their time to do this job. Now, the election is going to be on May 3rd. Early voting starts on April 22nd and ends on April 29th.

Diego: Yeah, and we already have low voter turnout in El Paso, especially so for school board elections, so hopefully we’ll see a higher turnout this year. We’ll end on this, Claudia. What do you think would be the consequences for our school districts here if some of these financial issues aren’t fixed?

Claudia: Yeah, well, there are several consequences. Now, when we look at what could happen to the school district, a school district can be taken over by the TEA. That’s something that we did see happen in Houston recently. And if school districts continue to have financial issues, they could actually risk their accreditation. Every year, districts are required to submit reports regarding their finances. And a part of that is districts are supposed to have savings. Right now a big issue is that a lot of district savings—their savings accounts—have been depleted and that could actually cause them to fail some of these reports.

If they continuously get bad financial reports, that could lead to a, you know, a takeover from the state. Another issue that could happen—which is probably the most extreme thing—would be a loss of accreditation. Now, when a school district loses accreditation, generally this means that they are going to close down and can no longer offer classes. We have seen charter schools in smaller districts lose accreditation. So it would be difficult to say if such a large school like the ones here in El Paso would face similar consequences.

Now, when we talk about the students, we’ve already seen some of the consequences of these budget issues. Districts have had to make budget cuts, and with a lot of those budget cuts, we’re seeing students losing schools in their neighborhoods and now having to travel farther away. We’re also going to be seeing larger class sizes. A lot of parents really enjoyed having neighborhood schools with these smaller class sizes. And even though the state does have a regulation and a requirement saying that class sizes can’t go over a certain amount, districts can ask for exceptions, and many parents still feel that these class sizes are a little bit too large.

Another issue is students may start losing programs. We’ve seen at SISD that they’re going to be cutting the elementary school fine arts program, so that means that elementary school students are no longer going to have a dedicated music and art teacher that they would go to to learn about these subjects. Canutillo ISD is also going to be cutting its elementary school music program. So this is all things that have already happened, and there may be more programs that could be affected by this.

Diego: Yeah, so there’s a real risk presented by some of these financial issues the districts are facing. Well, thanks for joining us, Claudia. We’ll leave it there. Appreciate your insight on this. And listeners can read all of your reporting on El Paso’s education system at ElPasoMatters.org. Thanks so much for joining me.

Claudia: Thank you.

[END]
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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2025/04/04/podcast-el-paso-school-funding-layoffs-closures-vouchers/

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