Schools Across North Texas are Closing. Where Did This Problem Come From?

Earlier this month, when Mesquite ISD officials announced a plan to reduce the district’s budget by $24 million next school year, they warned that some roles would be eliminated to cut back on personnel costs. A 500-role reduction will be necessary to offset dropping enrollment numbers and increased operating costs, Superintendent Ángel Rivera told district employees. 

Major layoffs are a strategy many North Texas districts have avoided employing, although nearly all face the same challenges as the Mesquite district. A declining birthrate, increased alternatives to public school and state funding that has failed to keep pace with inflation are squeezing districts dry, and more and more schools are starting the school year with empty classrooms. 

Over the last eight years, Mesquite ISD has experienced a decline in enrollment of 4,000 students. Arlington ISD’s enrollment is down by more than 10,000 students over the last decade, while Plano ISD is 8,000 students smaller than it was 10 years ago. Enrollment at Dallas ISD, the second-largest public school district in Texas, has dropped by 20,000 students since 2014. 

“The birth rate has been declining since the early 2000s, and so the actual loss in school-age population is not necessarily a new thing. But I do think it’s relatively new that it’s catching up to schools,” Carrie Hahnel, a senior associate partner at education research nonprofit Bellwether, told the Observer earlier this year. “[I think] COVID sort of accelerated a trend that was already happening.” 

Were School Closures Always Happening? 

The issues now affecting school districts were starting to gain momentum before the COVID-19 pandemic, but school closures were not being discussed on the scale they are now.

The enrollment dropoff in Dallas ISD had already begun by 2018, forcing the district to consider closing or consolidating 22 schools. The district stated that increased interest in charter schools had contributed to the decline in enrollment. At the time, The Dallas Morning News reported that nearly 35,000 students residing within the Dallas ISD district attended a charter school, with the majority of those students living in southern Dallas. Other dips in enrollment were being driven by families moving to the suburbs and a falling birth rate. 

While Dallas ISD trustees were able to hold off on most of the proposed closures, other districts were starting to face the same problem. North East Independent School District in San Antonio approved the closure of an elementary school in 2018, and El Paso ISD proposed the closure of 10 campuses the same year. 

The El Paso plan was ultimately delayed and then interrupted when the pandemic began. But the problem didn’t solve itself. Last fall, the district approved the closure of six schools. All six were initially proposed on the list of campuses in 2018. 

“I have yet to see an example of a district that has delayed school closures that’s been able to find budget solutions that help prevent school closures in the future,” Hahnel said. 

What Does COVID-19 Have to Do With School Closures? 

Declining enrollment doesn’t just hurt schools because teachers enjoy looking out over a full classroom. In Texas, state funding is given on a per-student basis, so as enrollment began to dip, so did the funding districts receive. 

Then came COVID-19. The federal government allocated funds to help alleviate the pandemic’s burden, allowing schools to benefit. Texas public schools received $19 billion in emergency relief funding, money that Amanda Brownson, deputy executive director of the Texas Association of School Business Officials, told The Texas Tribune was responsible for helping schools “keep the doors open.” 

Dallas ISD received nearly $785 million from the  Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund. 

“COVID provided that significant financial cushion … and so many districts that might have had to make difficult decisions during the COVID years were able to forestall those because of additional resources that are now gone,” said Hahnel.  

By 2024, nine out of every 10 school districts across the state reported having less than 25% of that money still available. 

How Has Inflation Affected School Budgets? 

As school districts were able to reap the benefits of COVID-19 relief funds, the state legislature failed to increase the amount of money given to schools per student. That number, around $14,000 per student, has not been increased since 2019, according to the Texas AFT, the teachers’ union. Adjusted for inflation, it simply doesn’t go as far as it used to. 

Higher costs, some of which were spurred by the pandemic, and stagnant costs coinciding with the depletion of COVID-19 dollars meant that many districts entered the 2024 school year with destabilized budgets. A survey by the Texas Association of School Business Officials found that, out of 313 districts across Texas, more than half expected to end fiscal year 2024 in a budget deficit. 

Dallas ISD’s budget for the 2025-2026 school year includes a budget deficit of $100 million. So far, the district has managed to avoid the widespread campus closures that have plagued other districts.  

Will School Vouchers Make School Closures Worse? 

When schools reopened after the pandemic, many found that not all students had returned to in-person learning. While homeschooling is difficult to track because not all states classify it the same way or report the numbers, 19 out of 21 states that reported data for the 2023-2024 school year reported increased numbers, according to a report by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy. 

Parents who chose homeschooling cited concerns about the school environment, such as campus safety and peer pressure, as well as dissatisfaction with the traditional education system. The shift towards homeschooling aligns with higher rates of families enrolling in charter schools; parents have become more inclined to seek out alternative schooling options for their children than in past decades. 

Private school vouchers are a program that will begin in 2026, meaning they haven’t been responsible for any school closures up to this point. That being said, the $10,000 stipend that can be put towards private schooling will offer some families yet another choice for where their child enrolls at a time when schools are trying to win families back. 

Data from other states that have implemented voucher programs show that the stipend is disproportionately used by wealthier families who were already likely to send their children to alternative or private schools. Therefore, Hahnel believes that it remains unclear how significant an impact the program will have on public school enrollment. Still, some opponents to vouchers remain convinced that the program is the beginning of the end for public education. 

“Remember this day next time a school closes in your neighborhood,” state Rep. James Talarico said when the state legislature passed vouchers in 2025. 

What North Texas Districts Have Approved Closures? 

This December, the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District voted to close two elementary schools because of low enrollment and high costs. McKinney ISD has approved the closure of three schools, while Lewisville ISD has voted to shutter five. Fort Worth ISD will close 18 campuses. Plano ISD, Coppell ISD, Richardson ISD and Frisco ISD all approved school closures this year. 

A majority of North Texas campus closures so far have been elementary schools, but Hahnel warns that unless schools make major strides in winning back students, this is a problem that will age. Districts will likely begin discussing middle school closures in a few years as smaller classes age into the sixth and seventh grades, and then high school closures as those cohorts become teens. It may feel like North Texas’ school closures started out of nowhere, but they’re now likely to stick around.