For years, parents have flocked to schools in the San Antonio Independent School District that offer programs they want for their children, including strong dual language programs, specialized curricula and extracurriculars.
As of the 2022-2023 school year, according to district officials, more than half of SAISD students were enrolled in a school outside of their attendance zone. In doing so, they leave behind the neighborhood school they are zoned to, a key driver in low enrollment at some SAISD campuses.
Those transfer patterns, which you can read here, are being scrutinized as district staff conduct a study that will result in a list of schools recommended for closure in the 2024-2025 school year. The district is attempting to align its resources with the dwindling number of students and corresponding budget.
School choice will inform closures
Theresa Urrabazo, SAISD’s chief of data operations and services, said the data has been building up for years.
“We’re looking at the enrollment, we’re looking at how well they’re filling their schools,” she said. “At the end of the day, parents are choosing with their feet, and they are deciding where, and what they feel is best for their child.”
“As a district, we’re just now starting to adjust based on data that we’ve had for a number of years and we need to act accordingly,” she added.
Parents’ options at every grade level have expanded over the years in SAISD, ranging from Montessori elementary schools to STEM middle schools and technical high schools. According to a district presentation announcing the process of school closures, SAISD has transformed 35 schools, 28 of them via partnerships with outside entities through a state law called SB 1882 since 2014.
District officials credit the effort with attracting at least 2,244 students into the district during the 2021-22 school year.
But some schools have suffered under the choice enrollment system.
Some schools lose students under school choice
Hirsch Elementary School, which grew in enrollment from 419 students in 2006 to 840 in 2017, saw a steep enrollment drop as more choice options became available, dropping to 535 students in the 2022-2023 school year. One likely reason? The campus has had a low academic performance rating for the last five years.
Trustee Ed Garza, who has discussed the need for downsizing for years, said the expansion of school choice has given parents at low-performing campuses this option.
“I think if they were a low-performing campus, that may have influenced families … transferring out or just to other nearby programs that are more appealing, whether it’s in the district or charter school or other alternatives,” he said. “I think that’s been a big factor … for a lot of the families within the district.”
With the decline, the campus uses only about 68% of its functional capacity, another indicator the district will use to decide which schools to close. Other campuses have been hit much harder, with one campus whittled down to less than 25% of its functional capacity.
Both enrollment and transfer data are factors described in a draft framework for how school closure decisions will be made. But how much weight will be given to each metric hasn’t yet been released, as the district gathers public feedback before making recommendations.
Academic achievement is not the sole determinant for students transferring out of school.
A review of district data by the San Antonio Report found that nine schools in the district have lost more students to other schools in numbers that surpass their current enrollment, but not all are rated low. Riverside Park Elementary School, which is rated as a B, has lost 328 students to other schools, leaving only 287 enrolled.
Another 21 campuses lost more than 50% of students in their zones.
Charter influence
Parents are also transferring their children out of the district altogether, with more charter schools appearing in recent years.
A district analysis found that 10,000 students who would have attended SAISD schools enrolled in charter schools in the 2022-23 school year. Another three charter campuses are slated to open in the coming year with 3,000 more seats.
According to district data, an extreme example is M.L. King Academy at 3501 Martin Luther King Drive on the East Side, which is at only 34% capacity.
The campus has a capacity of 646 students, but only 223 students attended the school in the 2022-23 school year, while 448 students zoned for the school went elsewhere. Of those students, 111 went to other schools within SAISD while 337 left the district altogether.
Diane Fernandez, the executive director of the office of access, enrollment and retention for SAISD, said charters are a significant factor in some schools losing students.
“There are several charter schools within that area that have now expanded their grade levels,” she said of M. L. King’s enrollment. “So, in some cases, there are some campuses that have expanded; now they’re pre K-12, so it becomes a little bit more appealing to families.”
Two miles down the road from the school is IDEA East Side. In the other direction are Essence Preparatory public school and Southwest Preparatory School.
Fernandez also noted that the district has a high mobility rate, particularly on the East Side, meaning that families move regularly, sometimes even within the same school year.
The growth of choice
A demographic study of the district, which was presented in October, found that choice schools were attracting the most students, a trend they forecast will continue.
According to a review of district data, many of those campuses attract students from across the region, with more students from outside the neighborhood attendance zone attending than those in it.
Strong academics, specialized curriculum and central location are some of the reasons for this, according to Fernandez, who pointed to Bonham Academy in Southtown, which has 67% of its enrollment from students that transferred in.
“It’s a pretty well-established dual-language program, well-established campus,” she said.
Other district schools that attracted an above-average number of students include Woodlawn Academy, Poe Middle School, Miller Elementary School, Lamar Elementary School, Hawthorne Academy and Harris Middle School.
As the conversations continue, Trustee Garza has requested information on the impact choice schools have had on comprehensive high schools, to inform the final and difficult decisions to come.
“Not just enrollment, but how it then impacts other offerings at these comprehensive schools that are attractive to many,” he said. “Because they offer so much whereas our choice schools were more academic focused, although in recent years have added some of the things that you find in comprehensive high schools like team sports, competitive sports, music programs.”
Garza also cautioned that each school has its own context, with an apples-to-apples comparison difficult to achieve.
“I don’t even know if we have that many fruits on earth to be able to categorize each and the circumstances around them,” he said. “They’ve all been so varied in their evolution.”
