When Lubbock ISD closed three schools more than a year ago, they heard from angry people.
Those are likely not the last schools that will close as the district deals with ongoing deficits.
So, the district created a process for determining which schools could be closed, with a website where parents and others can track the details.
They’ve also started public meetings to keep the public informed.
The first was a Tuesday night town hall – where there may have been more LISD staff and media than the public.
“In the last 16 years, we’ve closed 17 schools, and we’ve got more coming,” said Nancy Sharp, school board president.
Sharp addressed a crowd of roughly 40 people in the Byron Martin Technology Center. Those 40 or so included district officials and members of the local news media.
This is the first full year of a process meant to involve the public right from the start of discussions.
“We have a $22.5 million deficit budget this year. That is not sustainable,” she added.
Building robust academic programs and paying a competitive wage for teachers are priorities. That’s in addition to struggling against inflation.
By the numbers
Fuel costs were up 38 percent since 2019. Food was up 20 percent – health care 38 percent – construction 65 percent and insurance was up 876 percent according to a slideshow LISD showed the crowd.
“The fact is, as you’ve seen with the numbers, we just can’t afford to keep doing that,” Sharp told the crowd.
The same slideshow said the average cost for a school with less than 350 students is $6,500 per pupil. It goes down to $4,800 if the school has between 500 and 700 students.
“These are not mega schools. This is a very common-size school,” Sharp said.
Recent or ongoing closure/consolidation plans allow LISD to avoid more than $71 million of expenses over 10 years, according to LISD’s slideshow presentation.
‘We heard loud and clear’
After the meeting Sharp and Superintendent Kathy Rollo spoke with Lubbock Report.
“This is heart work too. It’s not just about numbers, but we can’t continue to provide the rich opportunities we do without making some hard decisions,” Rollo said.
She described previous discussions of school closings as deeply emotional.
“We had cute little kids dancing in front of our board meetings with signs,” Rollo said.
Sharp added, “Saying ‘Please don’t close my school.’”
Rollo said there was a message that “We heard loud and clear” when LISD closed three schools (Overton Elementary, Hodges Elementary, O.L. Slaton Middle) more than a year ago.
“People just were surprised. They just didn’t know that their school had been declining in enrollment – that we weren’t using the facility at a high percentage rate. They said they were surprised,” Rollo said.
That gave rise to the new system which is meant to get parents, taxpayers, teachers and students more involved and more empowered to know what’s happening at every step.
Which schools in the next round?
For a school to be on the list, it must first meet three criteria on a three-year average:
- Overall enrollment of less than 450 students
- A utilization rate under 70 percent
- Higher than average cost per student
Lubbock Report found three schools meeting the initial three criteria for consideration to be closed or consolidated but are not already on a closure/consolidation plan.
The three are:
- Parsons Elementary
- Mackenzie Middle School
- Cavazos Middle School.
Wolffarth Elementary meets three initial criteria but is already planned for consolidation with McWhorter Elementary in 2028.
There are other factors. Just hitting the first three criteria does not seal a school’s fate.
LISD also looks at geographic barriers like major highways, keeping at least 30 percent of students together before shifting them to different schools and a school’s historic context. There are other factors too.
Parents can look at the various schools by visiting the LISD Optimization Framework web page. Choose a campus on the right side.
Toward the bottom, look for a menu bar going from 1 through 6. Or, again toward the bottom, look for “Home, General, Staff, Finance, Students, References.” Click through them.
In the “general” tab, each school has a criteria count. The best is 0 and the worst is 3.
LISD already updated metrics for the Optimization Framework dashboard. Community engagement continues through November and the School Board will vote on plans, if any, for closure or consolidation in December.
High schools are not currently part of the closure or consolidation process.
Fewer kids and only so much state money
In 2016, the school district had enrollment of nearly 29,000 students. For this year, it’s roughly 23,000. And by the year 2030, the projection is roughly 21,000 students – all according to the district’s public presentation.
Birth rates declined in every part of the district between 2008 and 2024 but the area east of University Avenue declined more than 50 percent during that time.
During the last round of school closures, LISD had 3,500 empty seats in elementary schools and 2,500 for middle schools.
Meanwhile, Lubbock’s growth is mostly to the south and west, so while LISD deals with fewer students, Frenship and Lubbock-Cooper ISDs have been expanding.
Sharp told the audience, “As we are trying to make wise decisions with money, it would be assumed that all districts are funded the same, correct? We’re all in Texas.”
She called it a misconception. District funding is calculated by a complicated equalization formula in Austin using demographic weights.
Pointing to a chart, she said, “You can see, Lubbock ISD at the bottom.”
LISD has funding of about $9,300 which Sharp compared with New Home ISD at nearly $12,400.
If Lubbock ISD raised property taxes for maintenance and operations, the state would reduce its share of funding. Voter-approved debt is different, but Sharp’s point is funding decisions are largely made in Austin.
Cutting costs is the only option.
“We are very appreciative to the Legislature for the funding that they provided for teacher raises. There was very little funding for everything else,” Sharp said during her presentation.
Doing better because a lot is at stake
“The Texas economy was built on public education,” Sharp told LubbockReport.com.
“In Lubbock County, 94 percent of students attend a public school. The future folks who are going to take care of us and be our plumbers and doctors and electricians and teachers are going to be coming from a public school,” she added.
“We have to have high-quality public education or our whole economy of our state is going to collapse, and we’re going to be building prisons instead if we’re not equipping students,” Sharp said.
“You gotta get them in a spot where they can raise a family in Lubbock, Texas on a livable wage,” Sharp said.
LISD goals include getting more students into A-or-B-rated schools and improving math and reading scores at the 3rd grade and 8th grade levels.
Rollo said, “We know that if students are not reading on grade level by 3rd grade, it is very, very difficult to catch them up.”
The district is working to improve itself. In the state accountability ratings, Lubbock ISD as a district went from a score of 78 to 80 and then to 82 in the last three years. LISD is a B-rated district.
Students should graduate ready for college, career or military service.
Accomplishments presented in the meeting included:
- 90 percent of students are enrolled in a fine arts program.
- Every high school has a specialized academic program. For example, Estacado students can earn 60 credit hours from Texas Tech at no extra cost to the students.
- LISD offers 35 unique career and technical education programs.
