By Dr. Buddy Bonner, Lewisville ISD Trustee, Place 6
I want to share my rationale for voting to approve the retirement of our five Lewisville ISD elementary campuses and provide a few further thoughts.
Two reasons exist for the Community Efficiency Committee work and the Board of Trustees review and consideration of elementary campuses: Student enrollment and school finance.
With regard to student enrollment, the District is maturing and fewer students attend Lewisville ISD schools than they have in the past. Our current enrollment, as of December 3, 2024, is 47,711. Please keep that number in mind and handy. The District’s optimal capacity of all school buildings is 62,508. The difference between those two numbers is 15,907.
What does this enrollment look like in Kindergarten and 12th grade? 4,015 students graduated in May 2024, but only 2,767 Kindergarteners enrolled in August 2024. This deficit exists in all five feeder patterns:
K Grads Deficit
Flower Mound 448 859 411
Hebron 646 960 314
Lewisville 838 949 111
Marcus 463 742 279
The Colony 320 453 133
Many reasons exist for the reduction in student enrollment: Low birth rates, residents aging in place, increasing median ages, rising home prices and low interest rates locking residents in place, COVID 19, school competition, a dearth of land for residential development, and strict and exclusionary housing development and zoning practices in some of our municipalities.
We seem to have found the good life in southern Denton County but are determined not to share with others. Lewisville ISD and our communities must collaborate more and discuss development which is mutually beneficial for both of us if we hope to avoid making school retirements a more occasional episode. The downstream effect of all these factors is less need for the number of schools we have and a need to match our facilities’ footprint to student enrollment.
School finance provides the second driver for the decision to retire five elementary campuses.
The District is hamstrung by an extremely difficult and tight budget. After years of budget reductions, including revising the middle school schedule to reduce the number of staff necessary, reduction of elective offerings, usage of fund balance to fund operational costs, reduction of almost 200 staff positions through attrition, and more, the District finds itself grappling with school retirement decisions like other districts in Texas.
One of the recent speakers at our meeting inquired how the District could have fewer students but increasing costs. One word: Inflation. Since 2019, the Texas Legislature has not raised the basic allotment for student funding which remains at $6160 per child. During that five year period, inflation has risen 20%. Despite this fact, Texas Legislators and Governor Abbott refused to use any of the $32.7 billion available to them in 2023 to invest in public schools and held schools hostage while vouchers were unsuccessfully pursued and failed during both the 88th Legislature’s regular sessions and four special sessions targeting the passage of vouchers.
The District’s financial circumstances are such that, absent legislative relief in the 89th Legislature, the Lewisville ISD will open next school year with a $6 million deficit based on student enrollment projections as illustrated in the table below. To be clear, if the District opens the next school year with a $6 million budget deficit, additional budget cuts will be forthcoming.
These two factors–student enrollment and school finance–are the reasons five elementary schools were retired.
I deeply regret the negative impact the decision will place on students and families, staff and community members. People who run for the school board–an unpaid and voluntary elected position–do not do so with an eye toward decisions such as these, however, leaders face difficult decisions head-on and take action in the best interests of the entire District. I believe the Lewisville ISD Board of Trustees did so in this instance with diligence and reflection, consideration of different options and parent input, and with the full faith and confidence our Texas Representatives and Senators will adhere to their charge in the Texas Constitution which provides for a “general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”
If you have read this far, I am thankful for your time, attention and due consideration.
