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We just released a paper at the Baker Institute, which analyses the patterns of campus utilization across HISD’s 255 campuses. Here are the highlights of what we found:
- Overall, HISD campuses are enrolled at 77% of the permanent building capacity, 72% when you include temporary buildings. However, there are wide disparities.
- Fifty-one campuses (20%) are enrolled at less than 50% of their capacity.
- Fifty-two percent of HISD’s campuses have enrollment under 75% of capacity.
- Sixty of HISD’s campuses (24%) are over-enrolled. At twenty-two of these campuses, enrollment is over 120% of capacity.
HISD's map of overall enrollment | Baker Institute
Alcott Elementary, located in the heart of the South Park Super Neighborhood is currently 62% vacant. According to the City of Houston, the number of school age children living in South Park declined from 2010-2019 by 11%.
Geographically, the enrollment pattern is generally divided along a line following SH-288 to downtown and then north along SH-59. Most of the under-enrollment is located east of this line with most of the over-enrollment is located west of it. This generally follows the demographic trends in the neighborhoods in which the campuses are located.
Map showing Alcott Elementary School | Google Map
Go to paper to use interactive features.
Over the last decade, HISD has lost about 40,000 students. Our analysis suggests that about 60% of that decline was due to students transferring to charter schools, with the remainder attributable to depopulation.
This is a population pyramid for HISD produced by the Census Bureau:
HISD population pyramid: population by age and sex | U.S. Census data
From the shape of this pyramid, we can infer from the bulge in the 25-39 year-old cohorts that a large number of young adult immigrants moved into HISD over the last decade. However, the inward tapering of the pyramid in the cohorts under 24 years, indicates that immigration has not produced a large number of births. Without a large infusion of new immigrants or a rapidly increasing birth rate, which are both unlikely, HISD probably has as many school-age children as it will ever have.
Given these demographic headwinds and the increased competition HISD faces from charter schools, the possible implementation of school choice/vouchers, and the rise of homeschooling, we concluded that it is unlikely its enrollment will ever recover. The most likely case is that its enrollment will continue to decline slowly, indefinitely.
This new reality will force some difficult conversations about managing a school district in long-term enrollment decline. These conversations are already taking place in many other large cities in the U.S. The longer we put off dealing with this new reality, the longer some of our kids will be attending half-vacant schools while others suffer from overcrowding.
Bill King is the former mayor of Kemah, Texas. He served on Texas gubernatorial commissions studying the aftermath of both Hurricanes Rita and Ike. In 2006, he served on a task force appointed by the County Judges of Harris, Galveston and Brazoria Counties to revise the region’s evacuation plans in the wake of the disastrous Rita evacuation. In 2006, the National Hurricane Conference awarded him their Outstanding Achievement Award for his work in this area. In 2009, he was one of the founding directors of the Gulf Coast Community Protection and Recovery District, which initiated the process of attempting to build the Ike Dike.