SAN ANTONIO – The North East Independent School District is looking to consolidate three campuses in an effort to combat declining enrollment.
“I take our responsibility to our children and community seriously,” NEISD Superintendent Dr. Sean Maika wrote in an announcement sent out on Tuesday. “And while this is a difficult process, we must be good stewards of our taxpayer money. We, like other school districts across the state, have been losing enrollment, and have seen no increase in revenue since 2019. Consequently, some of our campuses are not being fully utilized and are inefficient.”
The district announced it is looking at Wilshire Elementary, Clear Spring Elementary and Driscoll Middle School for consolidation.
“We do have 14 schools right now that are under 50 percent utilization,” NEISD Spokesperson Aubrey Chancellor said. “From there, the district took that recommendation, looked at a number of factors including logistics, building age, whether they had been touched by a bond recently, other schools in the area, feeder patterns, a whole host of things. That is where three schools were identified.”
During the presentation made Monday night to the Board of Trustees, the district announced that enrollment is down 17 percent over the last decade while expenses continue to rise due to inflation.
Over the last ten years, NEISD enrollment numbers showed the following:
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Wilshire Elementary has seen a 43% drop
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Clear Spring Elementary has seen a 27% decline
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Driscoll Middle School saw a drop of 41%
The district also cited an aging population as a factor for the decreased enrollment numbers.
“North East is unique that we have nearly 70 percent of our community members who don’t have children in schools so we have an aging population,” Chancellor said. “That’s something that we just simply cannot get around. We have more choices today and people are taking advantage of those choices. We’ve seen a lack of enrollment since the pandemic just like everyone else. There’s just a number of things that are contributing to this at this point, but we’ve seen declines for the past ten years and it’s just really time that we have to do something about it.”
As for the three campuses, Chancellor said those buildings will be utilized in some form.
“Different programs can be shifted to these buildings to become more efficient,” Chancellor said. “There can be other programs that are in older schools right now that need to be shifted out. All of that is really going to be in that planning process and the board does have final approval at the end of February.”
In the announcement, Maika wrote that students and staff will be relocated to other schools within the district. He added that there will be community and campus meetings over the next few months to discuss the future.
“I hope you know that we value all our school communities, and this recommendation is not being made lightly,” Maika said in the announcement. “We pledge to be transparent and open with you every step of the way.