Chief Operations Officer Jeremy Trimble provided the board with the latest enrollment data and potential staffing guidelines to implement in the 2026-27 school year during the Nov. 20 board meeting.
Some context
LISD officials are projecting multimillion dollar budget shortfalls over the next several years. In May, officials began considering ways to address these shortfalls including closing and repurposing Cypress, Faubion and Steiner Ranch elementary schools.
In September, the board approved a resolution to establish criteria and thresholds for potential campus consolidations, including how enrollment—such as transfer students and Pre-K students—will be taken into consideration.
Major takeaways
According to Trimble, district staff has been engaging with department leaders and campus principals to help draft staffing guidelines, or the ratio of staff needed to effectively serve a campus.
LISD's prior staffing guidelines were broken down by campuses that have 1,000 or more students, between 450 to 999 students, or up to 449 students.
However, potential new guidelines could adjust this to campuses with 1,000 or more students, 850 to 999 students, 500 to 849 students, 400 to 499 students, and up to 399 students.
"When you see some of these campuses trending to the lower enrollment, that's what's triggered some of these conversations," Trimble said.
Campuses with 400 to 499 students would be under the low-enrollment phase 1 threshold, which would include adjusting staff levels for librarians, receptionists and registrars to 0.5, or part-time roles.
Campuses with up to 399 students would be under the low-enrollment phase 2 threshold, which would include adjusting staff levels for assistant principals, counselors, instructional coaches, librarians, receptionists and registrars to 0.5.
Under both thresholds, other positions such as physical education and fine arts teachers would be adjusted to two, and P.E. instructional assistants to one.
"We as a district haven't ventured into this area before," Trimble said. "We want to acknowledge that unfortunately, given the challenges ahead of us and some changes we may need to make, this is what had to be explored and what came out of those conversations."
Remember this?
While district officials have said an open enrollment policy will not be a "silver bullet" to close LISD's budget or enrollment gaps, the board approved this policy to begin next year at its Sept. 18 meeting.
Next steps
The board is slated to continue this part of the long-range planning at its Dec. 4 workshop, including:
- Finalizing staffing guidelines
- Developing enrollment thresholds which will trigger low-enrollment staffing adjustments and a review process for potential campus consolidations
- Exploring mitigation strategies to support campuses that drop below the phase 1 threshold and monitor enrollment trends to mitigate reaching the phase 2 threshold
