Fast growth continues in Northwest ISD despite student enrollment slowdown across Texas

Northwest ISD enrollment increased by 27% in the past five years, compared with a 0.2% increase for the rest of Region 11, said Bob Templeton with Zonda Education. The district's growth rate is in contrast to the rest of the state, which saw fewer student enrollments than projected for the 2023-24 school year.

The details

Templeton presented a demographics report at the board of trustees’ regular meeting on May 20. Key highlights in Templeton’s report included:

• Northwest ISD continued to lead the North Texas region with 3,419 housing starts in the first quarter of 2024. Prosper ISD came in second place with 2,820 housing starts.
• Groundwork is underway on just under 5,800 lots in 14 different subdivisions.
• There are more than 2,200 multifamily units under construction in the district.

“[Northwest ISD] will continue to be the fastest-growing school district in Region 11—possibly even in Region 10 as well—for the foreseeable future,” Templeton said.

Zooming in

As part of his report, Templeton included statistics on the overall growth of student enrollment across the state for the 2023-24 school year. He said that total enrollment was 5.53 million, which was an increase of 12,736 students from the previous year.

“I was expecting that [increase] to be in the 40,000 to 50,000 range,” Templeton said.

The state broke population growth records in the 2022-23 school year, with more than 470,000 people moving to Texas, and Templeton thought that would translate into a bigger increase in student enrollment.

Templeton attributed the lower-than-expected student enrollment growth across the state to a couple key factors, including:

• An increase in the homeschool movement
• Increased enrollment in charter schools