The overview
Community Impact analyzed data from the TEA to learn how many students were considered economically disadvantaged at public school districts for the 2024-25 school year. In the data sets, the TEA defines economically disadvantaged as students who qualify for free or reduced lunches under the National School Lunch and Child Nutrition Program, or meet other criteria including:
- The student’s family’s annual income falls at or below the official federal poverty line
- The student qualifies to receive benefits under the Food Stamp Act of 1977
- The student can receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) or other public assistance
According to data for 28 Greater Houston-area school districts, the districts with the highest total for economically disadvantaged students in all categories for 2024-25 are:
- Houston ISD with 137,435 students
- Cy-Fair ISD with 69,352 students
- Aldine ISD with 48,975 students
- Katy ISD with 41,024 students
- Pasadena ISD with 38,080 students
The districts with the biggest changes for economically disadvantaged student enrollment from 2020-25 are:
- HISD, which lost 17,076 students
- KISD, which gained 12,082 students
- AISD, which lost 9,008 students
- CFISD, which gained 6,420 students
- Conroe ISD, which gained 6,188 students
When looking at the number of economically disadvantaged students as a percentage of total enrollment, some different school districts emerged for the largest populations.
The districts with the highest percentage of economically disadvantaged students in the 2024-25 school year are:
- Galena Park ISD with 88.8% of students
- Channelview ISD with 88.7% of students
- AISD with 86.8% of students
- Alief ISD with 86.3% of students
- Sheldon ISD with 82.3% of students
- Friendswood ISD with 7.4% of students
- Montgomery ISD with 26.5% of students
- Tomball ISD with 30.1% of students
- Clear Creek ISD with 35.7% of students
- Pearland ISD with 36.8% of students
- CISD with an increase of 42.5 percentage points
- Splendora ISD with a decrease of 23.4 percentage points
- HISD with an increase of 10 percentage points
- KISD with an increase of 8.3 percentage points
- CCISD with an increase of 7.8 percentage points