In April, Arlington ISD trustees were told that a declining birth rate and charter schools are pushing the district’s enrollment to fall under 50,000 students by 2032.
Now, the school board members know it may happen as soon as next year.
Board President Justin Chapa said that the enrollment drop was a part of a larger issue.
“If you look back, there was a lot of, ‘what are we doing wrong,’ but it’s now clear this is a part of a statewide trend,” Chapa said.
Between this school year and last, the school district lost over 2,000 students. The only other time Arlington ISD lost more students in the past 20 years was during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s drop is mostly tied to a lack of enrollment between kindergarten and third grade as students continue to graduate, demographer Hudson Huff told trustees Nov. 20.
Huff works with Southlake-based Zonda Demographics, a firm that creates projections for school districts.
“We do see the impact of what we’re seeing related to charters and some of our home school numbers, but a large percentage of what we’re seeing is tied to those small grade groups,” Huff said.
Since 2021, kindergarten enrollment in Arlington ISD has dropped each year. This trend is expected to continue, dropping from about 3,300 students to just under 3,100 between now and 2028 before stabilizing.
Each of Zonda Demographics’ three projections shows that Arlington ISD will fall under the 50,000 mark next year.
The projections are based on external factors that could affect enrollment.
- The housing market
- Private school and homeschool enrollment
- The economy
- Population growth
- Interest and mortgage rates
Board member Melody Fowler said that one of the larger problems the district is facing is the affordability of homes.
“I think until we can provide more economical housing, we’re going to keep seeing this decline, and that’s sad,” Fowler said.
The average home value in Arlington sits around $305,000, which is slightly higher than the average home value in Texas of $297,000, according to Zillow.
Superintendent Matt Smith said that he has had conversations with city officials about affordability, saying that an aging population has made it difficult to find places for young professionals, who would bring students in.
“We’ve gotta have a constant dialog with our city to try and make sure that we’re thinking about that for the future,” Smith said.
Trustee David Wilbanks said the enrollment drop could have further consequences than empty seats in classrooms.
Public schools in Texas receive state funding based on their attendance. The district’s 2025-26 adopted budget is made up of $276 million of state funds.
Wilbanks, who has been on the school board since 2019, said that the district can no longer expect that number to stay the same.
“We typically underestimate the revenue we get from the property tax base, which is based on attendance, and roughly enrollment,” Wilbanks said. “(The 2024-25 school year) is the first time I’ve seen us overestimating, and the reason why was the declining enrollment was hard to predict.”
The district is already facing a $13 million budget shortfall.
Chief Communications Officer Taina Northington said the district had budgeted for a 2.5% decline in enrollment but experienced a 3.8% decline.
The budget will be amended in the spring to reflect the changes in enrollment. To respond to the current shortfall, the district departments have begun reducing their budgets through the use of zero-based budgeting, Northington said.
Lower enrollment trends are not issues isolated to Arlington ISD. Across the state, public school enrollment has only risen from 5,232,065 students to 5,544,255 between the 2014-15 school year and the 2024-25 school year, according to Texas Education Agency data.
From the 2023-24 school year to the 2024-25 school year, enrollment only rose by .2%, the second-lowest increase since the TEA began tracking such data in 2000.
Chapa said that a shifting perspective on public education in Texas could also be playing a factor in the dropping enrollment.
“The state has been growing very rapidly for decades, and it’s only recently that the enrollment in public schools has not kept up with the growth in population as people move here,” Chapa said.
Chris Moss is a reporting fellow for the Arlington Report. Contact him at chris.moss@fortworthreport.org.
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