The Richardson Independent School District (RISD) Board of Trustees is exploring its options as it faces a multi-million dollar deficit and declining student enrollment.
During a school board work session in late March, trustees considered whether to adopt an open enrollment system that would allow students not living within the district limits to apply to attend RISD schools.
The move, in theory, would offset the decline in enrollment the district has been experiencing in recent years, which is resulting in a squeeze in terms of funding operations because state taxpayer dollars for public education are tied to individual students, not the school systems.
Superintendent Tabitha Branum pitched the idea to the board on March 30, saying it could help the district’s situation but that they should also explore offering more in the way of school programming.
“I don’t think [open enrollment] is a stand-alone solution … We have a newer demographic in our community that is asking for some of the choice options that they’re seeing in our surrounding districts … I want my Richardson ISD families to be able to look across our system and find that choice in Richardson ISD and not feel that they have to find that choice in a charter or a private school,” Branum said.
The neighboring Dallas Independent School District (DISD) offers a type of internal school choice framework, providing some programming options to parents. However, the framework has been unable to stave off the steady decline in enrollment the district has been seeing for years.
Additionally, the district is struggling to provide acceptable student achievement outcomes on average. For instance, last year, only 41% of DISD students scored at grade level on their STAAR exams, and almost 20% of the Class of 2022 did not graduate high school in four years.
For its part, RISD managed to graduate more than 90% of its Class of 2022, and about 50% of its students scored at grade level on their STAAR exams.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, enrollment in RISD has dropped roughly 4% in as many years, even as the district’s operating costs continued to increase by about 25% during the same period.
Currently, the district is facing a $23.7 million budget deficit, according to Community Impact.
“I don’t want to be all about numbers because I want to make sure that we are achieving student outcomes for the students we have, but the reality that we’re dealing with is … we’re heading into a situation where we’re having to make difficult decisions,” said RISD Trustee Eric Eager.
No votes affecting policy were taken during the work session.