Eanes ISD families prepare to say goodbye to an elementary school on chopping block

From KUT News:

For Lindsay East, Valley View Elementary is more than just a school. She teared up as she described the tight-knit community where her two kids have been able to come into their own. Normally they’re shy, she said, but not at Valley View.

“They come out of their shell when they walk in that door,” she said. “And, I know their teachers and their service providers and their administrators have seen their personality, because they’ve fostered that and they’ve given them confidence.”

Ashley Pampe attended Valley View as a kid and now her son is in kindergarten there.

“When I get to go in there and be with him, I feel the exact same way I felt when I was a student there,” she said. “It’s a special, special place.”

Soon, though, the school could close. The Eanes ISD school board will vote Tuesday on whether to shut down Valley View and send students to Barton Creek Elementary during the next school year. It’s one of a handful of cost-saving measures the district is proposing to reduce an estimated $6.5 million deficit.

Trustees will also be looking at eliminating or modifying the Spanish immersion program, which roughly 900 elementary school students participate in. Another potential cut is getting rid of certain planning periods for middle- and high school teachers.

Eanes ISD administrators say the district needs to act fast to keep its budget shortfall from getting any larger, especially in the face of declining student enrollment and largely stagnant state funding for public education. Still, Superintendent Jeff Arnett said he knows that doesn’t take the sting out of closing a school.

“It’s an emotional issue for parents. We understand that. It’s emotional for us, too,” he said. “This is not easy to have to deliberate and have to go through all the different decisions and aspects of making a very complicated choice like this.”

But parents like East and Pampe say they’re concerned the two elementary schools will bear the brunt of a districtwide problem.

Part of a nationwide trend

The likelihood that Valley View Elementary families will lose their local public school is part of a painful trend that has swept across communities in Texas and the U.S. as a whole. School districts nationwide shuttered more than 2,000 schools between the 2019-2020 school year and the 2021-2022 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Sean Simone, associate commissioner for the administrative data division at NCES, said public school enrollment in Texas has grown over the last 10 years, but that growth is not uniform. Between the 2021-22 and 2023-24 school years, he said, about 45% of schools in the state saw their enrollment decrease, while 46% saw it increase.

“It all depends where you are in the state locally and the trends that are happening in those local districts,” he said.

These local variations in enrollment mean some districts are building new schools, while others are shutting campuses down. According to NCES, Texas public school districts opened 748 new elementary and secondary campuses between the 2019-20 and 2023-24 school years. Meanwhile, 609 public schools closed during that same period.

Eanes ISD has seen its enrollment decline in recent years, but that’s not because families are sending their kids elsewhere. About 95% of school-aged children who live within Eanes ISD’s boundaries attend one of the district’s schools.

“That’s the highest I’ve seen of any of our clients,” said demographer Bob Templeton, who is with Zonda Education, a firm that helps school districts predict enrollment.

It’s not that Eanes is losing students, he said, but rather the number of kids just isn’t increasing.

Templeton said that’s partially due to declining birth rates, but also because housing in the area is expensive and limited.

“It’s kind of outpriced younger families with elementary-aged children,” he said.

Fixed costs no matter the size

One of the things East likes about Valley View is its small student population.

“The teachers support each other, the families support the teachers and all the kids benefit from that,” she said. “I just don’t know if that happens in a school of 700 to 800.”

While East sees Valley View’s size as an advantage, it’s also part of why it’s been on the chopping block for years now.

“I worked in the district for 10 years, and it was always on the table,” said Pampe, who was a teacher with the district.

Arnett said while the student population once approached 600, it’s now down to about 275.

“We’ve looked at the numbers,” he said, “and the cost to educate the students at an elementary school of 275 is significantly higher even than to educate our students at the high school where we have nearly 3,000 students.”

Amanda Brownson, the deputy executive director at the Texas Association of School Business Officials, said as budgets get tighter, school districts realize they often can’t afford to keep an underenrolled campus open. There are certain fixed costs that come with operating a campus, she said, even when it’s serving fewer children. For example, you need to have a principal and provide buses.

“Over time if I close that campus and redeploy those staff and maybe I hire fewer staff the following year, I really can cut some significant costs,” she said.

Brownson said districts can also save money on utilities by closing a school, but the vast majority of savings are related to staffing.

“In the school business, your staffing costs are always the most significant piece of the budget,” she said. “We’re just a people-oriented business and so our budgets reflect that.”

Arnett said the district expects to save $2 million, though not all at once, from closing Valley View. He said the savings will primarily come from moving Valley View teachers and staff to fill positions at other schools that have opened because people have retired or left the district.

Pampe and East said they hope as the district considers where to place teachers, they do what’s best for kids. East said staff at Valley View not only have years of experience in their jobs, but also years of experience working together as a team.

“That’s what makes our district special. You have to have that experience. If you lose that experience the kids are going to suffer,” she said.

Parents have suggested Eanes ISD could achieve similar savings by rezoning students, instead of consolidating the two schools. But Arnett said that’s a much longer process and the district needs to act quickly or the budget deficit will grow exponentially.

“We have to take action now, not only in looking at the possibility of blending two schools, but other measures, too, that would help us mitigate those deficits going forward,” he said. “This is the time that we have to act.”

School Board President James Spradley underscored the need to make this decision sooner rather than later.

“Failing to address the deficit could force the district to make even deeper cuts in areas that directly impact students, such as staffing, academic programs, extracurricular activities, and support services,” he said in an email to KUT. “Additionally, the district’s reserves, which serve as a financial safety net, could be depleted, leaving Eanes ISD more vulnerable to unexpected costs or emergencies.”

At this point, East and Pampe said, the writing is on the wall. They expect the board to vote to close Valley View.

“Now my main thing is let’s make sure that the kids and students and teachers are all safe and happy at this blended campus,” Pampe said.

To have a smooth transition, she said, the district needs to ensure special education services aren’t disrupted, update school safety plans, refurbish one of the playgrounds at Barton Creek and keep enrollment below 640 to prevent overcrowding.

A worry about overcrowding

Families at Barton Creek Elementary, which has just over 500 students, have also raised concerns about what a potential influx of Valley View students could mean.

During a community meeting last month, parents peppered administrators with questions about how the district evaluated Barton Creek’s ability to absorb more students. They asked about classroom sizes, traffic issues, playground space and whether students will have enough time to eat lunch.

Parent Peng Hu has four kids at Barton Creek. She said she thinks the campus is already crowded and mentioned her kindergartener eats lunch at 10:15 in the morning.

“That’s not called a lunch, that’s a brunch,” she said.

Parent Nishant Bhargava said while he understands the district has to do what it has to do to reduce its budget deficit, things are moving too quickly. While Valley View families have known for about a year and a half that their school could close, Barton Creek families found out about the possible consolidation last fall.

“We were pretty disappointed in the heads up and the planning and the preparation,” he said.

Arnett said the district is asking the board to make a decision this month in part to give school officials time to make changes at Barton Creek to accommodate more students and let families plan ahead for the next school year.

He added there is more room than it seems at Barton Creek. An architecture firm found the campus could fit 819 students, although Arnett said the goal is to keep enrollment between 650 and 700 students.

“We have thoroughly and deliberately looked at that campus and how it’s being used,” he said, “and we believe there are some more efficient ways to utilize the space.”

Consolidating schools is not only about making sure there’s enough space for everyone; it’s also about bringing together distinct school histories and traditions. Traci Lepak is a Barton Creek parent and staff member who is part of a committee focused on blending the campuses. She said she understands families have big feelings about this issue and that those feelings are valid.

“I just want the parents to feel and rest assured that their kids are cared for [and] that their families are welcomed,” she said.

Lepak choked up as she described the hurt families and staff are feeling about the possible closure of Valley View and changes at Barton Creek.

“But just know that we can make it through this. We’ve been through similar, we’ve been through harder,” she said. “We’re very lucky to have this tight-knit community who cares so deeply about their students, but also so deeply about the staff and about each other and I think that’s what we have going for us.”

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