Public schools in Texas are funded based in part on the number of students in class each day. The more kids you serve, the more money you get, essentially.
So as schools across the state face serious budget concerns, some of them are looking for ways to boost enrollment, and thereby boost the budget. In West Texas, Fort Davis ISD has brought in significantly more revenue by partnering with early childhood centers. Now, other districts are following their example.
Rob D’Amico, managing editor of the Big Bend Sentinel, spoke to the Texas Standard about how the arrangement works. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Tell us about the partnerships that Fort Davis ISD has formed and how it’s affected their budget.
Rob D’Amico: Well, originally, these partnerships, which are done by dozens of schools around the state, were intended to help districts fund pre-K programs.
So, for instance, they might not have enough money to expand pre-K or to offer a full program so they could go to these nonprofit little schools and headstart centers and enroll their students in the district, and then help get state funding for those students to help the little nonprofit centers operate.
I see. Well, how does this work beyond these pre-K centers?
So Graydon Hicks, the superintendent in Fort Davis ISD, says, “well, hey, you know, if they can do that for pre-K. Why don’t I just expand it for pre-K through second grade? I can enroll these students from anywhere, and we’ll get the state funding for a new enrollee with average daily attendance. And then we’ll just give about 50% back to the nonprofit little school, private school, and we’ll keep the other 50%.”
Very interesting. How has this been working out?
Oh, it’s a boon for the district. I mean, this district was facing bankruptcy, and last year, the district was estimated to receive about $75,000 in state funding.
These little private schools are in nearby towns like Alpine and Monahans, but also in faraway places like south of Fort Worth and El Paso. So with all those new enrollees, they got $1.7 million.
You mentioned that some other districts have been doing this, and I gather that other West Texas districts are looking to do the same thing. Is that right?
Well, it hasn’t spread like wildfire like I anticipated it might once people heard word about this. It’s kind of a scheme, and it relies on a very broad piece of statute and state law that allows school districts to contract with private entities for services.
But so far, Alpine this year picked it up. Alpine is just down the road from Fort Davis, and they partnered with one school, and they’ve actually hired a full time employee to look for other partnerships to, again, get that additional revenue.
Has the Texas Education Agency weighed in on this approach? I could understand how some folks might look at this as sort of gaming the system, if you will.
They have not. So I wrote about this about a year ago for another article, and they didn’t comment at all. And in fact, their data on what kind of schools have these partnerships is very limited.
Rob, do you think we are going to start to see more districts do something like this? I mean, there’s been so much talk. Of course, the governor has been pushing for these education vouchers. This sort of stands a lot of that on its head and would sort of seem to give some hope, especially to rural lawmakers who’ve been standing in the way of vouchers as the governor sees it.
Yeah, right. So, you know, in Marfa’s case, I mean, this school is in trouble.
They’ve got high property value around in Marfa since it’s so trendy now. And we’ve got like 200 Airbnbs out here, but they’ve got low enrollment and they’ve got high cost kids, a lot of low income kids. They have facilities that are falling apart.
Their deficit this year is close to $1 million. And they also have to pay the state in recapture, formerly known as Robin Hood, $1.7 million this year, because they have a low enrollment and high property value. But that doesn’t help them. And so they could only hold on so long.
After this year, they might only have about $1 million in reserves. So obviously the superintendent he looks up to his neighbor in Fort Davis and his school board saying, “we got to do something because the state isn’t helping us.” So that’s why they’re launching into this idea too, and hope to partner with someone by the spring.
