As promised, we filed public information requests with all nine local school districts in order to obtain complete lists of employee names, titles, and salaries, which we posted below.
We have learned there are 26,300 individuals working for our school districts, both part time and full time, and that there are a total of 386 administrators who are paid over $100,000 per year.
We also acquired data from the Texas Education Agency showing that student enrollment in our nine districts has declined from 175,690 in 2013-14 to 153,905 in 2023-24, a drop of 14.2% in ten years.
Yet according to the US Census Bureau, during the same ten-year period the population of El Paso County increased by 4.2%, from 830,864 to 865,657.
The school districts that suffered the most catastrophic drop in enrollment as a percentage of student population are Tornillo ISD (-76.1%) and San Elizario ISD (-37.2%).
However, EPISD lost the greatest total number of enrolled students, declining from 61,620 in 2013-14 to 39,139 today, a loss of 12,481 (25.4%). Their $668 million school bond, passed by the voters in 2016, did absolutely nothing to stop the hemorrhaging.
Second place goes to Ysleta ISD, whose enrollment declined from 43,063 in 2013-14 to 34,918 today, a loss of 8,145 (23.3%). Their $425 million school bond, passed by the voters in 2019, did nothing to stop the downward trend.
The superintendents of the nine districts often blame the State of Texas, which provides a subsidy of $6,160 per student that has not increased since 2019.
For them the main culprit will always be state funding, which accounts for well over half of school district revenue, with the local property tax making up the difference.
But why do the top 472 wage earners at EPISD not include one single teacher?
And why do the top 342 wage earners at Ysleta ISD not include one single teacher?
How would the nine superintendents, who earn between $145,808 (Tornillo ISD) and $451,457 (Ysleta ISD) explain why so many El Paso County parents are choosing private schools, charter schools, or homeschooling over public schools?
If our school districts want more state funds, perhaps they should be forced to apply for them in return for a 15% reduction in the number of school administrators.
Better yet, perhaps we should eliminate six of our nine school districts and retain only EPISD, SISD, and YISD and use one third of the annual savings to increase teacher salaries and two thirds to lower our school property tax.
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