The Socorro Independent School District is planning to lay off employees, increase class sizes and cut programs in an effort to save itself from financial ruin.
SISD employees late Friday received an email from Acting Superintendent James Vasquez informing them the district needs to reduce its budget by $38 million for the 2025-26 school year and will need to cut staff to do so.
“We are currently working to identify exactly how many employees will be impacted. Once this has been determined, employees will be notified, and we will do everything we can to help them through this painful process,” Vasquez said in an email.
A Socorro spokesperson said the district wouldn’t comment on the financial challenges beyond Vasquez’s email.
Socorro ISD is El Paso County’s second largest school district, with about 47,000 students. It experienced decades of rapid growth, but has seen enrollment decline in recent years as El Paso’s birthrate plunges and it competes with charter schools and neighboring Ysleta ISD for a diminishing student population.
The SISD school board will discuss and potentially vote on layoff recommendations at its meeting Wednesday, Feb. 19.
Some of the recommendations include cutting administrative staff and Career and Technical Education program employees, redesigning its elementary fine arts program and restructuring staffing for academic programs with low student participation.
The district also plans to change its staffing formulas, increasing middle school class sizes from 24 to 26 students per teacher and submitting waivers to the Texas Education Agency to allow it to increase its elementary class sizes from 22 to 24 students per teacher.
The district has been depleting its reserves in recent years as it struggles with declining enrollment, stagnant state funding and management issues that led the Texas Education Agency last year to appoint two conservators to oversee the district.
Last year, the SISD school board adopted a $479.6 million budget with a $22 million deficit for the 2024-25 school year.
Since then, the district reduced its employee health plan contribution to cut costs and took out a $25 million loan to make payroll when its cash reserves were low.
In his email, Vasquez said the district has saved $25 million by eliminating vacant positions, cutting its operating budgets and reducing its workforce by 8% through attrition.
Student enrollment has decreased by 1,200 students in the last three years and daily attendance has decreased by more than 2%. Those developments have led to a $16 million reduction in state aid, Vasquez said in his email.
Most El Paso County school districts are facing significant financial struggles, though Socorro ISD is the first to announce plans to layoff employees.The El Paso Independent School District is closing several elementary schools to address declining enrollment and Ysleta ISD board members received a financial update Wednesday informing them the district may need to take out a loan to cover a cash shortage.
The post Socorro ISD plans layoffs, increased class sizes to deal with budget shortfall appeared first on El Paso Matters.
Read: Read More