Del Valle High School sophomore Emiliano Ortega attended Harmony Public Schools, El Paso’s second-largest charter school network, since he began learning the foundations of reading, writing and math in first grade.
Though his mom, Denise Grajeda, enjoyed Harmony’s smaller size and focus on academic achievement, 15-year-old Emiliano transferred to the Ysleta Independent School District this school year, hoping to take advantage of its more expansive athletic and academic programs.
“I think it was mainly just because of the more opportunities that Del Valle has and overall it’s a better student experience,” Emiliano said.
He is not the only student who has left the charter school in search of a change in their education the last few years.
Harmony’s most recent graduating class was nearly a third the size of the eighth-grade class four years earlier, according to data from the Texas Education Agency.
In 2021, Harmony’s three El Paso campuses had a combined 311 eighth graders. Four years later, 117 seniors were enrolled in Harmony’s class of 2025 at the time of graduation. That is a 62% drop, the highest decline since 2016.
Before that, the class of 2024 experienced a 55% enrollment decline, while the class of 2023 saw a 40% drop.
While charter school critics said the data is evidence that public charter schools struggle to offer enough programs to meet the needs and desires of all their students, Harmony officials argue otherwise.
Kamil Yilmaz, area superintendent of Harmony Public Schools-West Texas, said most students who leave Harmony do so because they lack access to transportation or move out of the area.
“When families do choose to withdraw, it is most often for reasons unrelated to academic quality,” Yilmaz said in a statement.
Harmony Public School declined El Paso Matters’ request for an interview and instead provided written answers to a series of questions.
Yilmaz said the district offers families an optional exit survey when students withdraw, but the “results are not statistically reliable enough to draw conclusions about specific reasons for leaving.”
“We do not have substantive data indicating that students leave Harmony due to low academic quality. In fact, state and federal data – including our most recent TEA accountability ratings – strongly demonstrate that Harmony provides high-quality academic programs that lead to strong student outcomes,” he added.
While Harmony Public Schools-West Texas, which includes campuses in Lubbock, Odessa and Midland, got a B in the state accountability rating system, all its El Paso campuses received an A in 2025.
YISD Superintendent Xavier De la Torre, whose district had 10% fewer graduates this year than eighth graders four years earlier, said he sees many students who try charter programs return to traditional public schools.
“The lack of credentialed teachers in the areas of special education and second-language acquisition makes it very difficult for the students who would most benefit from an innovative school program to have that level of success. Over time, they become disenfranchised, and they leave and come back to us. We see it happen over and over and over,” De la Torre said.
“The second thing is, they’re never going to replicate the athletic rally that you can get at a traditional public school,” he added. “The fine arts programs, the extracurricular clubs and organizations, that just doesn’t happen at a charter school.”
The El Paso and Socorro school districts had roughly the same number of graduates this year as the number of eighth graders they had in 2021, according to TEA data.
The number of students at IDEA Public Schools, the largest charter school system in El Paso, dropped about 52% from eighth grade to graduation.
Harmony students who leave between eighth and 12th grade may want a change in their education, said Eduardo “Eddie” Rodriguez, the executive director for the Council on Regional Economic Expansion and Educational Development, or CREEED.
The nonprofit is known for funding public school initiatives and expanding charter schools to El Paso.
“When they reach that point, both students as well as parents may have other ideas about what they want to see them get engaged with. There may be programs that are not available at Harmony that they want to participate in,” Rodriguez said
Rodriguez noted that Harmony’s curriculum focuses on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, which may be unappealing to students pursuing different interests.
“I’m not sure that that level of academic resource is always attractive to students once they reach that point and say, ‘Well, I may not necessarily want to continue with this emphasis,” he said.
When students leave Harmony, Yilmaz said, they typically transfer to another school or, in some cases, transition to homeschooling.
He noted that very few students leave school altogether, pointing to the most recent Texas Academic Performance Report, which showed Harmony had a 0.1% dropout rate in 2023. At the same time, Region 19, which encompasses El Paso and parts of West Texas, had an average dropout rate of 3%, EPISD had a 4% dropout rate, and YISD and SISD had a roughly 2% dropout rate.
Harmony Public Schools was founded in Houston in 2000 and began operating in El Paso in 2006.
Over the last five years, the charter school system grew from three El Paso campuses to six, primarily located near the eastern outskirts of the city, with over 4,500 students.
Rodriguez said CREEED awarded Harmony with a $2.25 million grant in 2022 that would be distributed over six years to help with the expansion.
Programs and possibilities in public schools
Emiliano attended the Harmony Science Academy, a combined middle and high school with just over 1,000 students.
“I mostly stayed there just because I had all my friends there, and I didn’t really want to leave them,” he said.
The promise of expansive extracurricular programs, not having to wear a uniform and the classic American high school experience eventually persuaded him to transfer to Dell Valle, which has over 1,800 students.
“I was a little nervous because, like he said, he didn’t know anyone here,” Grajeda, his mother, added. “But I feel like the different programs have given him the opportunity to meet other students and connect with them through sport.”
Emiliano said he’s joined Del Valle’s soccer team and hopes to try football and robotics in the future.
Socorro ISD’s director of administrative services, Carmen Olivas Graham, who regularly talks to families who transfer to the district, said she has heard similar stories from students who left Harmony in search of more after-school programs.
She said many younger students are interested in SISD’s community-led Volunteer Sports Program, which includes soccer, track and field and cheerleading for pre-K through sixth-grade students.
“For the older students that we meet, it’s mostly because they don’t have the competitive programs that we have in athletics, fine arts and other areas,” Olivas Graham said.
Harmony offers various sports and competitive programs, including soccer, volleyball, flag football and track, but “due to funding limitations, we are not able to provide the same breadth of athletic programs as larger public ISDs,” Yilmaz said.
Yilmaz said Harmony has expanded its academic and extracurricular programs in recent years to retain students by increasing access to advanced placement and dual credit courses.
Last month, some of Harmony’s campuses in El Paso announced new activities for students, including a drone club, a Spanish club and a board game club.
One of the primary reasons students leave Harmony is that the charter school system does not offer transportation, Yilmaz said.
“Because charter schools receive less funding per student than traditional ISDs, Harmony is unable to provide districtwide bus transportation. This can create challenges for families who relocate farther from campus or experience changes in their work schedules, as transportation becomes a barrier. While our academic programs remain strong, these logistical challenges tied to funding can impact a family’s ability to remain with Harmony long-term,” Yilmaz said.
While charter schools receive funding from the state based on students’ attendance just like traditional public schools, they are unable to collect property taxes.
TEA records show that Harmony Public School-West Texas generated less than $14,400 in revenue per student during the 2023-24 school year.
That same year, El Paso ISD generated nearly $15,900 per student, Yseta ISD took in $15,200 and IDEA made $14,800. Socorro ISD is the only school district in the county that took in less revenue per student than Harmony at $13,500.
This year, EPISD plans to spend nearly $12.9 million on transportation, which is 2% of its $547.3 million budget. SISD plans to spend $17.7 million on transportation, which is just over 3% of its $454.2 million budget, and YISD plans to spend $14.3 million, which is nearly 4% of its $403.4 million budget.
Meanwhile, Harmony Public School-West Texas has an $81.7 million budget for the school year.
Harmony’s academic performance
Despite Harmony’s shrinking cohort sizes, Rodriguez said the charter school system has performed well academically.
“The one thing that’s been evident about Harmony is that they’re small, but they’ve got a big emphasis on quality education, particularly in the area of math and science,” Rodriguez said. “From our viewpoint, as we do with the traditional public schools, anything that moves the needle to regular grade level or plus performance is something that you need to see expanded and encouraged.”
Grajeda noted she believes Harmony had a greater focus on academics compared to Del Valle when her son transferred to the Ysleta ISD school.
“I do feel like schools like Harmony are more academically oriented. We noticed the difference when he transferred here. They hadn’t received his transcripts yet, and he was in classes that he had already taken. So I feel like the curriculum is a little bit more advanced over there. But the pros of Del Valle, like I mentioned, it’s just the sense of community that the kids can form through the sports or through other programs,” Grajeda said.
Emiliano said Harmony put him ahead of many of his new classmates by having him take Algebra 1 in eighth grade, though most students take it in their freshman year of high school.
Harmony also has additional requirements to graduate that traditional public school districts don’t.
Besides earning all the required credits and passing the standardized tests required by the state, Harmony students must gain admission into a four-year college and apply for financial aid to graduate from high school.
All of Harmony’s schools in El Paso received an A in the state’s 2025 A-F Accountability rating system. The system gives school districts and campuses a letter grade based on STAAR end-of-course exams, attendance, financial management and other metrics.
That same year, El Paso’s three largest school districts all received a B rating.
Harmony students’ performance in their end-of-course exams has varied over the last eight years, sometimes scoring higher than other students in the region.
In Algebra 1, STAAR scores dipped significantly across El Paso in 2021. By 2023, the number of students who reached the meets or master performance level in the Algebra 1 exam rose by 64%, placing its performance above the three largest school districts in the region.
The following year, the number of students who reached the meets or master exam in the exam dipped by 24% then rose by 15% in 2025.
Harmony has consistently outperformed El Paso’s three largest traditional public school districts in their English 1 STAAR exams since 2017.
They also scored higher in their English 2 exams, but saw a dip in performance between 2019 and 2022.
Harmony students consistently performed higher in their history STAAR exams than EPISD and YISD, and their history STAAR test scores varied, but were generally higher than EPISD’s.
Cracking the code
Public school administrators and teachers’ union leaders said they regularly see students transferring to and from charter schools, often returning to traditional public schools in winter and early spring, before STAAR exams are administered.
“Our teachers regularly get informed that kids did not come because they went to a charter school, but then see them in the second semester coming back to the campus. And they’ve experienced this year after year. It’s not a quick turnaround for some students, but most students eventually come back,” said West Texas Alliance President Rosie Perez.
West Texas Alliance is a public education association serving public school employees in Socorro, Ysleta and Clint ISDs.
While Harmony’s students may score higher on their STAAR exams, charter school critics say students leave schools like Harmony because they struggle to meet the needs of poor students and students with disabilities.
“They’ve not cracked the code on how to reach children who are socioeconomically disadvantaged,” De La Torre said. “The students who remain at Harmony in the spring are those students who would perform well at either a traditional public school system or a charter school.”
“The challenge in this region is that those students are the minority. Eighty percent of our students are socioeconomically disadvantaged; many of them are in poverty. One in three of them are monolingual Spanish speakers when they come to us. One in five has special needs. You have all of those realities happening in their life. They’re poor, they speak Spanish and have special needs, and those schools are not equipped to support those students the way we can.”
TEA data shows 74% of Harmony’s students in El Paso were considered economically disadvantaged last school year, meaning they live with a family with an annual income at or below the official federal poverty line or qualify for certain government assistance.
At the same time, the rate of economically disadvantaged El Paso ISD and Socorro ISD was 71% and 79% at Ysleta ISD.
Last year, less than 9% of Harmony’s population were considered special education students. At the same time, the rate was about 14% for El Paso ISD, 15% for Socorro ISD and 17% for Yseta ISD.
Nearly 19% of Harmony’s students also spoke English as a second language last year, while the rate was 15% for El Paso ISD and less than 13% for Socorro and Ysleta ISDs.
Yilmaz said Harmony is “committed to serving all students, including those who may need additional academic support.”
He said Harmony provides after-school and Saturday tutoring for students who are struggling.
The charter school also incorporates “blended learning” into its lessons, allowing advanced students to move at their own pace, while those who need extra help receive lessons based on their last assessment results, he said.
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