El Paso County’s decline in student enrollment accelerated this year, as demographic forces reshape schools and the broader community, according to newly released state figures.
El Paso’s traditional public school districts and open-enrollment charter schools had 160,463 students in the 2025-26 school year, a 2.7% decline from the previous year, according to an El Paso Matters analysis of Texas Education Agency data.
That rate of decline is two to six times faster than most other years in the past two decades, with the exception of the 2020-21 school year, when the COVID-19 pandemic and remote learning led to a 3.5% decline in enrollment.
The enrollment decline is driven by a number of demographic factors, especially a birth rate that is falling at twice the national average, and the consistent migration of people leaving El Paso in search of better economic opportunities or a more attractive lifestyle.
El Paso County’s school enrollment topped 180,000 as recently as the 2012-13 school year, state records show.
READ MORE: Births in El Paso County drop 5% in 2025 as long-term population shifts deepen
Each of El Paso County’s nine traditional independent school districts saw an enrollment decline in 2025-26, ranging from 2% in Canutillo, Clint and Socorro to 6% in Anthony. The El Paso and Ysleta school districts – which are located in older areas of the city – both saw enrollment losses of 4%.
Total enrollment in the nine traditional public school districts declined by 3% this year compared with the prior year.
The enrollment picture for El Paso’s nine open-enrollment charter school systems was mixed. Harmony Public Schools and Burnham Wood Charter Schools both added about 150 students. Five of the charter school systems saw declining enrollments.
El Paso’s charter schools overall showed a 1% enrollment growth. One in every nine El Paso County students tracked in state enrollment data attends a charter school.
The state provides about $7,000 in funding per student, so the loss of almost 4,500 students since last year means El Paso County lost about $31.5 million in state funds for schools this year.
The impact of declining births
The state enrollment figures don’t include students in private schools or being educated at home.
El Paso County’s traditional school districts and charter schools will face increasing competition for a shrinking number of students starting next school year, when Texas will allow parents to use state funding to pay for private school education or home schooling.
RELATED: El Paso County loses more than 2,000 residents amid falling immigration and birth rates
The number of annual births to El Paso County residents has fallen from almost 16,000 in 1993 to less than 10,300 in 2025, according to state records. The decline in births began accelerating in 2015.
As a result, the number of El Paso students in first through third grades is 4,400 fewer than the number in sixth through eighth grades. That is an indication that the enrollment decline will continue for at least the next decade, regardless of how many El Paso parents take advantage of state vouchers for private schools.
The number of El Paso County students graduating from high school peaked at just under 13,000 in 2022. That number could drop below 10,000 by the time this year’s first-graders graduate in 2037, barring an influx of new students in that time.
Students attending schools outside their home districts
All El Paso County school districts, whether traditional ISDs or charters, are effectively open enrollment schools. Parents can send their students to any number of schools outside the district where they live and pay property taxes, without having to pay tuition.
More than a third of school-age children living in Canutillo ISD are going to a school outside the district this year, the highest percentage for any of the nine traditional school districts in the county.
Countywide, more than 30,000 students – about one of every five – attend class outside their home district.
Most of those transfer students are going to another traditional ISD, not to a charter school. One of every nine El Paso ISD students – almost 5,300 – live in another district. IDEA Public Schools is the only charter school system with an enrollment exceeding EPISD’s number of transfers.
However, EPISD lost more than 7,000 students living in the district who are attending school somewhere else. They are about equally divided between charters and traditional school districts.
In Canutillo, almost 2,300 students living in the district are attending schools in neighboring EPISD. Only about a fifth of the Canutillo transfers go to a charter school.
The district with the largest number of transfers is Socorro, with 10,669 students living in the district but attending class elsewhere. Less than half of those go to charter schools; the largest number of the transfer students – 3,466 – go to Ysleta ISD schools.
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