Last spring, Patricia Amezaga, a physical education teacher at Coach Wally Hartley PK-8 School, tossed volleyballs and talked to students who visited her gym every day as part of an afterschool program for military families.
Amezaga knew it would be one of the last days she’d have to wrangle footballs, referee a game of pickup basketball and watch students head home with their parents at the end of the day.
Amezaga said she had considered leaving her job after teaching for 35 years, but wasn’t sure until the El Paso Independent School District offered a $3,000 buyout to employees to give an early notification of their plans to retire or resign at the end of the school year. She took it and retired at the end of the 2025-26 school year.
“When they offered $3,000, I said, ‘You know what, I’m 99.9% sure I’m going to leave, so, I’m going to take the leap,’” Amezaga said. “It’s going to be really hard to leave, because I love it here. It’s a great place to be. I think now it’s just time for me to go.”
Hundreds of El Paso teachers took similar steps after the city’s three largest school districts offered separation incentives to reduce staffing costs in response to declining enrollment.
About 820 teachers from the El Paso, Socorro and Ysleta school districts – nearly 10% of all teachers in the districts – either retired, resigned or were terminated during the last fiscal year, which ended in June. That same year, the districts only hired a combined 470 teachers – 260 at EPISD, 160 at SISD and the remainder at YISD.
Over the last seven years, the number of full-time equivalent teachers working for the three districts declined by about 10% to 8,400 during the 2025-26 school year, according to data from the Texas Education Agency. Meanwhile, the total number of employees in the districts fell by about 8% to 18,200.
Student enrollment at the three districts declined by about 13% to 124,000 students during the same time period.
That trend is not expected to change, as low birth rates will lead to continued enrollment declines which, coupled with loss of state funding to voucher programs and changes to property tax calculations, already have area school district leaders considering further teaching cuts.
Statewide, teacher counts rose by almost 3% to about 368,300 during that same timeframe. Attrition reached nearly 13% during the 2023-24 school year, according to the most recent report released in March by the Texas Education Agency.
The loss of hundreds of teaching jobs in El Paso could create broader economic challenges in the region, including reducing household incomes, spending and tax revenues in the community, area economists and education experts say.
And without population growth, declining enrollment could further shrink school systems and discourage young professionals from building careers in the region.
“Teachers and staffers who lose their positions will spend less money at local stores, restaurants and businesses. Reduced local purchases will lead to secondary job cuts at retail and service firms across the region,” Tom Fullerton, economics professor and researcher at the University of Texas at El Paso, said in a statement to El Paso Matters.
“Lower wage and salary disbursements, plus higher personal and business bankruptcies, will translate into immediate lower sales tax and (eventual) property tax collections,” Fullerton said.
UTEP education Professor Wei-Ling Sun said it could also make it harder for recent education graduates and others interested in getting a job in teaching to start their careers in El Paso.
“It’s definitely going to impact folks who are preparing to go into the teaching workforce. They might be forced into considering entering other options, or potentially moving out of this area,” Sun said.
A faculty fellow with the Paso del Norte Partnership for Education Research, Sun said local officials need to do more to attract residents to the city to improve enrollment. At the same time, the state and federal government may also need to step in to provide financial assistance to districts that close or consolidate campuses.
“Declining enrollment is really just the symptom of the city not developing in a way that attracts more people to move in,” Sun told El Paso Matters. “The city mayor and the folks that work for the city should also step up and help with attracting more families to move in.”
“The state needs to provide some support for consolidations and planning transportation because if we have fewer and fewer schools, that means the students going to them will be in a larger range,” she added.
About 70% of El Paso County teachers are women. About one in every 10 women with a bachelor’s or higher degree in El Paso works as a teacher, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Texas Education Agency.
Declines expected to accelerate
The decline of teachers in El Paso may accelerate due to limited increases to funding and changes to the way the state calculates property taxes that have left districts shortchanged, Sun said.
This is while Gov. Greg Abbott and some Republican lawmakers pushed state dollars to a voucher-like Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, which took effect this fall, to pay for students to attend private school. Abbott and supporters of the programs say it gives parents flexibility to choose the type of education that is best for their children.
YISD is preparing for a potential reduction in force next year, after adopting a budget deficit that is expected to nearly deplete its fund balance.
SISD last year and EPISD in June laid off several dozen teachers as they faced budgetary crises. Both districts plan to continue to cut payroll costs through attrition — the process of gradually reducing employee numbers as they retire, resign or are terminated.
Officials from both districts said they will do whatever they can to avoid future layoffs, but did not discount them as a possibility.
“We can never put ourselves in a position to guarantee anything,” EPISD Chief Financial Officer Patricia Cortez told El Paso Matters. “I would say that we’re in a good position right now. And again, our staffing at campuses will always be based on student need, and ensuring we’re providing resources.”
“We’re being very strategic with staffing, and when I say that, what I mean is we’re just being very conservative about what we’re hiring and replacing, because the last thing we want is to end up in a situation where we have to let people go,” SISD Chief Financial Officer Celina Stiles said.
Staffing estimates and buyouts
Teacher attrition at El Paso’s three largest districts reached a record high during the 2024-25 school year, when about 930, or about 11% of their teachers, resigned, retired or were terminated, according to data obtained through an open records request from the local school districts.
It was the highest teacher attrition rate since the 2021-22 school year during the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The attrition rate was about 12% (409) at EPISD, 11% (300) at SISD and about 9% (221) at YISD. Meanwhile, the districts hired fewer than 500 teachers, 300 of which went to EPISD, 40 to SISD and 150 to YISD.
The exodus was driven in part by districts offering separation incentives to employees to notify them early of their plans to resign or retire over the summer, and SISD’s reduction in force.
Districts normally use these incentives to find out how many employees they will have for the following school year and to estimate staffing costs, but have started using them as a way to reduce layoff numbers.
Desertaire Elementary School teacher Cynthia Powers said she was already thinking about retiring in part because of increasing behavioral issues among students when YISD offered a buyout.
“The amount of anger in some of these children has surprised me. I don’t begin to know where it all comes from, but as the years have progressed, I see more and more anger issues in the classroom, and that’s really wearing on the day-to-day of teaching,” Powers, 73, said.
“I had been thinking about this being my last year anyway, and when that came along, I took advantage of it,” she added.
Amezaga said she decided to retire because of a change in attitude among students and parents since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
“It’s just lack of support from parents, and then just kids don’t want to do anything anymore, and that’s been the hardest thing,” Amezaga said. “I thought the trend was going to change after a few years that we were back in school, and it really hasn’t. So, it’s just time to go.”
Sun said recent teacher satisfaction surveys show morale has suffered both nationally and throughout the state, in part due to pressure for students to perform well in standardized tests and behavioral issues since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They are covering everything, and they don’t have any extra support. And, so, that really created a lot of stress for them, but the salary is not going up. There is no more support for health benefits and the child care support is not there. So, those are the elements that are really contributing to teacher attrition,” Sun said.
The post Hundreds of El Paso teachers leave classrooms as enrollment decline reshapes area schools, workforce appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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