El Paso’s largest school district is bracing for a massive overhaul and job loss Thursday, with the El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees set to declare financial exigency and begin a process to eliminate hundreds of jobs.
The board meets at 5 p.m. Thursday at the district headquarters, 1014 N. Stanton St. The meeting will begin with what is likely to be an emotional public comment period, followed by board votes on the financial exigency declaration and a reduction of 250 campus jobs and 160 administrative jobs.
The seven-member board is all but certain to approve the plan because they haven’t discussed any other options for closing a projected deficit of more than $40 million in the 2026-27 school year budget that they must adopt before June 30.
The job losses from the exigency declaration will fall primarily on women, who make up two of every three educators in EPISD, according to state data. An El Paso Matters analysis of enrollment and employment data indicated that women teachers have borne a disproportionate share of the economic fallout of declining enrollment in the district as well as countywide.
The EPISD board’s vote to approve a financial exigency plan is the culmination of a rapidly unfolding fiscal crisis that emerged publicly over the past several weeks but has roots stretching back years.
District officials say a combination of declining enrollment, rising operational costs, state funding constraints, flawed budget assumptions and inadequate financial controls created a budget hole that threatened the financial stability of El Paso County’s largest school district.
The scope of the problem became clear in mid-May when district leaders disclosed that EPISD was facing a projected $52.8 million budget shortfall for the current school year and a $42 million deficit for the 2026-27 school year if significant changes weren’t made.
EPISD hired Austin-based school finance consulting firm MoakCasey to assess the district’s situation. The consultants concluded that the district should declare a financial exigency, an emergency designation available under Texas law when a district faces extraordinary financial hardship. The designation gives Superintendent Brian Lusk authority to eliminate positions and terminate contracts that otherwise would receive greater protections.
Lusk – who was named superintendent in December – told trustees that the district’s challenge is longstanding and systemic. He said EPISD must overhaul its financial practices and implement stronger controls to ensure long-term stability. District officials have launched internal and external audits and begun reviewing financial procedures as part of a broader recovery effort aimed at restoring confidence in the district’s finances.
Solutions to the immediate financial crisis focused on staffing reductions because payroll accounts for almost 90% of EPISD’s spending.
On May 28, trustees were presented with a proposal to reduce staffing by more than 400 positions. Lusk recommended eliminating approximately 250 campus positions and 160 central-office positions through a combination of layoffs, retirements, resignations, vacant positions and reassignment opportunities. District officials said the reductions could save roughly $28 million next school year.
Broader economic impacts of job losses, enrollment declines
In addition to disrupting careers and creating anxiety and economic uncertainty for affected employees, the job reductions that are at the heart of the exigency plan will impact the broader El Paso economy.
In addition to the 410 job eliminations in the exigency plan, the district also has eliminated other vacant positions. Lusk has said the number of jobs at EPISD will decline by as much as 10% in the coming school year, which would represent more than 700 total positions.
Those losing jobs will primarily be women, because just over two-thirds of educators in EPISD are women, according to Texas Education Agency data. Women teachers have borne a disproportionate share of the economic impact of declining enrollment in El Paso County and EPISD, an El Paso Matters analysis of Texas Education Agency data found.
Between the 2019-20 and 2024-25 school years, the number of enrolled students declined by almost 6% countywide and by 13% in EPISD. During that time, the number of school employees dropped by 5% in the county and 8% in EPISD.
But the number of jobs held by women teachers plunged by 9% in the county and 15% in EPISD, almost double the rate of overall job losses in schools, the data showed.
Although women teachers comprised 34% of all EPISD employees in 2019-20, their decline of 400 jobs accounted for 66% of the total job reductions in the district by 2024-25. Men teachers were 15% of all EPISD employees in 2019-20 and accounted for 17% of lost jobs five years later.
EPISD’s central office administration grew by 5% over that period as its enrollment plummeted by 13%, the El Paso Matters analysis of TEA data found. The district shrank its campus administration by 17% in that time.
Lusk had begun reducing central office staff at EPISD even before discovering the burgeoning deficit last month.
Countywide, the number of central office administrators dropped by less than 1% as total enrollment dropped by 6%. County school systems grew their number of campus administration jobs in that five-year period by 17%, even as overall teaching jobs dropped by 8%.
Most of the growth in campus administrators occurred in the Socorro and Ysleta school districts, which added more than 130 such positions over the five years while their enrollment dropped by a combined 7,300 students and they shed a total of 1,650 teaching jobs.
Declining student enrollment, the main driver of the need to reduce jobs at EPISD, is occurring at all other school districts and several charter school systems in El Paso County. In the 2025-26 school year, enrollment in traditional school districts and charter schools in El Paso dropped by almost 4,500 students, or 2.7%, over the prior year, a steeper decline than in any year other than the COVID-19 year of 2020-21.
Because the decline in the number of births to El Pasoans has accelerated in recent years, the enrollment decline also is likely to grow over the next few years. That will further reduce the number of El Paso teaching jobs in school districts and charter schools – about 10,500 in 2024-25, the most recent year available – in the coming years.
The decline in teaching jobs is eroding to what has been one of the main career paths for El Paso women with a college education.
About one in every 10 El Paso County women with a bachelor’s degree or higher worked as a school teacher in 2024, according to an El Paso Matters analysis of Texas Education Agency and U.S. Census Bureau data. Teaching jobs pay an average of just over $63,000 annually in El Paso.
It’s not clear how the El Paso economy can replace the economic opportunities lost – primarily by women – due to a declining availability of teaching jobs in the coming years.
Lusk encouraged people to continue pursuing teaching careers, despite ongoing challenges.
“I would say continue to pursue your career, your desire, because ultimately this is not a place we want to be in right now as a school district, and we have hope for the future. We believe that we can bounce back from this, and there will be a need for teachers, so pursue your dreams,” he said in an interview last week with El Paso Matters.
The post As EPISD addresses financial crisis, women teachers again face disproportionate job losses appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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