Texas is growing in population, but not equally across Texas’s 254 counties. The same holds true for school enrollment - some schools have increasing enrollment, like charter schools, while others are facing enrollment declines, such as in some public schools. Here, we examine public school enrollment growth – and decline – over 1016 traditional public school districts in Texas, with some attention also paid to the 188 charter school ‘districts’ in Texas.[1]
Traditional public school districts divide up the state geographically, and every school-aged child is required to have access to a public school education arranged by the district where they reside. In this paper, we examine enrollment in fall 2019 (academic year 2020) to enrollment in fall 2024 (academic year 2025).
Enrollment data is measured in the fall semester and reported for an academic year. We look at enrollment data for the five year period beginning in fall 2019, which gives us a measure of enrollment prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic had a large impact on public education and on school enrollments, which began spring 2020. We look at enrollment growth by district over this time, identifying those with growing or with shrinking enrollment, and we measure a district’s increase in enrollment relative to the increase in enrollment at all growing districts. We also measure each shrinking district’s enrollment relative to all shrinking districts. The data is sourced from the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS), which is collected and maintained by the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
Based on restricted PEIMS data, a total of 5,603,852 students were enrolled in both traditional and charter school districts in fall 2024, compared to 5,555,691 students enrolled in fall 2019, an increase of 0.9%. However, a closer examination reveals that traditional public school districts (referred to hereafter as TPS districts) experienced a decline in enrollment during this period, while charters experienced an increase.
Fall 2019, TPS enrollment stood at 5,218,791 students. By fall 2024, the number had decreased to 5,167,868—a decline of 50,923 students, or in percentage terms a change of -1.0%. Over this same period, charter school enrollment grew from 336,900 in fall 2019 to 435,984 in fall 2024, a 29% increase over this period. This strong charter school enrollment growth led to the total (traditional plus charter) enrollment growth to be slightly positive, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Traditional and Charter School Numbers Fall 2019 – Fall 2024
The location of charter campuses in 2024 is presented in Figure 2. The location of charter schools across Texas is predominantly concentrated in major urban centers such as Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, and Corpus Christi, while rural and western regions of Texas, including the Panhandle and areas west of Midland-Odessa have few charters. A notable concentration of charters is also visible along the Texas-Mexico border, including El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley.
Figure 2: Location of Charter Schools Across Texas, 2024
In contrast, traditional public schools are distributed across both urban and rural areas, and their geographic footprints cover the state. There are many counties in Texas with declining population even though Texas has experienced relatively large growth in state population. Similarly, TPS districts across the state have varied experiences with enrollment growth or decline, and the majority of TPS districts actually experienced a decline in enrollment over this period. Of our 1,016 TPS districts, 593 experienced a decline in enrollment, and these schools had a combined loss of 314,902 students. The other 423 TPS districts experienced a combined aggregate gain of 263,979 students.
Figure 3 illustrates these shifts by mapping growing and shrinking ISDs using red for the 423 growing TPS districts and green for the 593 shrinking districts. A spatial pattern emerges in which most of the growing districts are concentrated in the suburban areas surrounding Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, where population influx is driving student gains. In contrast, shrinking districts are widespread across more than 58% of the ISDs, particularly in rural and less densely populated areas of West Texas, South Texas, and parts of East Texas.
Figure 3: Locator of Shrinking and Growing Districts, Fall 2019 - Fall 2024
Much of this overall decline in traditional public school enrollment can be attributed to large losses in some of Texas’s biggest urban school districts, and in part this is due to student migration from traditional public schools to charter schools. Figure 4 presents enrollment changes from fall 2019 to fall 2024 for the major school districts in Texas that experienced the largest numerical declines in student enrollment. The table lists the top shrinking districts by their total enrollment drop.
Houston ISD tops the declining enrollment list with 33,334 students, representing a 15.9% decline in the Houston ISD enrollment over the past 5 years. This decline in Houston ISD alone represents 10.6% of the total combined enrollment loss from all 593 shrinking districts. Dallas ISD follows with a reduction of 14,059 students, a 9.1% decline in its enrollment, accounting for 4.5% of the total enrollment loss from all shrinking districts. Fort Worth ISD saw a decrease of 12,486 students, a decline of 15.1% from its enrollment in fall 2019, while Aldine ISD experienced a decline of 16.1%. Other large urban districts, such as Austin ISD (−8,639) and North East ISD (−8,119) also suffered notable enrollment losses.
Mid-sized and border districts also contributed significantly to the state’s overall decline. Northside ISD (Bexar) saw a drop of 7,609 students, while El Paso ISD declined by 7,135 students. Brownsville ISD and Alief ISD each saw reductions exceeding 6,800 students. Brownsville had the largest percentage drop in its district enrollment of the fifteen districts listed in Figure 4, at −16%. This highlights a broader trend of declining enrollment across large urban districts, reflecting migration to charter schools, private schools, and home schooling. These 15 districts had total enrollment declines equal to 46% of the aggregate total enrollment decline of the 593 districts with declining enrollment over this period.
Figure 4: Enrollment Decline in Major Texas School Districts, Fall 2019 - Fall 2024
Figure 5 provides a similar analysis of the top 15 contributors of schools to the enrollment growth in the 423 growing districts from fall 2019 to fall 2024. Prosper ISD leads with an increase of 14,794 students, an 87.8% surge from its fall 2019 baseline of 16,857. This increase in Prosper ISD enrollment is 5.6% of the total combined increase in enrollment at all 423 growing districts. Hallsville ISD follows next with a 13,140-student gain, an even larger percentage increase of 114.6%. Katy ISD, a large suburban district, added 12,688 students, a 15.2% increase. Lamar Consolidated ISD also made a significant impact, with an 11,630-student rise, a 33.1% increase. Roscoe Collegiate ISD showed the most dramatic percentage increase at 1,809%, jumping from 642 to 12,256 students, indicative of a large expansion into virtual programming.
Other notable contributors include Fort Stockton ISD, which experienced a 447% enrollment jump by adding 11,016 students, and Conroe ISD, which added 8,115 students (12.5% growth). Finally, Melissa ISD, though smaller in size, more than doubled its enrollment from 3,580 to 7,735, reflecting a 116.1% increase. Collectively these 15 districts account for 47% of the total enrollment change among the 423 expanding school districts.
Figure 5: Enrollment Increase in Major Texas School Districts, Fall 2019 - Fall 2024
Enrollment trends from fall 2019 to 2024 reveal a nuanced and shifting educational landscape across Texas. While overall public school enrollment—combining traditional and charter schools—grew a modest 0.9%, this masks significant differences across school types and geography. Traditional public schools experienced a 1.0% decline, losing over 50,000 students, while charter schools surged with nearly a 30% increase in enrollment. The majority of traditional districts—593 out of 1,016—faced enrollment losses, spread between large urban districts and smaller districts outside the metro areas. Houston ISD and Dallas ISD, the largest districts in Texas, contributed heavily to the enrollment declines. In contrast, growth was largely concentrated in suburban and fast-developing districts surrounding the established major metro areas.
ENDNOTES
[1] We do not include Doss Consolidated Common School District (21 students) or San Vicente Independent School District (6 students), nor do we include juvenile justice schools or schools without campuses or local taxing districts. We do include two independent school districts (ISDs) run as homes for troubled children, Boles ISD and Boys Ranch ISD.