Bexar schools face loss of $85 million
State will cut funds unless enrollment grace is extended
School districts in Bexarcounty are at risk of losing a collective $85 million in state funding during the second half of the school year if Texas policymakers don't change their current course.
A grace period that has funded schools at prepandemic enrollment levels is set to expire at the end of the year. Many school leaders have said the pandemic has dropped enrollment and no rebound is likely as long as COVID-19 cases continue to surge.
So far, the Texas Education Agency's “hold harmless guarantee” has not stripped the districts of funding for those students lost.
Superintendents of 17 area districts have sent a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath urging them to extend the lifeline.
“Losing millions of dollars in funding while our students, families and schools have greater needs would be catastrophic,” the letter states.
The districts, calling themselves the Bexar County Education Coalition, serve about 360,000 students, about 63 percent of whom are economically disadvantaged, and employ nearly 50,000 people full time.
Districts already have dippedi nto their reserve funds to pay for necessities that haven't yet been fully reimbursed by state and federal support initiatives, the letter states.
It listed the need to install plexiglass and other dividers in classrooms and offices, train employees on mitigating virus spread, hire more custodial staffers to increase cleaning and disinfecting, pay overtime to bus drivers taking additional routes and provide COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.
“We believe that our fiscally responsible schools, with stable funding, will be critical to the recovery,” the letter says.
Area school districts have said much of their enrollment losses
have been in lower elementary grades, kindergarten and pre-k. Other students may have moved as their families searched for work.
Some kids withdrew from districts that have eliminated their remote learning options — in an effort to save children from failing and chronic absenteeism — rather than return to campuses.
Statewide, schools have lost 4 to 5 percent of the enrollments they had expected this school year, said Amanda Brownson, associate executive director of policy and research with the Texas Association of School Business Officers.
Some districts have seen their enrollment unaffected, but some have seen drops as high as 10 to 15 percent, she said.
The lack of a concrete assurance that Texas school districts will continue to receive state funding at current levels has many on edge, said Kevin Brown, executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators.
“Everybody right now is holding their breath, hoping the state will come through with hold harmless,” Brown said. “But they’re also starting to look at what will happen if that doesn’t come through — are they going to have to do layoffs, and if so, how extensively?”