McAllen ISD sees slight decline in enrollment as school year begins

McALLEN — During a school board meeting here Tuesday night, the department of Strategic Partnerships & Student Outreach presented an enrollment report that showed lower first day of school figures and an overall decrease from last year.

Lisa Cavazos, the director of the department, started the report by listing the current enrollment progress for this year compared to figures from last school year.

Tracking how many students were enrolled on the last day of school in May 2023, the figure stood at 19,879 students.

For the new school year, the report stated that the district had about 18,581 students the first day of school, a decrease of about 868 students from the previous year. The 2023-2024 school year had 19,449 students on the first day of school.

“Over the summer though we were very optimistic and very excited to have 20,601 students we’re calling engaged,” Cavazos said. “What that means is that … students had completed a re-registration, a new registration, an application as a new student, a transfer … This is the number of students that we were really anticipating had connected and would be with us on the first day of school. August 19th hit and that number on the first day in seats was 18,581.”

Fast forward to Sept. 3, the director reported an increase of enrollment to 19,817 and added that as 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, the enrollment was 19,857.

“Enrollment has been tough for some time now and not just at MISD but across the state,” Board President Sofia Peña said. “I am proud of our efforts to increase enrollment and am just as hopeful that we will keep moving forward through programs like Universal 4K … and other collaborative projects.”

Showing the year-over-year comparison enrollment for the first 11 school days, it shows the district is still below the enrollment for the time period of last year.

The eleventh day had an enrollment of 19,817. Compared to the 2023-24 school year which had 20,006 students, the district had about 189 fewer students.

Since the first day of school to Sept. 3 , the district had a 1,315 increase of students with 79 students withdrawing for an actual change of 1,236 students.

“The net change is still positive,” she said. “We have slowed down significantly the rate of increase but we’re still definitely increasing on a daily basis.”

From the new students since the first day of school at the district, about 45% of students are attributed to the three comprehensive high schools.

Cavazos said the district had about 1,800 transfer students.

Listing where the transfer students are coming from and the amount, the chart listed McAllen ISD with 836 transfer students which means the students were zoned to a district campus but requested to attend a campus that they are not geographically zoned for.

The chart listed that 375 student transfers came from Edinburg CISD, 256 from Sharyland ISD, 192 from PSJA ISD, 51 from Mission CISD and 37 from La Joya ISD to round off the top five school districts with transfers.

“I affectionately call them (the top three school districts in chart) my favorite partners because we have a lot of their students but that is where the biggest bulk (of transfer students) and that makes sense geographically since those are the districts that surround McAllen ISD,” she said.

The report also highlighted that 948 students were not with the district last year, with about 48 coming from IDEA Public schools, 37 from South Texas ISD, 31 from Vanguard Academy Charter Schools and 61 from other private schools.

With the department established in 2019, Cavazos said her team’s strategy has remained unchanged focusing on the three R’s: recruit, retain and recapture.

“Our fall calendar is filling up quickly, this is the time when we’re really out in the community participating in as many events as we possibly can, making sure that the district and our team is visible,” she said.