In our first issue, the Shield published an article reporting the significant decrease in AISD’s enrollment. Though it is still shrinking, a recent projection showed that the district had managed to slow down the decrease by over 500 students.
The three reasons cited for the decrease are rising housing prices in Austin, lower birth rates in recent years, and a rise in popularity for the state-funded and privately-operated charter schools. However, the rapid growth of schools like McCallum may be contributing to improved numbers, as it is expected to grow around 46% in the next ten years, reaching 2,069 students by 2025.
In a recent evaluation of Dr, Paul Cruz by the school board trustees, the superintendent was praised for spearheading efforts such as a PR campaign and allowing out-of-district transfers.
“This success should be directly credited to Dr. Cruz and his staff,” trustee Julie Cowan. “While trustees encouraged him to focus on this issue, he was well aware of it and readily wanted to do so. Reyne Telles, ED of Community Engagement and External Communications, organized the entire effort by his staff. He oversaw the outreach and the marketing campaign. Jacquie Porter, Director of Early Childhood, should also be commended for her work to create more PreK 3 programming, which also brought in more students to the district.”
These measures come after a study published last year showed that AISD is likely to decrease by about 7% in the next ten years, affecting the funding that AISD receives.
“It would be difficult to pinpoint any one reason [for the decrease in shrinkage], because there was a lot of hard work done by many people to influence change,” Executive Director Department of Communications and Community Engagement Reyne Christopher Telles said. “On our end, we were able to market the fantastic programs and activities that Austin ISD is able to offer students. In addition, in 2014, the Austin ISD Board of Trustees made changes to our policies to allow students who are not zoned for Austin ISD the opportunity to apply for an out-of-district transfer.”
Though the PR campaign elicited some negative press, with some taxpayers concerned with the cost of hiring a third-party marketer, it appears to be paying off, as projections show that AISD is currently 548 students above projection.
“Our marketing campaign began one year ago and I believe we will continue to see positive changes,” Telles said. “We took a two-pronged approach, which included a city-wide campaign that branded the district and a targeted campaign in neighborhoods with select under-enrolled schools, highlighting the many programs and successes of these campuses. Those schools in particular exceeded projections significantly, with 29 campuses receiving new out-of-district transfer requests.”
In the meantime, however, AISD remains optimistic for continued growth, and representatives say they believe that through their initiatives they can continue to improve.
“AISD has the benefit of hard-working administrators, teachers, and other employees,” Cowan said. “I think as word about our strong academic programming gets out to surrounding district families and some of our own Austin families who aren’t currently utilizing AISD schools, enrollment will begin to increase even more.”
