EPISD enrollment dips to about 48,000; district outlines timeline, programming and outreach for destination-district redesign

El Paso Independent School District staff presented an annual enrollment analysis and a Destination District Redesign (DDR) update on Tuesday that together outline how the district plans to respond to a decade-long enrollment decline and to stabilize and grow student counts through programming, outreach and boundary planning.

Maribel Macias presented the enrollment snapshot and projections, saying that district enrollment fell from about 60,000 in 2016 to about 48,000 in 2025 and that the district uses a cohort-based projection method and three- to four-year averages to forecast year-to-year counts. Macias told trustees that the October snapshot is the basis for staffing and that projection accuracy has typically been within about 1 to 2 percent.

The presentation highlighted open-enrollment inflows: about 5,110 students living outside EPISD boundaries chose EPISD schools, an increase to roughly 11% of the student body from prior years. Staff also reported improved accounting for military-connected students after an outreach push around the Federal Impact Aid survey and better coding, which increased the district's reported counts of military-connected students.

Linda Stevens, lead registrar, described enhancements to the exit survey used when students withdraw; staff added fields to capture whether a leaving student is going to a charter, another district, moving out of the area or leaving for other reasons, with clerks trained to collect that information. District staff shared aggregated reasons for departures among families who declined to remain in their recommended sister schools during the DDR priority-registration window: roughly 47% cited moving, 23% were leaving the El Paso area, and about 20% reported choosing a charter school.

Trustees asked about geographic patterns, transfer motivations and accuracy. Macias said staff have ZIP-code-level enrollment mapping, are tracking feeder patterns and are using the data to recommend programming (Montessori expansion, STEM/STEAM, an Environmental Science Academy, Accelerated Campus Excellence and a Fine Arts Academy) to make neighborhood schools more attractive. She said the district received about $1,100,000 in TA funding for transformation initiatives.

Dr. Carla Gonzales provided the DDR "building community" update. The district launched priority registration in January for families affected by sister-school assignments and began customer-service training for clerks and campus staff. Gonzales said most families in pilot sister-school pairings selected a district option: example snapshots showed retention rates in the low- to high-90s for many affected campuses, though a small percentage (often 2–8% depending on campus) indicated they would depart the district.

Gonzales described logistics and timeline: the School Attendance Zone (SAS) committee will review data April–August, present a preliminary report in September (followed by community meetings in September–October), and return a final recommendation for board consideration in December for changes effective in the 2026–27 school year. Staff emphasized transportation changes intended to remove a barrier: students attending a school within their zone of excellence will be eligible for district transportation to that campus.

No formal board vote was taken during the presentations. Trustees expressed support for more granular follow-up reports — including year-to-year transfer-out counts, quarterly recovery metrics after outreach, and campus-level details on why families leave — and asked staff to continue sharing enrollment, transfer and DDR outcomes as the SAS committee completes its analysis.