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Arlington ISD approves staffing-ratio changes after consultant warns of fiscal pressure
Summary
After a presentation from Mo Casey that flagged enrollment declines and shifting student needs, the Arlington ISD Board voted unanimously to adopt new staffing ratios for 2025–26, including raising junior-high ratios and targeted special-education staffing adjustments. Trustees said changes will be handled through attrition and campus support.
Arlington ISD trustees voted unanimously Feb. 20 to approve the district's proposed staffing ratios for the 2025'26 budget after receiving a market-based staffing analysis from Mo Casey that warned of declining enrollment and shifting student needs.
Mo Casey consultant Lloyd Graham told the board the district is "extremely lean" at the executive level but faces demographic change that will tighten finances if state relief does not arrive. The consultant and district staff recommended raising the junior-high staffing ratio and adjusting special-education allocations; the board approved those recommendations, subject to final budget adoption.
The consultant's report, presented by Graham, compared Arlington ISD with peer districts Fort Worth, Garland, Grand Prairie, Irving and Mansfield and found enrollment decreased by about 6,194 students between the 2019 and 2024 benchmark years. District staff and consultants said that decline, together with rising per-student program weights (notably special education), means the district must consider incremental changes now to prepare for possible larger budget impacts in 2026'27.
"There's no cause for alarm," Graham told…
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