Shrinking Student Population Means Dallas ISD Faces Mass School Closures

As the population of Dallas continues to balloon, the opposite is happening in Dallas public schools. The number of kids enrolled is shrinking. Now the second largest school district in Texas is considering an option that the president of Dallas ISD describes “as close as you can get to thermonuclear war in the school business,” – mass school closures.

Eva-Marie Ayala, an education reporter for the Dallas Morning News, says Dallas ISD has a number of campuses that are not being utilized.

“Right now they’re looking at how to plan for the future, how they want to attract students back to the district and that includes building some new school programs,” Ayala says. “At the same time, they’re looking at how to balance enrollment issues that they have.”

A number of Dallas schools are struggling with low enrollment, with some campuses only reaching 50 percent of capacity.

Read more: http://www.texasstandard.org/stories/shrinking-student-population-means-dallas-isd-faces-mass-school-closures/