With a strong sense of diversity and academic success, Coppell ISD has long attracted North Texan families.
But now, with house prices in Coppell rising, an aging population and birth rates declining nationwide, CISD’s enrollment rate is slowly declining.
With school district funding based on the number of students attending school each day, a decline in enrollment leads to a decrease in funding for CISD from the Texas legislature.
According to a Zonda Education report, 13,209 students enrolled in CISD in the 2024-25 academic school year. However, the district enrollment is expected to drop to 12,183 students by the 2029-30 academic school year.
The reason for this decline may be because there is not much residential growth in Coppell. More Coppell residents are choosing to stay in the community after their children graduate, leading to an aging population. According to a report from Zonda Education demographer, Rocky Gardiner, multi-family occupancy in Coppell is down to 87 percent from 90 percent three years ago.
The average price of homes in Coppell has increased over the years, rising by $140,000 from 2021 to 2022.
“There aren’t many opportunities for families with elementary age kids to move in,” CISD Board of Trustees President David Caviness said. “We’re seeing a trend where many of our new students are older and in middle school or high school, because maybe it’s not their parents’ first house, but their second house and they’re older and further in their career. The parents earn more money so they can afford to buy a house or rent an apartment in Coppell ISD.”
To combat declining enrollment, CISD has been making changes to ensure the district can keep running with less funding. The effects can already be seen with the closing of Pinkerton Elementary School at the end of this school year and the consolidation of the school’s Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program.
”Some of the choices we’re having to make is to look at it from a lens of how we can maintain the program we have but be more efficient,” Caviness said. “We should expect more programmatic changes as we dial down into ‘what are we going to be known for and do best in?’ whereas, ‘these are great programs, but don’t quite have as much student interest as some others.’ We’re going to have to make some tough decisions.”
CISD assistant superintendent for administrative services Kristen Eichel said that while no staff member will lose their job due to declining enrollment, the biggest cost to the school district is staffing and paying for employees.
”What will happen is there will be staff members moved to different campuses,” Eichel said. “As teachers are resigning or retiring at the end of this year, in years past we might have had a need to hire someone new to go into these spots. Next year, we may not need to do that because we can place all the students with the teachers we already have.”
CISD has also been working with the Texas legislature and other school districts to talk about the effects of how new policies like school choice vouchers could negatively affect public school funding and enrollment. These would not only affect CISD, but public education as a whole in Texas.
”We are talking to our state legislators that make the laws that would be voting on vouchers, whether or not they pass and discussing the negative impact if vouchers were to pass,” Caviness said. “We do feel like they could negatively affect the number of students because if families are given vouchers, there are some families that either choose not to go to private school or can’t afford the cost of private school who would have that money through vouchers and would allow that to be a choice for their family.”
According to Caviness, the CISD Board of Trustees is making decisions to ensure that the district can stay in good standings with the state in terms of budget.
“We’re in a pretty dire situation when it comes to our funding in our budget and the shortfall that we have,” Caviness said. “We are working hard with those that can control it, which is the legislature, to help us out as much as we can, but at the same time we’re still having to make these decisions so that we can keep the district operating and not go into a negative situation with the state, where they can come in and take over our district.”
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