Abilene ISD’s out-of-district transfers are climbing, where are students going?

Student enrollment is a big player in district funding. So what happens when students leave the district, and where are they going?

The number of students transferring out of Abilene ISD has more than doubled in the past decade.

Every student who leaves the district for education elsewhere takes $6,160 — the basic allotment in state funding per student — to their new district.

Although Abilene officials expressed optimism about maintaining the district’s student enrollment, Texas Education Agency numbers show more students are leaving than coming to the district.

For instance, in the 2023-2024 school year, AISD had 1,376 students who transferred to schools out of district and had 441 students who transferred in.

The net loss for the last school year was 935 students and around $5.76 million in state funding.

While smaller districts around the city gain some AISD students, a significant number are transferring to an Abilene public charter campus.

But Alison Camp, AISD executive director of student services, said they are seeing more students transferring into the district compared to past years.

In the 2024-2025 school year, student services has handled around 470 out-of-district transfers, Camp said.

Out-of-district students can more than likely be attributed to parents travelling into Abilene for work from neighboring towns, Camp said. But they are seeing more students that are not coming from either public or private schools compared to previous years.

The district has also kept a watchful eye on its overall enrollment.

In September, Abilene ISD reported 14,559 students were enrolled as of the tenth day of school. The number reflected a decrease of 122 students compared to the 2023-2024 school year.

The district’s enrollment numbers dropped during the COVID pandemic and never really came back up, Camp said. In an effort to figure out what happened, the district sent out a survey last year to gain information from the public.

More: Student enrollment fluctuates at AISD elementary and high schools

Survey responses indicated they were seeking a small school environment, she said.

“And so, I would assume that’s probably why because that’s very different than our schools,” she said. “We have very large high schools, and it’s a benefit because you can have a lot of programs to offer many different things, but then, you know, we’re not going to have the small school feel.”

In her position, Camp handles student transfers on a regular basis.

Although the district is able to see where a student is coming from — due to requesting student records from the student’s prior district — they are unable to see where a student goes, she said.

It may not be clear to AISD at the time where a student is transferring to, but the TEA tracks a district’s transfers and generates annual reports to show where students are going. That information becomes publicly available online.

The out-of-district transfers are greater compared to those into the district in the 2022-2023 school year with 1,184 students, the 2021-2022 school year with 1,050 students and even the 2020-2021 school year with 929 students.

The data shows lots of the students are transferring to nearby school districts like Wylie, Hawley, Clyde, Merkel and Eula.

But according to the 2023-2024 school year transfer report, the majority of Abilene ISD students are going to Texas Leadership Public Schools — 807 students total.

This number makes up 58% of the total AISD student transfers for the last school year.

Established in 2009, TLPS is a public charter system of schools that originated in San Angelo. They have since grown to include campuses in Abilene, Midland, Cedar Hill and Arlington.

Jill Jones, TLPS advocacy director and public relations administrator, believes the district’s culture is what attracts students and families to enroll.

“I think that more than likely it is our culture, because we ingrain a leadership-type culture into all of our students, starting in kindergarten and goes through the 12th grade,” Jones said.

“We are ‘The Leader in Me’ schools, so our kids learn ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ starting from a very early age and that curriculum is integrated into their everyday curriculum,” she said.

The Leader in Me program teaches students basic life skills like how to be responsible, disciplined and the importance of teamwork which will prepare them for post-secondary education or to go into the workforce, Jones said.

Jones said the smaller classroom environment helps students get more individualized attention from teachers, which may be a contributing factor to the district’s growth.

To accommodate the demand, Jones said they have had to implement a waiting list for some of the schools and grade levels.

“We do have a waiting list, which is a good thing, and it’s also not a good thing for families that want to be in one of our schools,” she said.

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This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Out of district student transfers continue to climb in Abilene ISD