Ysleta ISD loses 1,400 students amid enrollment decline, financial struggles
December 16, 2025
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The Ysleta Independent School District enrollment numbers are declining faster than the district projected, losing 1,400 – or about 4% – of its student population in the 2025-26 academic year.
The district this summer budgeted for a loss of 1,000 students for the current school year, forcing district leaders to reevaluate the budget and reduce spending on top of previously implemented cuts.
Though enrollment at YISD has been on the decline over the last decade, it has accelerated in the last five years since the COVID-19 pandemic. That has led some district leaders, including Trustee Chris Hernandez, to worry the large loss of students “signals a long-term structural enrollment decline that short-term controls alone cannot fix.”
Enrollment declined by about 4% between the 2015-16 and 2019-20 school years, dropping from 42,250 to 40,428, state data shows.
During the same period, kindergarten classes declined by about 10% from 2,900 to 2,600.
Since then, YISD’s total enrollment has decreased by about 19% to 32,600 students this year, while kindergarten enrollment fell by 25% to about 1,950 students.
Hernandez said this matters because kindergarten enrollment is the “entry point into the system, and sustained declines at that level, whether year over year or over time, have long-term implications for enrollment, funding and planning.”
YISD Chief Financial Officer Lynly Cambern during a board meeting last week said the increased decline among kindergartners is likely because of falling birth rates across El Paso.
El Paso County’s birth rate has declined at twice the national rate the past decade: In 2015, the county had 2.5 births for every person who died. In 2024, that ratio was 1.7 births for every death, according to the Texas Demographic Center.
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“We’re seeing that’s a nationwide trend. It’s talked about loudly because it’s affecting all school districts. People just aren’t having as many children,” Cambern said.
Budget challenges over declining enrollment
The YISD board over the summer approved a $420.2 million budget with a $22.2 million deficit for the current school year, marking the fourth consecutive year the district’s projected expenses outweighed its revenue.
When enrollment figures came in, YISD estimated the deficit would increase by an additional $4 million as state funding is largely based on attendance.
Now, the district expects to end the school year with a $19.5 million deficit after expanding its cost-cutting efforts, including holding vacant positions open, limiting hiring, restricting travel, renegotiating contracts, refurbishing instead of replacing outdated computers and managing cash flow more tightly.
The district is also monitoring spending and only allowing purchases necessary to operate the district and preventing campuses from stockpiling supplies for the year.
“We’re not allowing them to stockpile. You can buy 60 to 90 days worth of supplies and then buy them again in the next quarter, so that we’re not spending cash down too fast,” Cambern said.
YISD has also saved money by eliminating positions left vacant after employees retired. In May, the district offered a $5,000 incentive to the first 400 qualified employees who submitted their resignation notice early.
The district saved about $1.5 million due to attrition through the end of October, YISD Communications Director Tracy Garcia-Ramirez said. The district saved another $4 million in expenses, she added without specifying them.
YISD also made changes to its health care plan, including reducing its contribution, causing insurance premiums to increase for some employees.
Garcia-Ramirez said restructuring the plans will reduce the burden on the district in 2026, but did not say by how much. She said the plan goes into effect in January, and initial numbers will be presented after the first quarter of the year.
Hernandez said he was told the board would be provided the savings amount in August 2026 and would be getting regular updates. He said the next update will be given in February.
Despite the decrease in spending, YISD may still be at risk of depleting its reserves.
After dipping into its savings to cover the deficit for the 2024-25 school year and making adjustments, YISD was left with $43 million as of June 30.
In June, Cambern said the district will continue to operate on a deficit for the next two years before it will be able to adopt a balanced budget.
The district can expect a smaller deficit next school year as long as the board does not give stipends to hourly employees who did not qualify for raises funded during the most recent session of the Texas Legislature, Cambern said Wednesday during the board meeting.
Some trustees proposed including stipends for hourly employees in the district’s compensation plan, but were voted down by the board in June.
Cambern did not give an estimate on how much next year’s deficit might be.
“That’s contingent upon you adopting the recommendation that we bring to you because, frankly, we still can’t afford big raises. It’ll be very likely that we can’t afford, and I won’t recommend a stipend,” Cambern said.
Special education aide Yvonne Ortega said many of YISD’s hourly employees are taking a large financial hit without a raise or stipend to offset the cost of rising insurance premiums.
“When you look at us hourly employees, we’re the backbone of the daily operations here at YISD. We’re the custodians. We’re the instructional aides. We’re the cafeteria staff,” Ortega said during Wednesday’s meeting. “We’re all taking at least anywhere from a $50 to $200 pay cut every month because of our insurance. Any amount possible to support our hourly employees would be a meaningful gesture to all of us.”
This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
