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FAR WEST TEXAS – Alpine resident Tonya Hamby’s fourth-grade child started at Alpine Montessori, moved to Alpine Elementary and now attends Alpine Christian School. The latter school’s atmosphere and classical curriculum motivated Hamby to send both her children there, she said.

“Their teachers are wonderful. I liked the Christian-based education, that was a big part of it,” she said. “And the classes are small, so I feel like the kids are getting a lot more individualized attention but also going at a faster pace.”

Hamby, a former Fort Stockton school teacher, cited similar reasons – small classes, individualized attention, self-paced learning – for first sending her oldest child to Alpine Montessori. Her child’s public school teacher was also great, she said.

“We moved not for any negative reasons about the other schools. It was just the best situation for our children,” she said. “I just like a smaller atmosphere for my children, a little bit more personal and one-and-one.”

Not long ago, Hamby’s school choices would have been more limited. Now she is among a growing number of parents sending their kids to private schools that have recently popped up in the tri-county area. While these schools have seen their enrollments increase in recent years, most of the region’s public schools have watched their student count drop.

Area school superintendents say there are many reasons for the public school enrollment decline, and none blamed the emergence of alternative schools. Rather, several pointed to an ongoing rural West Texas problem: families move to cities for jobs, and a lack of housing prevents new families from moving in. While exact reasons for the trends are hard to pin down, the impact on public school districts is more clear.

“When your student numbers go down, you receive less state aid,” Marfa ISD Superintendent Hershel Busby said. “As you lose students, you lose money.”

 

Private schools growing

Through the 1960s and 70s, tri-county families’ educational choices were limited to public school, homeschool and a handful of Catholic Schools. Alpine Montessori became the area’s first private school option in recent years.

The 100-year-old Montessori method was first brought to Alpine in 1989, when Alpine Montessori opened its primary campus. The school added a first- through third-grade program in 1996. Now the school has two Alpine campuses, serving ages three through 12, and a Marfa primary campus, serving ages three through six.

“There is a need for an alternative out here, and we feel we’ve brought that alternative to the area,” said Executive Director Nolan Mathis.

Since Mathis and his wife Katherine took over Alpine Montessori in 1999, the Alpine campuses’ enrollment has gradually increased from 32 students to 55 students this year, according to Mathis. Enrollment at the Marfa campus has doubled since it opened last year, growing from 10 to 22 students, he said.

The schools’ growing student body hails from Alpine, Marfa, Marathon, Fort Davis and surrounding ranches, he said. Many started at the school when they were three years old, and some are children of longtime area residents, according to Mathis and Marfa teacher Kristy Webb. A few Marfa children, who finished the primary program here, currently attend the Alpine elementary school, and a few more will start making the trek to Alpine next year, Mathis said.

“I can’t keep up with the growth. That’s good in ways and bad in others,” Mathis said.

Both the Marfa and Alpine campuses have waiting lists, he said, but finding new teachers and larger facilities limits the schools’ expansion. There’s also demand for a primary through twelfth-grade campus in Presidio, but again, Mathis said there aren’t enough qualified teachers to staff such a school.

The Montessori school does have growth plans though. They recently received a memorial fund and plan to build a new play area at their elementary school next year. And as the school finds and trains new teachers, Mathis hopes more students will move from the waiting list to the classroom.

“We want to give this to as many kids as possible,” he said.

The area’s other private school, Alpine Christian School, also has expansion plans to accommodate growing enrollment numbers.

Since the Alpine school opened in 2004, the private school’s student body has steadily grown from seven students to 26 students this year, according to Headmaster Ryan Buck. The school added a sixth-grade program this year, and will open a seventh grade and after-school program next year, Buck said. Eventually, the school’s goal is to continue through high school.

Buck said the majority of his students came from local public schools, and the school is starting to attract more students from surrounding towns.

“We have some new ones that are coming in next year from other areas. I probably have had a dozen or so interviews over the past two months,” he said. “We’re also looking into purchasing a bus and providing transportation to Marfa students.”

Buck said families are attracted to the school because of its low student-to-teacher ratio and advanced classical curriculum taught from a Biblical Christian worldview.

“A lot of our parents are enticed by that, but hopefully mostly by our quality of education,” he said.

Besides these new private schools, homeschooling continues to be an alternative to area public schools. It’s more difficult to gauge how many area families are homeschooling, because the state education agency does not track the number of homeschooled students.

But Highland Homeschoolers, a regional association of homeschooling families, has added a few new members in recent years, according to group officials. The group’s president, Gabriel Saucedo, said these new members are families who recently moved to the area and were already homeschooling. He estimated there are now probably 50 families currently homeschooling in the region.

“I really can’t say if there’s been an increase or not,” he said. “In the two years I’ve been here, there have been four families that have enrolled.”

“But they’re coming in from out of town and moving into the Alpine area. And they were already homeschooling before,” he continued. “We’ve also lost a couple of families to moving.”

 

Public schools shrinking

Meanwhile, most area public schools – particularly in Alpine, Marfa, and Marathon – have experienced falling enrollment numbers in recent years.

Fort Davis ISD is the only tri-county school district that has seen a small net increase in enrollment in the past seven years, going from 335 students in fall 2000 and 341 students this spring, according to state and district data.

Alpine ISD, on the other hand, dropped from 1,180 students in fall 2000 to 993 students this spring, according to state and district data. Over the same period, Marfa ISD’s enrollment declined from 497 to 404 students, according to state and district data. Much of that decline happened recently; the district started the last school year with 36 more students than it now has.

“It’s been going down a little bit every year,” said Marfa Superintendent Busby. “It really kind of surprised us this that it dropped as much as it did this year.”

Alpine Superintendent Mike Davis said his district’s declining enrollment was typical of rural West Texas. In Marfa, Busby said the problem was primarily caused by families moving away and few new families moving in.

Busby said there is always a certain amount of ebb and flow of students in schools; usually districts expect about 30 percent of their students to move during the year.

But in Marfa, the flow isn’t balancing the ebb. “We get very few new students,” he said.

Busby blames the lack of new students on the unavailability of affordable family housing in Marfa. “When parents of kids move out, we don’t get new ones moving in just because of the housing,” Busby said.

“Really, until Marfa gets some affordable housing, I hate to say, I think we’re going to continue to lose students,” he continued. “That’s just kind of the problem we have, no affordable housing for teachers, Border Patrol and regular folks.”

Marathon ISD Superintendent Conrad Arriola also said relocating families have made his district’s enrollment drop. Since fall 2000, Marathon’s student body has shrunk from 86 to 59 students this spring, according to state and district data.

“If you look at the demographics, most families are moving into the cities where there’s more opportunities for employment,” Arriola said. “You’ve got a lot of people moving out to this area, but they’re all retirees with no kids.”

Other area districts have also seen a net decrease in enrollment in the last seven years. Between fall 2000 and 2004, Presidio ISD’s student body grew from 1,477 to 1,583 students, according to state education agency data. But the next school year the trend reversed, and the district’s student count now stands at 1,419 students, below the fall 2000 level.

“There’s a thousand reasons for it,” Presidio Superintendent Doug Karr said.

“Jobs are just not real plentiful here and sometimes people just pack their kids up and go somewhere else,” Karr continued. “Federally connected kids, their parents move. We did a complete re-registration process at the high school, and a lot of kids didn’t come back. We’ve had all kinds of things going on that you can attribute this loss of kids too.”

Karr isn’t too concerned about the recent enrollment drop in Presidio. “I don’t see it as a decline. I think it’s just kind of plateaued,” he said.

“What we’re seeing in Presidio, our growth is from the bottom up,” he explained. “You start looking at the number of babies being born locally, and you’ve got to believe those little ones are going to be fed into the school system.”

Terlingua CSD and Valentine ISD have also experienced a net enrollment decrease over the past seven years.

Terlingua’s student count has fluctuated in recent years, but since fall 2000, enrollment has dropped from 194 students to 170 students this spring, according to state and district data.

In Valentine, enrollment declined from 73 to 41 students between fall 2000 and fall 2005, according to state data. But the district recently experienced a turnaround and has 53 students this spring. While this year’s enrollment brings Valentine back to its fall 2003 level, the district still has 20 students less than in fall 2000.

Terlingua Principal Bobbie Jones attributed her school’s enrollment decline to families moving away for work, which Valentine Superintendent George Elliott also blamed for his district’s net decrease. Like the Marfa superintendent, Elliott said a lack of housing was preventing new families from replacing those who leave.

“Our biggest problem is not having housing. There’s people wanting to move here,” he said. “But it’s hard to find who owns any property here. If you do figure out who owns it, there’s not much available.”

Despite the housing shortage, a few new students recently moved to Valentine, causing the enrollment to jump this year.

“I think nine of them were from people that we hired. I brought four myself. We had some kids that came to stay with their grandparents. And we had some students that were homeschooled in the past,” Elliott said. “We do have a few transfer students from Marfa. I think we currently have three from Marfa.”

Valentine is making the most of the recent enrollment boost.

“The way we’re funded it doesn’t benefit us a whole lot financially,” Elliott said. “It’s just nice to have some extra students for more activities and more variety.”

The district has added a junior high girls basketball team and also has enough students to field a six-man football team next year.

Presidio is making the most of its current enrollment, even though it’s lower than in previous years.

“If anything, this is really kind of a blessing to us. We’re maxed out on space at the high school and maxed out on space at the elementary,” Superintendent Karr said. “If our enrollment were just to explode here, then we’re to a point we’re going to have to do something with facilities. This has kind of given us an opportunity to catch our breath and plan for the future.”

The lower student count does result in Presidio ISD receiving less state funding, Karr said. But if the district had more students, Karr would need to spend more money building classrooms and facilities.

“In my opinion, it’s kind of a blessing more than a curse,” he said.

For other area districts, decreased state aid is more clearly a curse.

For every student districts lose, districts also lose about $5,500 in state attendance-based funding, Karr said. The amount can vary for certain types of students, such as ESL, special education, and gifted and talented, Marfa Superintendent Busby said.

With less state funding and fewer students, districts have to make tough choices.

“It makes it harder to provide different kinds of programs for the kids,” Marathon Superintendent Arriola said. “You’ve got to be very creative in the things you’re able to do.”

In Terlingua, declining student numbers are making the district consider whether it should continue raising funds for a cafetorium, Principal Jones said.

“We have to decide if we have the enrollment to support that,” he said. “And looking at staff, looking at next year, we have to make sure we have enough funds to run everything the way we need to.”

Looking ahead is complicated by the way the state distributes attendance-based funding. When budgeting, districts estimate their state funding based on the previous year’s enrollment, Busby explained. But the state dolls out that funding based on actual end-of-the-year enrollment. If districts like Marfa have an unexpected drop in enrollment, they receive less state funding than they expected as well.

“This year just kind of blew us out of the water,” Busby said. “We just have to adjust as we can and try not to spend a whole lot.”

“That’s why it’s real hard to do a lot of fixing buildings, building new buildings, and buying buses and things, because you’re losing enrollment and you’re losing money,” Busby continued. “So you’ve got to watch every penny, and you don’t have a whole lot.”

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