UnRapped | CEC: The Process

In the summer of 2024, district leaders convened the Community Efficiency Committee to help the district plan for the future amidst ongoing budget challenges resulting from lower student enrollment coupled with the legislature’s inaction to adjust public school funding formulas for inflation. This committee is a group of more than fifty LISD stakeholders charged with representing the entire LISD community in the review of facility usage and enrollment trends in order to share assessments with the LISD Board of Trustees about how to proceed with boundary adjustments and facility usage.

In the late nineties and early two-thousands, LISD experienced rapid growth, peaking in two-thousand seventeen at an enrollment of fifty-three thousand students. The district was expanded to support this capacity, and enrollment is projected to stabilize at around forty-five thousand students over the next ten years. Lower birth rates plus increasing home prices, which average more than four-hundred thousand dollars in LISD, are just a few factors impacting student enrollment in LISD. As a result, we now have more facility space than students.

Over time, the state funding formula has put public school districts at a crossroads. Historically, LISD’s ability to maintain programs that enrich the student experience and operate effectively with smaller class sizes that enhance student learning has been a point of pride for our district. The lack of funding adjustments from our state have put a strain on our budget over the last several years and has slowly diminished our capabilities to continue these offerings on the same scale for the sake of efficiency. We know that isn’t what our students need, and it isn’t what our families or community expects from our schools. But the school funding system doesn’t allow for that type of local control and decision-making. 

During the first couple of meetings, participants worked through the efficiency framework criteria and got acquainted with the demographics of LISD. Their studies included campus enrollment trends, a look into which LISD facilities were being utilized at optimal capacity, and to what extent staffing resources were maximized for cost-effectiveness. 

At meeting three, committee members worked through the Facilities Assessment Document and operating costs criteria that included age and useful life factors, repair & maintenance data, and the operating costs to run facilities.

The committee then chose several facilities to tour across LISD to gain real-life perspective of the criteria and key indicators used in this framework. During the final meetings, members reviewed the efficiency assessment data and collaborated to create a summation of assessments in the form of campus retirements or boundary adjustments to present to the Board.

Lewisville ISD is committed to remaining good stewards of taxpayer dollars while maximizing learning experiences and outcomes for our students. The result of this committee work is the next step in these efforts. Results of the efficiency assessment will be shared at a board meeting this fall.

And that’s the Community Efficiency Committee process, UnRapped!