School closings in 2024 surprised people in the Lubbock Independent School District (LISD).
“We vowed that’s not going to happen again,” said, Nancy Sharp, at-large trustee last week during a meeting of the Board of Trustees.
The Board unanimously approved a process it calls an “optimization framework” for future school consolidations Thursday, including an online dashboard the public can follow to see if a school is moving toward being consolidated. The goal is a clear criteria everyone knows in advance.
But trustees, including Board President Ryan Curry, noted they still have concerns about public participation as the plan came together. They’re also concerned about ongoing future involvement in schools so closures are less likely.
“I’m somewhat dismayed and disappointed,” Curry said about public participation.
“You have control in your hands. … You as the community are part of the problem and part of the solution,” Curry said.
John Weddige, trustee for District 5 (the west and northwest sections of LISD), said, “Thank you to the community members who are here tonight. … But we need the community to stay engaged and to be engaged. What I hate to see up here is the engagement comes when a decision is being made that night – or when a decision has already been made. Be a part of the conversation.”
Starting in the fall of 2026, before any elementary or middle school can be put on a closure or consolidation list, it must fall behind in all three of the following. It must have too little enrollment and utilization along with too high per-student cost.
In addition, there must be an acceptable alternative for the students before their school can stay on a potential list.
LISD will publish a dashboard with information on individual schools in the next 30 days showing how each school stacks up against the criteria.
Previous coverage: More school closures in Lubbock ISD? Not yet, but maybe next year and the plan to make it less painful
Draft view of Lubbock ISD school dashboard. Credit: Lubbock ISD video.,
District Optimization Framework
Primary metrics
Overall enrollment – under 450
Facility utilization – under 70 percent
Per student spending – more than 5 percent above average
All based on a 3-year average
Additional criteria
Before a school can be closed, there must also be alternatives for:
Students not being separated by “significant geographical boundaries” between home and school
Capacity to keep at least 30 percent of students from the school together
And there are other considerations which LISD described as:
Program offerings – A school type (such as dual language, IB, STEM) that’s unique and offered to all students in the school. If a school designated for closure or consolidation is a unique model, the District would either move the program to another school or keep the school open.
Historical context – Takes into consideration how District actions have impacted the community over time (for example, many students are at this school because of a previous school closure).
Program demand – If a program is in high demand from parents who live both within and outside the attendance zone, consider whether it should be closed or whether another nearby school should be used instead.
Student needs – The presence of standalone programs for students with severe needs (e.g., an autism program). If these programs exist, the District must ensure there’s a plan for these students as part of decisions.
Availability of aligned, high-quality options – Consider schools students would attend if school were closed to determine whether they are high-quality and how the district can support students switching to new schools.
Praise for the dashboard
LISD’s professional staff pointed to the public dashboard as the centerpiece of the new process when presenting it to the board.
Board members were pleased with the sample dashboard – developed by Ken Casarez, chief innovation officer and Lane Sobehrad, coordinator of research and innovation.
“That dashboard is awesome,” Curry said.
“On this project, I would tell you it was done extremely well. … I think we’ve got a darn good process to start with. … I believe that we have a product that the community can trust,” Curry also said.
Kathy Rollo, superintendent, said the information goes beyond the three criteria for potentially closing a school, including state accountability ratings.
“You can actually dig in deeper and access even more information – such as the principal, how many years that principal has been there, the average tenure of teachers, how many incentive allotment teachers are on that campus,” she said.
Teacher Incentive Allotment
Incentive allotment teachers are high performing teachers who get extra pay thanks to state funding. The Texas Education Agency described the program as a way to “attract and retain top teachers with an accessible pathway to a six-figure salary.”
Dr. Kathy Rollo, superintendent, during Board of Trustee meeting. Credit: Lubbock ISD video.
The dashboard includes a map – making it easy to switch from one school to the next. And the map includes the criteria for consolidation so viewers don’t need to look it up somewhere else.
Mary Ann Lawson, trustee for District 2 (the eastern portion of LISD), said the district did well on the entire plan – not just the dashboard.
“I’m glad it’s based on three years. That’ll give us a very good way of looking at it over time,” Lawson said.
Beth Bridges, trustee at-large, said the process is not the only thing to impact future school closings. She described state mandates and funding as winds that “blow us around.”
“This isn’t the final answer of who, what, when, where. This is what future boards can look at to make these hard, hard decisions in light of all the winds against us,” Bridges said.
Trustee concerns, public participation
LISD held five town hall meetings during the fall 2025 semester – with a total attendance of 159, conducted a public survey online with more than 2,700 responses by early November, and invited 80 people to sit on a focus group – with 30 participating.
Weddige hoped for higher participation.
“We have a school district with 23,000 students and 159 people showed up total to town halls,” Weddige said during the Thursday meeting.
Lala Chavez, trustee for District 1 (north and central LISD), said, “We need to be involved. When you come up and you talk to us, but then I don’t see you at any meetings that makes no sense to me either.”
Curry said, “We have community members that live a few blocks from an elementary school who are choosing to go across town. … So, you are choosing with your feet what schools you want to be considered for closure.”
“If you live in a community, and you are not lifting up the school that’s in your community, you’re part of the problem. You are not part of the solution,” Curry said.
The situation is more complicated than school choice. Sharp said the birth rate declined east of Avenue Q by 50 percent in 10 years. Sharp called that “a huge impact” on neighborhood elementary schools.
Families need to be cheerleaders for nearby schools – encouraging friends, family and neighbors to send kids there instead of somewhere else, she said
“We have students who choose to go other than the school in their neighborhood. That’s a choice that you have. But if you’re choosing to go to a charter school in your neighborhood or across town rather than your neighborhood school, that’s a choice. But then that also leads to decisions that the district has to make,” Sharp said.
Back row: Ryan Curry, Beth Bridges and Jason Ratliff. Front row: Nancy Sharp, Mary Ann Lawson, Lala Chavez and John Weddige. Credit: Lubbock ISD web site.
Clarifying a few details
No closures will be decided during the current school year. No consolidation gets decided until the fall of 2026.
Rollo said, “There will be no schools closed at the end of this school year. … This does not include the three new schools that were part of the 2025 bond election that passed. So those consolidations will happen regardless of this optimization framework.”
Those consolidations were:
Stewart and Williams elementaries into a new school
Wolfforth and McWhorter elementaries into a new school
Bean to be combined with Hodges Elementary
Despite a popular social media post, the current and future closures do not include high schools. Estacado was mentioned in the post, but trustees said in the meeting it’s not true.
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