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Richardson ISD Superintendent Tabitha Branum (center)\u00a0and Chris Poteet, president of the Board of Trustees, talk to Becca Bass as they visited the homes of out-of-district students who are transferring into RISD, on Monday, Aug. 3, 2026.<\/p>\n
Anja Schlein\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
Standing in front of dozens of teachers, administrators and district staff Monday morning,\u00a0Richardson ISD Superintendent Tabitha Branum<\/a> reminded them they would be making a first impression for the district with many families they met that day.<\/p>\n \u201cSo y\u2019all turn on your charm,\u201d she said. \u201cYou are going to be representing who we are, and most importantly, the heart that we have for kids.\u201d<\/p>\n After the pep talk from Branum, teams of district employees fanned out across neighborhoods near and far, talking to families who will send their kids to a Richardson ISD school for the first time next week. Those families come from a range of backgrounds and points on the socioeconomic spectrum. But they all have one thing in common: They don\u2019t live in the district.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Related: More North Texas school districts are offering online school. Here\u2019s why now<\/a><\/p>\n Richardson ISD is in the second year of a limited open-enrollment program that allows families who live outside the district to apply to send their kids to Richardson schools. For decades, Texas school districts have had to compete for students with charter schools. But as the number of students enrolled in the state\u2019s public schools shrinks<\/a>, a growing number of districts are turning to transfer policies as one of their strategies to prop up their enrollments. That means districts are increasingly facing competition not only from charter schools and private schools, but also from each other.<\/p>\n By and large, Branum said, districts don\u2019t actively market themselves against each other. Richardson ISD hasn\u2019t spent money to place billboards in nearby neighborhoods to try to convince families to choose a Richardson school instead of one in Dallas ISD or Garland ISD, for example. But that doesn\u2019t mean district leaders aren\u2019t pleased when families decide to do so.<\/p>\n \u201cI celebrate our districts around us, and they\u2019re all doing amazing things,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we\u2019re all in the end having to compete for enrollment to maintain what we do in each of our school districts.\u201d<\/p>\n As enrollment shrinks, districts cast a wider net<\/p>\n Richardson ISD is neither the first nor the last North Texas district to launch an open enrollment program.\u00a0In Dallas ISD, students who live outside the district may apply to transfer in, and students who are already enrolled at one neighborhood school may apply to transfer to another neighborhood school.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Arlington\u00a0ISD has accepted students from outside its own borders for more than a decade. Several districts, including Frisco, McKinney and Irving ISDs, have done something similar over the past five years. Officials in Mansfield ISD rolled out a district-wide open enrollment plan this year.<\/p>\n Leaders in many of those districts have said those programs give them a way to stay\u00a0competitive.<\/p>\n In a report released in May, researchers with the nonpartisan public policy group Texas 2036 wrote that enrollment in the state\u2019s public schools <\/a>declined by more than 76,000 students<\/a> at the beginning of the last school year. That\u2019s the single largest enrollment decline in Texas\u2019 modern history outside of the pandemic.<\/p>\n The authors project those declines to continue in the coming years, as declining birth rates and shifting migration patterns mean there are fewer children in the state overall, and the state\u2019s new school voucher program gives families more options outside the public school system.<\/p>\n Richardson ISD has seen its enrollment dip by about 7% since 2019. Last year, it lost a little over 700 students. Texas funds its schools based on average daily attendance, so when districts lose students, they lose funding. Finding more students is the only way to bring in more state revenue, Branum said, and accepting students from outside the district is one way of doing it.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Related: If North Texas population is increasing, why are schools closing? Curious Texas explains<\/a><\/p>\n District staffers visited about 250 families who opted to transfer their kids into Richardson ISD. Families choose the district over their zoned school districts for a variety of reasons, Branum said. Sometimes, there\u2019s a specific program that makes the district a better fit. But most often, she said, the decision is based on geography: Many transferring families live closer to a Richardson ISD school than to their zoned campuses.<\/p>\n Richardson ISD Superintendent Tabitha Branum high fives staff at the RISD Administration Building in Richardson, Texas, on Monday, Aug. 3, 2026.<\/p>\n Anja Schlein\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n Becca and Brett Bass are in exactly that situation. The Basses will send their daughter Harper to Lake Highlands Elementary School in Richardson ISD next week. The family lives in northeastern Dallas, just south of Northwest Highway, which marks the border between the two school districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n During a home visit Monday morning with Branum and Richardson ISD board President Chris Poteet, Becca said Lake Highlands Elementary is a shorter drive than Martha Turner Reilly Elementary School, the Dallas ISD campus where the family is zoned. Harper also has friends from daycare who will go to Lake Highlands, so the move was easier for her, as well, Becca Bass said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Basses have worked to ease Harper\u2019s transition into kindergarten, she said. During the visit, Becca Bass showed Branum a calendar they\u2019d made for Harper to count down the days until she started school. On her way out the door, Branum handed the couple a welcome bag, and encouraged them to call her if they needed help managing the first weeks of school. As they left, Poteet placed a sign in their yard saying they\u2019d picked Richardson ISD.<\/p>\n Richardson ISD generally loses more students to Dallas ISD than it gains, state data shows. Last year, 488 students who live in Richardson\u00a0ISD went to a Dallas ISD school, compared with 241 students in Dallas ISD who went to school in Richardson ISD.\u00a0<\/p>\n Open enrollment policies can be a survival tactic<\/p>\n Not long ago, districts across the country took aggressive action to keep parents who lived outside their geographic boundaries from enrolling their students. In a 2023 report, researchers at the education access advocacy group Available to All<\/a> noted that in at least 24 states, parents who use a false address to enroll their children in another school district risk criminal prosecution. That\u2019s a list that includes Texas, where penalties for using a false address can include hefty fines and even prison time.\u00a0<\/p>\n The new transfer programs have provided an avenue for parents to access a different district without moving into it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Daniel Robinson, a professor in the University of Texas at Arlington\u2019s College of Education, said pressure from declining enrollment and growing competition from private schools and homeschooling has put many school districts in survival mode.\u00a0<\/p>\n When budgets shrink, districts are faced with a few difficult options, Robinson said: they can cut staff, or they can close campuses. Recruiting students from outside their own borders can allow districts to prop up enrollment numbers and stave off layoffs and school closures, he said. Some districts have had success with that strategy, he said, but that success comes at the expense of other districts.<\/p>\n Related: Why Texas public schools are competing for voucher dollars<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re getting some gains by so-called poaching from other districts,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s really sad to see in the sense that we\u2019re allowing this to occur as a state.\u201d<\/p>\n In some ways, the shift toward greater competition among school districts puts public schools in the same position colleges and universities have been in for more than a decade, Robinson said. Over the past 15 years, many colleges facing shrinking budgets started to get more aggressive about recruiting more students as a way of bringing in more revenue, he said. Many also dropped SAT or ACT requirements during the pandemic, and haven\u2019t reinstated them.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The result has been enrollment trends that vary dramatically from one college to another, Robinson said. A few prestigious colleges, like the University of Texas at Austin and Rice University in Houston<\/a>, have nearly as many students as they can accommodate. Meanwhile, he said, other schools, including UT Arlington, are nowhere close to capacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other North Texas districts open up enrollment<\/p>\n Mansfield ISD is launching a district-wide open enrollment program this year after running a smaller pilot program last year. Superintendent Tiffanie Spencer<\/a> said district leaders have discussed the idea for years, but only recently got enough community support to move forward with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n The district\u2019s pilot program included 11 elementary schools. The overwhelming feedback the district heard was that families wanted access to all of the district\u2019s campuses, not just a small subset of its elementary schools, Spencer said. So this year, the district accepted applications for every campus that wasn\u2019t already at capacity, she said. Applications grew from about 30 last year to more than 200 this year, she said.<\/p>\n Mansfield Superintendent\u00a0Tiffanie Spencer said district leaders have discussed an open enrollment program for years, but only recently got enough community support to move forward with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mansfield ISD<\/p>\n When district leaders consider a student\u2019s transfer application, they look at factors such as the student\u2019s academic performance, attendance record and behavior, Spencer said. A single behavior infraction isn\u2019t enough on its own to disqualify a student from transferring, she said\u00a0\u2014 if a student got back on track after a behavior problem, it could be a sign that the incident was a learning experience, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Like most districts, Mansfield ISD has seen its enrollment dip over the past five years, not drastically, but steadily, Spencer said. The district will start the year with a little more than 34,000 students, Spencer estimates, down from about 35,700 when the district\u2019s enrollment peaked in 2020. District leaders launched the program in part as a way to bring more students into the district, she said.<\/p>\n Although there are a number of factors driving enrollment declines, Spencer said Mansfield ISD has lost large numbers of students to Arlington ISD over the years. <\/p>\n Last year, 919 students who live in Mansfield\u00a0ISD attended an Arlington ISD school, compared with 167 Arlington ISD residents who attended a Mansfield ISD school. Spencer said she suspects that Arlington ISD’s universal free pre-K program is a big factor drawing families from Mansfield ISD.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe definitely have felt the effects of that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Although the program itself is new, Spencer said the idea of healthy competition between school districts isn\u2019t. School leaders have always wanted to do a little better than their neighbors in terms of recruitment. But that competition only goes so far, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want for another district to be in a hardship because we are recruiting all of their kids,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n McKinney ISD began accepting applications for its open enrollment program, Choose McKinney, in February 2025. Melanie Raleeh, the district\u2019s deputy superintendent, said district leaders launched the program as a way to stay competitive with other nearby districts that were also loosening their enrollment rules.<\/p>\n The program allows students from outside the district to transfer in. It also allows current McKinney ISD students to transfer from one campus to another. In both cases, students must have satisfactory grades in all subjects and an attendance record of 90% or better the previous year. School leaders also look at students\u2019 behavior records as part of the application process.<\/p>\n There\u2019s been strong interest both from families looking to transfer into the district and from those who already have kids in McKinney ISD and want to transfer to another campus in the same district, Raleeh said. In that way, the program isn\u2019t just a recruiting strategy, she said, it\u2019s also a retention strategy. Many families who may have considered leaving the district decided to stay after getting access to programs and campuses that are a better fit for their kids, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cRather than asking families to fit into one model, we\u2019re creating opportunities that allow more students to find the right fit within McKinney ISD,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Public schools forced to compete<\/p>\n Although the increasingly open borders between public school districts is a relatively new development, Branum, the Richardson ISD superintendent,\u00a0 said it\u2019s part of a broader shift in the way students are educated in Texas. Decades ago, public education operated as a monopoly, she said. Families moved into a neighborhood and sent their kids to the schools that served that part of the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n Richardson ISD Superintendent Tabitha Branum and Chris Poteet, president of the Board of Trustees, visited the homes of out-of-district students in Dallas who are transferring into\u00a0RISD, on Monday, Aug. 3, 2026.<\/p>\n Anja Schlein\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n But as options such as charter schools and education savings accounts became a bigger part of the picture, district leaders have to think of themselves as branders and marketers<\/a> in a way they never did before.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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