{"id":443764,"date":"2026-09-22T06:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T06:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/443764\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T06:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T06:38:21","slug":"hisd-enrollment-drops-trigger-budget-cuts-teachers-union-raises-alarms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/443764\/","title":{"rendered":"HISD enrollment drops trigger budget cuts, teachers union raises alarms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">HOUSTON \u2013 The Houston Independent School District is facing scrutiny after announcing budget adjustments tied to student enrollment numbers \u2014 moves that could mean significant cuts for several campuses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Each year, HISD conducts what it calls a standard campus leveling process after the school year begins, comparing actual student enrollment to the projections used to build campus budgets. Campus funding is then adjusted based on actual enrollment and student needs, according to HISD.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cThis annual process helps align campus budgets and staffing with the number of students schools are serving. Depending on enrollment, some campuses may see their allocations adjusted,\u201d HISD told KPRC2 reporter Sandy Torres in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Jackie Anderson, president of the largest teachers union in the district, said cuts of hundreds of thousands of dollars can be expected at several schools \u2014 and the impact shouldn\u2019t be underestimated. Anderson told KPRC the Lamar High School community is one of several that reached out concerned about budget cuts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cWe are very concerned because getting cuts that magnitude can lead to employee layoffs, overcrowded classrooms, lack of support and supplies and materials from HISD,\u201d the Houston Federation of Teachers president said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Houston Federation of Teachers said declining enrollment since COVID-19 is not a new development for the district \u2014 and questions why principals are only now being told their budgets are being reduced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cBut the district has been losing students, so it should not be that now after school has started, and budgets have been put in and principals have been notified as to what their budgets are that they are expected to continue to provide services with those large amounts of money being pulled out of their schools,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Anderson is also raising broader questions about where district money is going \u2014 and says the scale of these cuts is unlike anything she has seen before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cI think there needs to be an outside audit&#8230;where is the money? We can expect cuts from Austin, we have always dealt with that, but to go into individual schools now, and tell them they are going to be cuts is something I have never heard before of this magnitude,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The Houston Federation of Teachers is calling for an independent audit of the district\u2019s finances. When asked for specifics on which schools are affected and by how much, HISD said existing records related to campus budget adjustments may be requested through its public information request process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">KPRC submitted a public information request.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 The Houston Independent School District is facing scrutiny after announcing budget adjustments tied to student enrollment&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6244,163,2338,56,58,1686,57],"class_list":["post-443764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-budget-cuts","tag-education","tag-enrollment","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-isd","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}