By Lauren Bell 

and Christian Vazquez

Declining enrollment and budget cuts will result in the loss of 15 teaching positions next school year. 

Principal Ryan Purtell declined to name the teachers to respect their privacy.

“I don’t get to pick who gets displaced,” Purtell said, adding that the list Central Office gave him was exclusively based on the last employees hired.

 Although 15 teaching positions were lost, they were not all involuntary displacements and could have been retirements or resignations for other reasons. 

The overall effect the displacement will have on class sizes will not feel significantly different, he said.

“I’m not gonna say this is gonna have no impact, but for the most part, it’s not gonna feel to students and teachers significantly different,” he said. “It’s just more about the sadness of relationships lost, which I take personally. All the people that are being displaced are people I hired.”

The San Antonio Express-News on March 22 reported that Northside ISD budget cuts would result in high school student-teacher ratios rising from 27.4:1 to about 26.5:1. Purtell said ratios couldn’t be confirmed until school starts next year. 

Geometry teacher Almarie Soto-Ortiz told her classes that she would be getting displaced after finding out officially in April. This was her first year at Stevens.

“I’ve really enjoyed my classes,” she said. “They’ve been a really fun group.” 

Teachers who were displaced were offered assignments at other Northside ISD schools if they were available. The position she has been offered is at Taft High School. 

“It’s not my top choice, because I was trying to get to a campus closer to where my daughter goes to school,” said Soto-Ortiz. “I’m totally fine with Taft. Kids are kids.”

Since about 2019, enrollment has decreased. The 2018 Tradition yearbook stated an enrollment of 2,921. The 2025 Tradition yearbook stated an enrollment of 2,480, a difference of 441 students lost.

“We’re losing about 80 kids a year,” Purtell said. “When your number of kids is going down, the number of teachers goes down with it.” 

 Schools can’t do much to increase enrollment when an area around a school is already built out.

“What makes a school grow is the population that lives around it,” he said, adding that only Harlan and Sotomayor are still growing, “because they’re out in the middle of nowhere. There’s farmland everywhere, and there are houses being built in those areas that are affordable for middle-class people to buy.”

A smaller school could be seen as an opportunity. 

“When it’s 3,000, that’s a much harder thing to do. The smaller the number of kids, the easier it is. I’m really jealous, at times, of Ms. Olivares and Ms. Aguilar of CAST Teach because they know the name of every kid in their school,” said Purtell, adding that CAST only has about 200 students.

Purtell said a study of educational studies by New Zealander John Hattie indicates that smaller schools enhance student performance. 

“A small number, smaller than Stevens, smaller than all the Northside High Schools,” he said, adding that about 1,000 is ideal. 

Purtell said he’s experienced both declining enrollment and fast growth, and both have their good and bad points.

“You definitely don’t feel like you got your hands around what’s happening in the school, because it’s kind of chaotic,” he said about rapid enrollment increases. 

The biggest reason for the displacements, however, is another year of too little funding from Austin. NISD has been using its savings account to keep schools running because “they’ve (Legislature) not funded us $1 more since 2019,” Purtell said. 

“We (NISD) have a rainy day fund, they’ve dipped into it to the tune of $100 million to fund and to run the schools this year.” 

Freshman Marissa Flores said she plans to start online classes next year, leaving Stevens altogether, another factor in the declining enrollment.

“I would do better online, because online is more self-paced,” she said. “I just get distracted in public school because classes are really distracting and difficult to work in.”

Flores said more involvement by teachers with students in class would help students to stay enrolled in public schools.