Could Better Attendance Possibly Lead To Money Back In Austin ISD Families' Pockets?
Yes, the biggest issue facing Austin ISD right now is the possibility of a state takeover. It's huge and believe me, it's on my mind. I've written about it in other blog posts, talked about it in interviews, been on the phone with TEA and reached out to state representatives. I've already shared what I think we should be doing right now. I'm going to keep working it because the consequences for this district could be enormous.
But this isn’t a post about that.
The reality is that Austin ISD has other issues that aren't going to wait while we deal with the takeover threat. Enrollment has fallen. Attendance is too low. The district just went through $205 million in cuts. Teacher pay still needs to be higher. Families have more choices than ever about where to educate their children and the State of Texas seems hell bent on making public schools compete even harder for them.
I'm thinking about all of that. I'm also wondering what I don't know enough to be thinking about yet. Because seriously.
In the meantime, here's one idea I've been kicking around that could possibly help with attendance, enrollment and money at the same time.
Hear me out.
Here's the Backstory
Austin ISD says that increasing attendance by just one percentage point generates about $4.5 million in additional revenue. Between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, district attendance increased from 91.35% to 92.41%. That 1.06 percentage-point improvement brought more than $4.5 million back into Austin ISD.
That's real money.
There is more I'd want to understand about those attendance numbers before designing anything around them. How many students account for most of the absenteeism? How concentrated is it? How much is chronic absenteeism? What do the numbers look like by grade, campus and student population?
I don't have access to enough information right now to answer all of that. But the basic fact is pretty straightforward: better attendance brings more money into Austin ISD.
So what if we found a way to increase attendance, bring in additional revenue and then shared a small portion of that new money with the families who helped create it?
Really. What if Austin ISD cut families a check at the end of each school year tied to their child's attendance?
To me, this starts looking like a bird's nest on the ground.
I'm not talking about taking money out of classrooms or creating another unfunded program after the district just cut $205 million. I'm talking about sharing a percentage of additional revenue that came into Austin ISD because attendance improved.
We'd need to establish a baseline and determine exactly how the additional state funding would be calculated. Austin ISD would keep most of the gain, but maybe 10% or 20% could go back to qualifying families.
If the additional revenue doesn't show up, there is nothing to share.
That's the basic idea.
How Does Attendance Create More Money?
Texas school funding is tied heavily to Average Daily Attendance. A student being enrolled is important, obviously, but how consistently students actually attend school affects how much funding the district receives.
Austin ISD already understands the financial incentive. The district has created financial incentives for campuses that improve attendance and has publicly connected improvements in attendance to millions of dollars in additional revenue.
I'm suggesting taking that thinking one step further. What if families had a direct stake in improving attendance too?
I did some research on my crazy idea and discovered maybe it isn't that crazy after all. Cash attendance incentives aren't unprecedented.
Detroit Public Schools has offered high school students up to $1,000 in gift cards tied to perfect attendance.
Charleston County, South Carolina has tested weekly payments tied to student attendance and expanded the idea after seeing positive results.
So other districts are already experimenting with the basic concept of putting a financial incentive behind attendance.
For Austin ISD, I'd like to explore whether the additional revenue generated by improved attendance could help fund the incentive itself.
Austin ISD gets more money from the state because attendance improves. Keep most of it in the district. Share a portion of the gain with qualifying families.
Obviously, we'd also need to be smart about what counts. Texas already treats some medically related absences differently for school funding purposes. A child dealing with a serious illness, disability, qualifying medical appointment or homebound instruction shouldn't simply get lumped into the same bucket as a student who could have been at school and wasn't. Looking in to all of that is part of figuring out the program.
Done correctly, Austin ISD ends up with more revenue than it had before, families get something tangible for helping improve attendance and the program gives people one more reason to make getting to school a priority.
$4.5 million for 1% improvement seems worth looking at to me.
Then There Are Vouchers
This gets even more interesting when you look at what the State of Texas is doing.
For the 2026-27 school year, a student attending a participating private school can receive $10,474 through Texas' new Education Freedom Account program.
That makes me angry. I fought vouchers hard because I don't believe the State of Texas has any business working against public education. There are plenty of things the state does that I don't agree with, but those are conversations for other posts. Maddeningly, vouchers are here now.
While the state is putting money behind helping families choose something other than public school, Austin ISD and pretty much every other ISD in Texas is trying to stop enrollment decline, improve attendance and stabilize its finances.
Obviously, I'm not suggesting Austin ISD compete dollar-for-dollar with a $10,474 voucher. We can't. But I've been wondering about something else.
Private school tuition can cost considerably more than $10,474, which means many families using a voucher will still have significant costs of their own. Is there a tipping point for some of those families? Is there some combination of financial value, programs, convenience, academics and overall experience that could convince families who left Austin ISD to come back? Or how about the ones who never came to Austin ISD in the first place?
I don't know. I'd like to find out.
A student who chooses Austin ISD and regularly attends school has real value to the district, educationally and financially. If better attendance generates additional revenue, I think it's worth exploring whether a small piece of that gain could go back to the families who helped create it.
And if that gives families one more reason to choose Austin ISD, stay in Austin ISD or come back to Austin ISD, even better.
Okay. There Are Questions.
Of course there are. This is an idea, not a finished program.
How high should attendance have to be? Should significant improvement count too? Should there be different thresholds by grade level? How should excused absences, illnesses, disabilities and medical needs be handled? Should the incentive be based on individual attendance, improvement or some combination? What percentage of the additional revenue makes sense? How much would families actually receive? Would the amount be enough to change behavior? Can it be structured legally?
Those are the questions that need answers.
Take the idea apart. Run the numbers. Ask the lawyers. Ask school-finance people. Ask parents. Look at what Detroit, Charleston and other districts have learned. Find the holes. Fix them. Figure out whether the idea works.
Maybe the final version looks something like this. Maybe it looks completely different. Maybe somebody reads this and comes up with a much better version.
Great. That's the whole point.
We've got enormous issues in front of us, starting with the very real threat of state takeover. But enrollment, attendance, teacher pay and the district's finances aren't going to stop demanding attention while that gets sorted out.
Austin ISD just cut $205 million. We are not going to cut our way into becoming a stronger school district. We've also got to find ways to create revenue, attract families, keep the families we have and make better use of the resources already available to us.
This is one idea. Believe me, I've got more.
