WICHITA FALLS, Texas (KAUZ) - 2024 was a monumental year for WFISD, as the district opened flagship campuses at Legacy and Memorial High Schools, raised teacher pay for the first time in half a decade and produced a balanced budget that the district hopes to make the norm moving forward.

The year that was saw some struggles for the district as well, as inflation made financial planning more difficult. Outside of schools, truancy remains higher than the district wants, while inside middle and high schools, vaping problems rose, placing a strain on disciplinary capabilities. 2025 could bring solutions to some of those problems, while also continuing the shift of district campuses.

The first item from the past year that WFISD Superintendent Donny Lee zeroed in on was the accomplishment of opening the two new high schools.

“One of the greatest things that happened is the opening of Memorial and Legacy,” Lee said, later adding, “We did it successfully. We were able to do that on time, as we promised. We were able to do it on budget. So that was a big win, for not only the district, but for our city.”

Lee said that of the 1,280 districts in Texas, WFISD was the only one to open two new high schools and a middle school while closing three other high schools.

Bringing the high school constructions in on budget was a big win for the district, as was achieving a balanced budget at a time when Lee said many districts are operating at a deficit and picking up debt.

“From a financial perspective, the biggest win was we passed, this board adopted a balanced budget, one of few districts to do that as well. All these districts were going into deficit budgets. We didn’t do that. We spent the money that we had. We were good stewards with the community’s funds, good stewards of public funds rather, and adopted a balanced budget,” Lee said.

The district achieved the milestone in spite of financial strains felt across the country from inflation.

“The inflation is really hurting us regarding our transportation budget, which is expected to increase by approximately $700,000 next year. Our insurance rates, like many homeowners are feeling, our insurance policies are going up by 30 to 50%. Our food service contract with Chartwells is going up dramatically because food prices just keep going up,” Lee said, also listing expenses like maintenance and grounds upkeep as areas affected.

Lee said the district’s first teacher pay raises since 2019 helped make sure that financial strain wasn’t passed on to WFISD employees.

“We were able to give our teachers and staff a raise. That hadn’t been done since 2019. So that helped increase morale, helped offset inflation of course that everybody’s feeling. So that was a big win as well,” Lee said, later adding, “We wanted that just to be one step in a multi-year plan to improve compensation that is comparable districts in West Texas and in North Texas.”

The district saw some new problems arise and some existing problems persist throughout 2024 as well. Vaping incidences rose at the school, as did arrests for possessing illegal THC vapes .

“Our vaping incidences are high. We’ve got a lot of issues as it relates to students vaping, particularly at our high school campuses and some at our middle school campuses. And this is causing problems all the way through the district,” Lee said, adding that there had been so many disciplinary punishments handed out for the issue that the Disciplinary Alternative Education Placement building was facing issues with holding all the students.

“So we’re having so many kids vaping and getting caught that it’s clogging up the DAEP. And we’re running out of room, and then we’re running out of teachers and space. So that’s an area of growth that we’ve got to figure out some solutions for and that we’re hoping to find some preventative solutions,” Lee said.

Another area the district faced difficulties with and hopes to grow and improve in is attendance, where Lee said changing Texas laws have hurt the district’s abilities to enforce students’ required presence at school.

In addition to the missed learning for the students, the district is also hurt from lost funding that is based on attendance.

“So we’re asking for the legislature, that’s the Texas Legislature, to help us with that. Specifically, to put some teeth back in the truancy laws,” Lee said, explaining that the district previously could bring truancy charges, resulting in consequences including community service for the child and fines for the parent or guardian.

Under new laws aimed at eliminating abuse of the fining system, Lee said the district now has much less recourse for truancy.

“Because our kids have to come to school, and there’s no sanctions for them now. They just don’t come to school and we can’t do anything about it. We call the parents, we go, we do home visits, we do external motivators such as if you’re here so many days this six weeks, you can be eligible for this prize. We do parties, field trips, you name. But at the end of the day we need it to have some teeth to it, our truancy policy and our attendance policy if we’re hoping to get our average daily attendance up,” he said.

The district is hoping to optimize student placement on campus via a long-range facilities plan. The biggest piece of that plan - the construction of Legacy and Memorial high schools - is complete, but the next phase will have impacts on students across the city.

Rider High School, which was closed, is scheduled to be reopened as Rider Middle School, with renovations already underway. That will trigger the closing of McNiel Middle School, which will transition to McNiel Elementary. The plan culminates with a planned 2027 bond for a new elementary school.

“Everything is going as planned, and so once we get Rider Middle school open, that will trigger McNiel Elementary which will trigger the elementaries closing, which will trigger a bond for an elementary. It is a busy, busy time,” Lee said.

A smaller but still impactful related move the district made involved also putting in or planning to put in new playgrounds at all WFISD elementary schools.

“That’s a big deal. That’s probably the biggest deal for them, they love new playgrounds,” Lee said.

The largest goal for WFISD will always be academic outcomes, an area Lee said the district can still make strides in.

“The main thing is academic outcomes. Our goal is to improve dramatically from the perspective of more of our students are reading on grade level. More of our students are performing in the subjects and disciplines of science, mathematics and social studies on grade level,” Lee said, later adding, “Our goal is to consistently improve the amount of students that we have that are meeting grade level in all of our disciplines, in all of our tested subjects, third grade through tenth.”

Improving student academics should help bolster another goal of the district: a 100% graduation rate.

“Also make sure that our graduation rate, that we make sure that we have 100% of our kids who are eligible to graduate, they walk across the stage,” Lee said.

Graduation later this year will mark the culmination of the 24-25 school year, but even then WFISD will have work to do throughout the summer and into the fall of this year.

Lee said the district is ready to rise to the current challenges and any others that might arise on the way to achieving its goals.

“Regardless of your zip code, regardless of where you live in the city, our goal and our plan and our intention and our mission is to make sure every single student - no matter what elementary, middle school or high school they go to - they’ve got a great teacher and they’re getting one year’s growth of academic success every single year. Are we there now? No, we’re not there right now. Will we get there? I have no doubt that we will,” he said.