TUSD’s Ten Biggest Problems: The Issues Tucson Cannot Afford to Ignore

Oct 3

7 min read

The Tucson Unified School District is confronting more than a school-closure problem.

TUSD is dealing simultaneously with ineffective management, corporate cultural issues, declining enrollment, financial stress, excess physical capacity, chronic absenteeism, uneven academic performance, competition for students, aging facilities and difficult questions about how quickly its cost structure can be adjusted to match its smaller student population.

These problems are interconnected. Declining enrollment reduces revenue. Fewer students create excess capacity. Excess capacity raises the cost per student of operating schools. Financial pressure makes it harder to invest in programs and facilities that attract families. Weak demand can then contribute to further enrollment losses. The corporate cultural issues block the stakeholders from the Board and Management from creating effective solutions.

The district therefore needs more than a list of schools to close. It needs a comprehensive financial, operational recovery strategy and change in corporate culture.

Here are ten major problems that deserve attention.

1. TUSD Is Losing Students

Enrollment decline may be the most important structural problem facing TUSD.

The Arizona Auditor General reported that TUSD had 38,010 students attending in FY2024 and 37,452 in FY2025. More importantly, the Auditor General reported that TUSD’s weighted student count had declined every year since FY2022, falling 8.99% overall and another 3.68% in FY2026 as measured in the January 2026 financial-risk analysis.

Recent reporting describes an even longer-term decline. KOLD reported that districtwide enrollment had fallen approximately 23% since 2018.

This matters because Arizona school funding is closely connected to student counts.

Every student TUSD loses can mean lost revenue while many of the district’s fixed costs remain.

TUSD therefore cannot treat enrollment decline merely as a demographic statistic.

Enrollment is a financial performance measure.

The district should report monthly:

Enrollment | ADM | WSC | Students Gained/Lost | Estimated Revenue Gained/Lost

It should also establish measurable enrollment-recovery targets.

2. TUSD Has a Structural Financial Problem

In January 2026, the Arizona Auditor General classified TUSD as among the highest-risk districts for its ability to operate within available budget constraints and cash resources.

The Auditor General identified six high-risk measures:

Change in weighted student count
Operating budget limit reserve
Capital budget limit reserve
General Fund operating margin ratio
General Fund change in fund balance
Capital monies redirected to operations

TUSD's FY2027 proposed budget acknowledges an ongoing structural deficit. The district reported that it had implemented $6.8 million in permanent administrative reductions as part of an effort to close a $25 million structural deficit by FY2030.

This is not simply a budgeting problem.

A structural deficit means the underlying relationship between recurring revenues and recurring expenditures needs correction.

Temporary money, fund-balance reductions, property sales and one-time grants may provide breathing room. They do not permanently solve that equation.

The basic financial rule should be: Recurring operating expenditures must ultimately be supported by recurring operating revenues.

3. TUSD Has Too Much Physical Capacity for Its Current Enrollment

TUSD was built for a much larger student population.

Recent reporting indicates the district was designed to accommodate more than 67,000 students but now enrolls fewer than 40,000.

That leaves TUSD maintaining buildings, classrooms, utilities, grounds, security systems and other infrastructure for students who are no longer there.

This is why school utilization matters.

But TUSD should not evaluate schools using only design capacity.

For every campus, the public should see:

Design Capacity
Operational Capacity
Current Enrollment
Enrollment Utilization
Classroom Utilization
Unused Seats
Square Feet per Student
Facility Cost per Student

A half-empty school can still require a principal, custodians, utilities, maintenance, security and numerous other fixed costs.

The financial question is not merely whether a building has empty classrooms.

It is: How much does excess capacity cost TUSD every year?

4. TUSD Has a Serious Chronic Absenteeism Problem

A district cannot achieve strong academic outcomes when large numbers of students are not consistently in school.

KOLD reported in July 2026 that the most recent state data showed approximately 44% of TUSD students—nearly 18,000 students—were chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year.

AZPM subsequently reported that TUSD was examining attendance policy as it confronted a chronic absence rate near 40%.

This is simultaneously an educational, operational and potentially financial problem.

TUSD should report chronic absenteeism by: School | Grade | Student Group | Year | Trend

Management should also distinguish between excused and unexcused absences and identify schools where attendance problems are substantially worse than the district average.

Attendance needs to become a key performance indicator reviewed by the Governing Board—not simply an attendance-office statistic.

5. Student Achievement Remains Uneven

TUSD has successful schools and programs. University High School is an obvious example, and individual TUSD schools demonstrate that strong outcomes are possible.

But districtwide performance cannot be evaluated by pointing to the highest-performing schools.

Arizona assessment data and reporting on TUSD's academic recovery show continuing achievement gaps, particularly for economically disadvantaged and minority students.

That raises an important governance question: Why do some TUSD schools and programs succeed while others consistently struggle?

The district should perform a systematic internal benchmarking analysis.

For each successful school, examine:

Leadership
Teacher retention
Attendance
Capture rate
Academic proficiency
Instructional model
Class size
Programs offered
Parent demand
Cost per student

Then compare those characteristics with lower-performing and declining-enrollment schools.

TUSD should be trying to replicate what works.

6. TUSD Is Losing the Competition for Families

TUSD does not operate in a monopoly.

Families can choose charter schools, other districts through open enrollment, private schools, homeschooling and, for eligible families, Arizona's Empowerment Scholarship Account program.

Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo has publicly identified charter schools, ESAs and declining birth rates as contributors to TUSD's enrollment decline.

That means TUSD must understand why families leave.

Capture rate is therefore one of the most important measures in the school-reconfiguration analysis.

For every school attendance area, TUSD should know:

School-age children residing in area
Students attending TUSD
Students attending that particular TUSD school
Students choosing another TUSD school
Students choosing charter schools
Students choosing private alternatives
Capture rate
Five-year capture-rate trend

The question should not simply be: Why are there fewer children?

It should also be: Of the children who remain, why aren't more families choosing TUSD?

7. TUSD May Have Capacity in the Wrong Places

This is different from simply having too much capacity.

TUSD may simultaneously have underutilized schools and successful programs where demand exceeds available seats.

TUSD's School Choice process provides for oversubscribed schools and applicant pools when demand exceeds available capacity.

That creates an important strategic question:

How many students want to attend successful TUSD schools or programs but cannot get in?

Then calculate: Demand-to-Seat Ratio = Applications ÷ Available Seats

If TUSD has large numbers of unused seats while families are being turned away from desirable programs elsewhere in the district, the problem is not simply excess capacity.

It may be misallocated capacity.

TUSD should consider expanding programs families are actively choosing.

That could increase enrollment and revenue.

8. Too Little of TUSD’s Spending Reaches Instruction

According to FY2025 data reported from the Arizona Auditor General, TUSD devoted 48.5% of spending to instruction, down from 49.9% the prior year.

The statewide figure was 52.1%.

That does not automatically mean every noninstructional expenditure is unnecessary. Large urban districts have transportation, special education, facilities, student-support and administrative requirements that smaller districts may not share.

Nevertheless, the figure deserves serious examination—particularly when the district is confronting a structural deficit.

Every dollar used to maintain excess infrastructure is a dollar unavailable for another purpose.

TUSD should ask:

What activities add measurable value to students?
What costs exist because the district is operating too many facilities?
What administrative activities can be consolidated, automated or eliminated?
What expenditures should move closer to classrooms?

The objective should not simply be indiscriminate cost cutting.

It should be resource reallocation toward activities that improve student outcomes and make TUSD more attractive to families.

9. Aging Facilities Compete With Students for Scarce Resources

The school-reconfiguration discussion has highlighted another consequence of operating too many buildings: TUSD must spread limited facility resources across a large physical footprint.

At recent community meetings, consultant Bill de la Cruz described principals reporting leaking schools and deteriorating portable classrooms. District leaders have argued that maintaining too many underutilized facilities reduces the resources available for programs and staff serving students.

That makes facility condition a financial issue—not simply a maintenance issue.

Every school being evaluated should have a transparent facility profile:

Facility Condition Index
Annual Maintenance Cost
Utilities
Custodial Cost
Deferred Maintenance
Five-Year Capital Requirement
Ten-Year Capital Requirement
Square Feet per Student

A school that appears inexpensive today may actually be extremely expensive if millions of dollars of capital work will soon be required.

Conversely, closing a school in excellent condition while retaining a deteriorating building may create a poor long-term financial result.

School closure analysis therefore needs to consider life-cycle cost, not simply today's operating expense.

10. TUSD Needs a More Transparent, Integrated Recovery Plan

The biggest management challenge may be bringing all these problems together and communicating them to the TUSD Stakeholders.

The current Corporate Culture at TUSD appears to me to exclude sharing with the Board and Stakeholders.

School closures cannot be analyzed independently from enrollment.

Enrollment cannot be analyzed independently from academic performance and parent demand.

Facilities cannot be analyzed independently from operating costs.

And the operating deficit cannot be solved without understanding all of them.

TUSD needs an integrated public dashboard showing, for every school:

Enrollment Trend
Projected Enrollment
Capture Rate
Applications and Waiting List
Operational Capacity
Unused Seats
Academic Performance
Chronic Absenteeism
Total Operating Cost
Operating Cost per Student
Personnel Cost per Student
Facility Cost per Student
Deferred Maintenance
Five-Year Capital Needs
Estimated Revenue
Revenue-Cost Gap
Potential Revenue Opportunity
Estimated Avoidable Closure Savings

This is the type of information that should support school-reconfiguration decisions.

The Central Question: What Will TUSD Look Like Five Years From Now?

TUSD's current challenge should not be reduced to determining which six, eight or ten schools might close.

The larger question is:

What should a financially sustainable and academically successful TUSD look like in 2031?

That requires answering several difficult questions.

How many students will TUSD realistically serve?

How many schools are needed for that population?

Which programs are families actively choosing?

Where should those programs be located?

How much building capacity does TUSD actually need?

What is the appropriate staffing structure for a smaller district?

How much can realistically be saved through consolidation?

What recurring revenues can be increased?

And how will TUSD measure whether the restructuring actually improves student achievement?

TUSD has significant assets: experienced educators, successful schools and programs, valuable facilities, voter support, and a large population of families living within its boundaries.

But those assets do not eliminate the structural problems.

The Arizona Auditor General's financial-risk designation, continued enrollment losses, excess capacity, chronic absenteeism and the district's own acknowledgment of a $25 million structural deficit provide ample evidence that maintaining the status quo is not a sustainable strategy.

School closures may ultimately be part of the solution.

They are not the solution by themselves.

The real objective should be to create a smaller, financially sustainable, academically stronger and more competitive TUSD—one that families actively choose for their children.