Start here: for thirty years, Deer Park ISD has sent money away. Because the district sits on one of the richest property-tax bases in Texas — the Houston Ship Channel’s refineries and petrochemical plants — the state’s recapture (“Robin Hood”) system has it hand a share of what it collects locally back to Austin, to be spread to poorer districts. It is the single most important fact about the district’s finances, so the page leads with it.

The shape tells the story. Through the late 1990s the district sent $34–42 million a year to the state. Then the plants’ taxable value fell — appraisal fights and value-limitation deals — and after 2010 recapture collapsed: $4,024TEA Recapture Paid by District 1993-94 to 2025-26 (Nov 2025 in SY2011, $0TEA Recapture Paid by District 1993-94 to 2025-26 (Nov 2025 in SY2012. It has since settled near $4,572,286CDN 101908, sheet FY94-FY26, SY2026; re-derived 2026-08-10 a year (SY2026). Across the full run, 1994–2026, the district has paid ~$624,022,726CDN 101908 (sum FY94-FY26); deer_park_isd.md Gap 1 — roughly a third of a billion dollars raised in Deer Park and spent educating children elsewhere. Next door, La Porte’s district has paid $834,463,458CDN 101916 over its own run, versus Deer Park’s ~$624,022,726CDN 101908 (sum FY94-FY26); deer_park_isd.md Gap 1.

Every point on the chart is a row in the state’s own ledger. per-year: dp.isd.recapture.sy1994…sy2026 (TEA Recapture Paid by District, CDN 101908)

The district enrolls 12,026 studentsTexas Tribune Schools Explorer (TEA enrollment data) across 14 schools — a count that has fallen 9.4% since 2016. 46.2%https://schools.texastribune.org/districts/deer-park-isd/ of students are economically disadvantaged. General-fund spending runs $12,604100 per student.

Read that per-student figure carefully. For a recapture district it bundles dollars sent to the state, so it overstates what reaches a Deer Park classroom — comparing it head-to-head with a non-recapture district is a mislabel trap. How well the young are served for what is actually spent is the deeper question; that investigation continues on a later pass.

The tax rate has come down as the state compressed school Maintenance & Operations rates: from $1.5567 per $100M&O $1.2367 + I&S $0.3200 in 2016-17, to $1.1213 per $100printed p.117 / PDF p.125 in 2024, to $1.138900 per $100M&O $0.8689 + Debt Service $0.2700 adopted for 2025 — with Debt Service held flat at $0.270000 per $100DPISD Resolution for Levying Ad Valorem Taxes 2025-2026. Behind that I&S rate sits $387,921,238decreased $21,961,772 / 5%; Moody's Aa1 GO of bonded debt, rated Moody’s Aa1.

A full year-by-year rate series and the bond-issuance history (Texas Bond Review Board) are a further pull — named, not yet on this page.

Recapture is large for the same reason the city has an off-roll industrial district: the refineries and petrochemical plants along the Houston Ship Channel. Industrial property — the state’s F2 and L2 categories — totals $11,077,496,246derived — Texas Comptroller PVS 2024 (F2 + L2 sum) on the district’s roll, about ~61%derived — F2 $7,168,775,633 + L2 $3,908,720,613 of its $18,254,455,953Texas Comptroller School District Property Value Study (PVS) gross local tax roll (Texas Comptroller PVS, CDN 101-908, 2024). That base makes Deer Park ISD wealthy per student on paper — wealthy enough that the state treats it as a donor district — even as the plants’ taxable value swings with appraisal and value-limitation agreements. When that value fell after 2010, so did recapture.

On the state’s wealth-per-WADA yardstick — taxable value per weighted student — the district sits at $906,200CDN 101908, against $1,694,900CDN 101916 (=$15.22B/8977 WADA) at neighboring La Porte ISD, about 1.87× as high.

Deer Park ISD runs 14 campusesTexas Tribune Schools Explorer — eight elementary, four middle, two high schools — enrolling 12,026 studentsTexas Tribune Schools Explorer (TEA enrollment data), 66%https://schools.texastribune.org/districts/deer-park-isd/ Hispanic and 46.2%https://schools.texastribune.org/districts/deer-park-isd/ economically disadvantaged. It employs about ~827NCES district directory 2024-25 / TEA TAPR classroom teachers among ~1,995NCES district directory 2024-25 total staff — roughly one teacher for every fifteen students.

Day to day, the district is run by 7NCES district directory 2024-25 / TEA TAPR central administrators, with ~91NCES district directory 2024-25 more at the campuses: seven people at the center of a 12,026-student, $205,295,361Total Expenses 100% operation. It is governed by a seven-member elected Board of Trustees serving staggered three-year terms, meeting the third Monday of each month.

The state’s own verdict. Under Texas’s A–F accountability system, the Texas Education Agency rated Deer Park ISD BTexas Education Agency A-F accountability (via Texas Tribune for 2024 — a B across all three domains (Student Achievement, School Progress, Closing the Gaps). That is the state’s grade; the Council reports it and issues none of its own.

Measured against the benchmark. Where the district publishes an outcome, the record sets it beside the statewide number, so you can see above or below and draw your own line:

• Four-year graduation rate ~91%TEA Texas Academic Performance Report 2024-25 — just above the statewide rate (~90%), Class of 2024.
• Average teacher experience 12.9 yearsTEA Texas Academic Performance Report 2024-25 — above the statewide average of about eleven years.
• Teacher turnover 13.3%TEA Texas Academic Performance Report 2024-25 — the TEA-reported rate, below the state’s recent mid-teens average.

STAAR proficiency by subject and grade — including the high-school mathematics signal, the clearest weak point in the district’s testing record — is a deeper TEA TAPR clean-extraction pass: named here, not yet rendered. When it lands, each rate will sit beside the state figure and the reader will draw the line, not the Council.

Deer Park ISD is run by a seven-member elected Board of Trustees, which meets monthly — the third Monday, 6:00 PM. The rate, the budget, and the bond decisions on this page are theirs.

This page is the record. If you want to move it — show up, ask a question, organize a neighbor — that is what Think and Act Locally is for. The record names where we are; residents move it from there.