You're right, I haven't been in Houston in years....But the dynamic of loss of school-age population holds up....Those with kids obviously there can't afford to live in such luxury...or they opt to go the private school route....Same in the other metro areas in Texas, I suspect....FWISD, DISD, AISD, HISD, SAISD have all taken hits and have far fewer top-enrollment (6A now) schools than they did in even the 1980s (5A was tops then).....
I think it could very well be an intentional choice of the specific case of FWISD to operate 3A, 4A and 5A schools, leaving Paschal the only 6A school....Numbers-wise, there was no reason to build Benbrook High School which resulted in halving Western Hills....Those two schools could be reconsolidated....Carter-Riverside, Diamond Hill, and North Side could be combined for a good 5A, maybe even 6A school, following the 9-10, 11-12 model...one campus house the lower grades, another other house the upper grades, the third campus could be the site of specialized programs....Same model could be used by recombining Poly and Wyatt, and by consolidating Dunbar and Eastern Hills....But evidently FWISD has decided that bigger is not always better as well as being afraid of public backlash to closure/repurposing of historic campuses such as Carter, Diamond Hill, North Side, and Poly....And I suspect that the creation of Benbrook High was an attempt to stop the exodus of west siders to the evils of Aledo (sort of kidding).....