YISD proposes rebuilding Eastwood High School

Parents in the Ysleta independent School District say they are in dire need of more resources for schools.

The district is only weeks away from proposing a master plan that if approved would go to the voters for a bond election.

District officials tell ABC-7 the price tag for the master plan can be any where from $300 million to $460 million.

Some $70 to $75 million of that money would go to re-building Eastwood High School.

Eastwood High School was built in 1961 and although many changes have been made to the campus since then, officials say it’s what you can’t see from outside that needs to be torn down.

“Eastwood has a plethora of problems,” said Xavier De La Torre, district superintendent.

De La Torre says the 53-year-old high school is in need of a complete overhaul.

“(It’s) an amazing place with limited resources,” said Eastwood Principal Armenia Smith.

Smith tells ABC-7 she’s worked at other schools and sees firsthand the issues Eastwood has to deal with.

“There’s a great deal of leakage,” said De La torre.

One of the problems the school deals with is an old roof.

“If there’s a rain there’s at least 10 or 15 places in the building that are leaking and need to be repaired,” said Smith.

“They’ve done a lot of patch work during the years,” said Ruly Medrano.

Medrano is a teacher and former student of Eastwood.

Medrano said maintenance crews do the best they can but it’s not enough some problems inconvenience students.

“Just in the past year they’ve had to close the main hall when it would rain just because the roof would cave in on itself,” said student Britainy Barnes.

And when the roof leaks, “They’ll just move you over and put like a cup in the way,” said freshman Madison Saenz.

But one of the bigger issues is space.

“Spacially it’s not efficient,” said Medrano.

“The building hallway traffic, we don’t have enough space in our theater we don’t have enough space in our fine arts building for our band,” said Smith.

District officials tell ABC-7 parking is also an issue.

“We end up having to go park in the neighborhood,” Barnes said.

Students teachers and officials say the master plan isn’t about having new shiny building it’s about making a better future for generations to come.

“I think they do deserve it,” said Medrano.

“People want change. They want to make sure that the American student is as capable as any other student in the world to compete for those new and exiting jobs that in many cases haven’t been defined yet,” said De La Torre.

De La Torre says if the bond is passed it would take three to four years to build a new Eastwood High School.

The master plan for the whole district will be presented to the board Feb. 16 and is expected to be approved on Feb. 18.

If approved it goes to a bond election.