EPISD considers closing Douglass Elementary instead of Beall

The El Paso School District is considering closing 4 of its elementary schools, but there’s a possibility one of those schools could be spared.

As ABC-7 has reported, the schools being considered for closure are Schuster, Burleson, Alta Vista and Beall elementary.

However, EPISD says Douglass Elementary could be the campus that closes at the end of the school year instead of Beall.

Douglass and Beall are located about 3 blocks away from one another in south-central El Paso.

EPISD spokeswoman, Melissa Martinez, says the neighborhood where the two schools are located isn’t expected to grow and that is doesn’t make sense for both schools to remain open since both are at under-capacity.

Douglass Elementary is nearly 100 years old and it’s the bigger of the two campuses in terms of space.

It’s capacity is 680, but it currently has a student population of only 228.

Beall Elementary has a few more students than Douglass at 348 and it’s capacity is 714.

EPISD says the problem with Beall is that it’s in need of renovations.

Douglass is currently being renovated and Martinez says both campuses do have the capacity to meet each other’s needs, but at this point it’s not known which campus will close at the end of the school year.

“Again these are options right now. Until the decision is made for the board, we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves,” Martinez said. “But know that everyone will be helped with the transition whether it’s employees, our students and our parents. We will help them with those transfers and registration process for the new campus.”

EPISD says closing the 4 schools will save the district about one million dollars for each campus, so about $4 million dollars a year.

EPISD is expected to make a final decision on the school closures next month.