School closures a sensitive issue for parents, students with strong ties to particular school

The budget and enrollment problems plaguing El Paso’s largest school district can be attributed to not enough families with children moving into the area, El Paso Independent School District Superintendent Juan Cabrera told ABC-7 Tuesday.

“What’s happening here is not a lot of babies are being born in the shool district and that’s what we need to figure out. I’m going to have meetings with the city manager and with the mayor to talk about, hopefully, supporting infield development. This is really a housing issue,” Cabrera said.

For years, EPISD has experienced a decline in enrollment as more and more families move to Far East and Northwest El Paso. School districts in those areas, meantime, are experiencing an increase in their student populations.

On Monday, EPISD released a list of 10 schools possibly slated for closure to help the district eliminate a budget shortfall. The schools are: Beall, Schuster, Moye, Hawkins, Rivera, Rusk, Alta Vista, Bonham, Johnson and Roberts.

Staff told school board members the closures are needed to eliminate seven million dollar budget shortfall. The district blamed declining enrollment for its drop in revenue.

Schools on the list had fewer than 55 percent enrollment this past school year. Fewer students means fewer tax dollars, the district says.

School closures, in any district, can be a sensitive issue because students, parents and teachers have emotional ties to a particular school.

“The conversation is that we’d be sad to be closed,” said Margaret Gallardo, a teacher at Alta Vista.

Some teachers ABC-7 spoke with said they understand why it’s happening. Attendance at Alta Vista, like the other nine schools, and throughout the school district, is down. Gallardo believes fewer than 400 students attended Alta Vista last school year.

“Many of my student’s parents went to Alta Vista. Their parents went to Alta Vista. My mother went to Alta Vista. So they kinda stayed in the neighborhood, so there are a lot of emotional ties,” Gallardo said.

Teachers like Gallardo have been told they will keep their jobs. They just don’t know where they’ll be reporting to until the board makes a final decision.

The uncertainty that’s making students, parents and teachers, uneasy. “People are afraid. It’s very scary for many, many people,” Gallardo said.

The nine schools are slated to close over a five year period, Alta Vista is scheduled to close a year from now.