Carvajal Elementary School on the West Side will be shuttered at the end of the 2025-26 school year.
On Tuesday night, the school board for San Antonio Independent School District voted to close the campus, keep Carvajal’s school bond dollars in the community and prioritize students and staff in the transfer process “upon availability.”
Superintendent Jaime Aquino was not present at the meeting due to a previous engagement. SAISD Chief of Staff Toni Thompson took his place but did not comment during discussions.
Carvajal is a tiny, academically struggling campus that’s been serving students for more than 75 years. The school currently has 319 students.
First opening its doors in 1949, Carvajal is located in one of the poorest ZIP codes of San Antonio: 78207. According to census data reports, the area has a median income of $30,655 and more than 40% of the population lives below the federal poverty level.
District administration first recommended the campus for closure in December, prompting a conflicted response from school board members concerned about disinvesting from an underserved neighborhood.
During a Jan. 8 meeting with Carvajal families and staff, several community members spoke out against the closure, criticizing SAISD for singling the campus out for academics and worried about the impact a closure would have on the neighborhood.
During that meeting, Aquino told community members he would advocate for the closure.
“I have to do it,” he said. “The implications are significant, not only for Carvajal, but for the entire district.”
Families from that neighborhood also rely on partnerships Carvajal has with local nonprofits like Good Samaritan Community Services, which provides several early education and youth programs.
District staff brought the closure to board members again Jan. 12, but the board decided to delay any action to gather more feedback from the community.
Board President Alicia Sebastian, who was on the board during SAISD’s mass school ‘rightsizing’ process in 2023, said Carvajal is not the end of the district’s rightsizing process.
“We are going to have these conversations more frequently,” she said after the board voted to close Carvajal. “I think it would be best served for us to specifically implement a growth and strategy committee of community stakeholders that can support us in the actual identification process of these buildings as we look at enrollment trends as we move forward.”
Declining enrollment
Following a districtwide trend, Carvajal’s enrollment has significantly decreased within the past few years. The school has lost nearly 200 students since 2020.
Since public school funding in Texas is based on average daily attendance, SAISD officials say the campus is costing the district more than it’s bringing in state dollars.
The school’s small dual language program also plays a part. For a dual language program to be considered healthy, officials say enrollment should be greater than 150 students, but Carvajal has only 79 students.
Enrollment is so low that Carvajal has a few split classes, meaning teachers are doing double duty teaching two grades at once or teaching general education and dual language students at the same time.
Cynthia Bever, a second-grade teacher and reading specialist at Carvajal, said staff morale was low, and several teachers and staff are already looking for other jobs, regardless of whether Carvajal closed or not.
SAISD says at least 151 children who live inside the Carvajal school zone have opted to enroll elsewhere. Officials also point to the area’s declining birth rate, which had decreased by 43% since 1999, outpacing the city’s 37% reduction.
Shawn Bird, deputy superintendent of school leadership and partnership services at SAISD, says Carvajal has more staff than the campus can pay for based on enrollment.
District enrollment counts from October show the district has 1,600 fewer students than originally projected for the current school year and enrollment could drop by another 2,000 for the upcoming 2026-27 school year.
Currently, SAISD operates 84 campuses, 30 of which have less than 400 students. Based on enrollment and the district’s aging facilities, officials say SAISD should have closer to 50 schools.
Student grades
Carvajal’s closure is the first time SAISD has weighed academic outcomes in its rightsizing process.
Carvajal has gotten an F-rating from the state three years in a row.
If a school receives a failing grade — an F or D — for four consecutive years, the Texas Education Agency has discretion to close that campus or take over a district by replacing school board members with a state-appointed board of managers and a new superintendent.
At five years, TEA is required to intervene by state law.
In December, the state announced it was taking over districts in Beaumont, Lake Worth and Connally. A few months before that, the state took over Forth Worth Independent School District over a failing school the district had already closed on its own.
State takeover was not required by law in those cases, and SAISD officials worry their district could be next.
Carvajal is only one of 18 campuses on a district “watchlist” for getting failing ratios several years in a row.
Based on recent testing, SAISD said Carvajal has shown growth but will likely get another “unacceptable” rating from the state for the 2025-26 school year.
What happens next?
Closing Carvajal could also open up the path for a new state-of-the-art campus, officials said, since the school has about $28.6 million in unspent bond dollars that would have to stay in the neighborhood even if the school shutters.
Carvajal is located right next to Rhodes Middle School, another under-enrolled and aging campus with about $47.5 million left in bond funds. If Carvajal closes, SAISD would likely explore the possibility of tearing down both campuses to build a bigger elementary school or pre-K to 8th grade academy that would sustain enrollment or attract more students.
Deputy Superintendent Patti Salzmann said the district would hold a community meeting to get feedback on a plan for a new building in Carvajal’s place.
Carvajal will close its doors at the end of this school year with many students recommended to transfer to Barkley-Ruiz Elementary School nearly two miles away, while bilingual students are recommended to move to DeZavala Elementary, also about two miles away.
Barkley-Ruiz is a B-rated campus and DeZavala is a C-rated campus. Both campuses are also under-enrolled, meaning Carvajal’s closure could give Barkley-Ruiz and DeZavala healthier student counts and budgets, since school funding is based on enrollment and attendance.
“The action to reassign students will ensure that they are attending schools with a higher rating,” Salzmann said. “Our goal would be, to the maximum extent possible to have the students and teachers travel together.”
If families choose not to attend the newly assigned schools, they could also apply for SAISD’s “Choice School” or magnet program. The application deadline was Jan. 30 but SAISD extended it to Feb. 16 because of the closure.
Current Carvajal employees would need to fill out a reassignment preference form, and the district would reassign staff based on preferences and openings. The district would also allow for extra time during its job transfer fair for employees transitioning to a new campus, no resume or interviews required.
Salzmann said the district would also provide Carvajal staff retention bonuses.
As for the greater community, Salzmann said the district is meeting with other agencies — the city, county and local nonprofits — to develop a bigger plan for investment for the West Side.
No other failing campuses are currently being considered for closure at this time, but SAISD will have to consider closing more campuses in the future to deal with declining enrollment and its multimillion budget deficit.
“This type of reimagining what neighborhood schools look like on the West Side should also be done on the East Side,” and throughout the district, said Trustee Ed Garza. “We need to make sure there aren’t surprises.”
