The Harlandale Independent School district board of trustees voted 4-3 Monday night to close several campuses and reorganize the district to save money as it faces declining enrollment and a $12 million budget deficit.
Board President Norma Cavazos and trustees Elizabeth Limon and Elaine Anaya-Ortiz voted against the measure, called Option B, which was one of three options.
With the passage of Option B, the schools that will be closed are: Columbia Heights Elementary, Morrill Elementary, Rayburn Elementary and Carroll Bell Elementary.Â
The board first voted on Option A, which had Vestal Elementary slated for closure instead of Carroll Bell, but it failed with four “no” votes and three “yes” votes.
Option C, which called for not repurposing any campus, was not voted on since Option B passed.
Anaya-Ortiz proposed to partner with a university to continue operating Carroll Bell, but her bid to save the school failed when the motion was not seconded.
Almost 20 teachers, students and parents from the affected campuses spoke during an emotional hour-long public comment session before the vote at a special meeting at Harlandale Early College High School.
Teachers, who wore shirts emblazoned with campus mascots and Texas State Teachers Association union shirts, shared what the neighborhood schools have meant to the community over the years.
Emotional parents and staff left the meeting after it became clear that Carroll Bell Elementary would be on the list of closing schools.
The opposite was the case for Peggy Costello, a Vestal parent, after the school was spared closure. She breathed a sigh of relief along with her son, AJ, an eighth-grader who attended Vestal just a few years ago.
“I was scared because that was my school when I was growing up,” AJ said.
Peggy Costello said the situation is sad for the students at the other schools.
“I know they are going to be moved around to all of our schools, so they are going to be very welcomed at all the schools around.”
Before voting, trustees spoke for nearly an hour, evoking images of family and stressing how difficult it was to vote on an option.
Trustee Juan Mancha recalled growing up as a first-generation American and getting advice from a teacher that he could be anything he wanted.
“We are the ones that are going to make them who they are going to be,” he said. “Not the campus. Not the building.”
Trustee Louie Luna, a retired Harlandale ISD teacher, emphasized the importance of protecting public education, given the current push for laws that would allow public funds to be used for private schools.
“Gov. Abbott does not care what happens to us,” Luna said. “How many of our parents have kids that are rejected by our charter schools? We are like the statue of liberty of schools … we take everyone.”
He also stressed the importance of taking action, mentioning Judy Castleberry, a conservator appointed by the Texas Education Agency to oversee the district following an investigation into the district’s governance practices.
“If we don’t do something, something will be done to us,” he said.
Castleberry commended the district’s actions in a recent interview with the San Antonio Report.
“I think the district has worked very diligently to bring forward the information that’s relevant to this current situation,” she said.
Susan Salinas, who spoke on behalf of union members, questioned why Castleberry was still overseeing the district after being appointed in 2020, despite improvements in the district.
Castleberry previously told the Report that after the district meets a number of requirements, including a plan for a balanced budget, she is set to depart her conservator role in December.
Harlandale’s move comes just days after the South San Antonio Independent School District’s board of trustees, facing a similar situation, voted to close three schools to cut spending.
The consolidation in Harlandale will involve merging several schools within the district, while moving administrative offices and departments into the empty schools, which school officials say will result in cost savings and increased efficiency.
The funding troubles that necessitated the move come in part from declining enrollment in the district, which has dropped from over 15,000 in 2013 to just over 12,000 in 2023.
The students remaining in the district are also attending school less often, according to data presented by the district at a series of town halls leading up to the vote Monday night. School funding in Texas is based on average daily attendance. That metric has fallen from 93% in the 2018-19 school year to 89.77% in the 2022-23 school year.
Part of that enrollment decline can be attributed to charter schools, which have been recruiting near the campuses slated for closure, according to public comments by parents.
The district has faced both backlash and understanding at town hall events and board meetings in recent weeks from concerned parents and community members from the schools that face closure.
Kimberly Machado, a second-grade teacher at Rayburn Elementary School, said before the meeting that she first heard about the possibility of consolidations and school closures in December.
“I was hoping it wasn’t true,” she told the Report.
Machado said district staff visited her campus and assured her and other teachers that they would still have jobs, with priority given to senior employees.
Harlandale ISD Superintendent Gerardo Soto has said throughout the process that the consolidation is necessary in order to ensure the financial stability of the district. Without change, the district faced the possibility of staffing cuts as soon as January of 2024, he said.
Cavazos spoke emotionally before the vote.
“I know of no other district that is family first, and then a school district,” she said.
Several teachers and parents welcomed the move, and asked the community to come together as a district.
“As a Vestal teacher I am not wearing a Vestal shirt tonight,” one woman said. “I am wearing a Harlandale shirt.”
