The Rodriguez Montessori Elementary School program in the San Antonio Independent School District will no longer be relocating to an empty wing in Ogden Elementary School after swift community backlash to its last-minute addition to a sweeping district redesign that included the closure of 15 schools.
“We are deeply grateful for the productive dialogue we engaged in during our community meeting on Tuesday, November 28,” Superintendent Jaime Aquino said in a letter to parents. “Your thoughtful contributions were invaluable, and they have prompted a reevaluation of our plans for the Rodriguez school.”
Days before the board of trustees was set to vote on a final recommendation for school closures earlier this month, district officials released an amended proposal that included a surprise addition: relocating Rodriguez to an empty wing in Ogden Elementary School to allow that school campus to remain open. Both schools are on the West Side.
The physical campus at Rodriguez would be closed despite not being on an initial list of closure recommendations. All the teachers and students would be moved to “co-locate” both schools on one campus.
The backlash was swift and harsh, with parents sharing feelings of anger and betrayal and a petition demanding a reversal garnering more than 100 signatures in the days after it was announced.
“There has been zero time for community engagement. There has been zero explanation of what this merger means,” Juliette Montoya, a parent, said at the time. “There are so many concerns we have about this merger especially because we operate under a Montessori program. Montessori does not work unless the entire campus is committed to upholding the Montessori method.”
The district partially reversed course on Nov. 12 by pausing a decision on Rodriguez, just hours before the board voted to move ahead with the rest of the proposal. A well-attended community meeting was held Tuesday to hear feedback before a final decision was made.
At that meeting, parents shared feelings of betrayal, disrespect and a distaste for the idea that they needed to devise solutions to stave off closure or relocation after such a late notice.
“It just makes us feel like we are this last-minute decision,” Amanda Asel said. “We have three weeks to come up with a solution to a problem we didn’t know we had. We’re just learning about this problem.”
Trustee Stephanie Torres, who voted against the school closures, said she was glad the district allowed parents’ voices to be heard. During the last school board campaign, Torres spoke about how her son and family were impacted by a past school closure due to low academic performance.
“It is kind of an emotional full-circle moment,” she said Tuesday, pointing to other parents in the room. “I am one of those parents.”
Many parents shared appreciation for the responsiveness after a meeting that stretched late into Tuesday night, lasting 4½ hours.
Community members also argued that the program, which only started in 2020, had not been given enough time to grow to fruition, while also sharing concerns about a clash between the traditional elementary school model and the Montessori model, which uses a teaching philosophy that focuses on hands-on, student-led learning that differs significantly from a traditional elementary school.
Aquino said in his email Thursday that the district heard that feedback and took it to heart.
“We understand that Rodriguez Montessori has been open for about three years, including the challenging times of the COVID pandemic,” he said. “With a waiting list in place and a commitment to excellence, the school has yet to reach its maximum enrollment in all grades.”
But problems still exist for the school, which has low enrollment, low capacity and is among the most expensive to operate in the district.
The dual language model requires the school to consist of half emergent bilingual students and half English-speaking students.
The waitlist, which rivals the enrollment of the campus, is made up of primarily English-speaking students. So, without more emergent bilingual students seeking specialized education on the campus, those on the waiting list are stuck unless they opt to enter a monolingual classroom that teaches Montessori in English.
To clear the waiting list, parents suggested a Spanish Immersion program, which focuses on having all subjects in Spanish to teach English speakers to learn the language proficiently.
Such a transition wouldn’t be simple, however, according to Myriam Jimena Guerra, an associate professor in the Department of Bilingual and ESL Education at Texas A&M- San Antonio.
That’s due, in part, to the ongoing lack of bilingual certified teachers impacting schools across the state, as well as the differing goals of the two programs.
“Dual language is looking to teach biliteracy, which is being able to read and write in the two languages and use both languages at the academic level long term,” she said. “In Spanish Immersion, basically everything is going to be in Spanish, all the subjects, everything is going to be in that language.”
It is also unclear what will now happen to the 52% of Ogden Elementary School that sits empty, with only 48% of the school’s capacity being used by current student enrollment, which is projected to fall again.
Whatever the next steps are, according to Aquino, they will also be driven by a community discussion after the holidays.
“Together, we can resolve the challenges and ensure that the school becomes fully enrolled and financially sustainable,” he said. “It was clear that the community is ready to assist us in ensuring the school attains full enrollment, achieves financial sustainability, and upholds the integrity of the dual-language Montessori model, that the community holds in such high regard.”
