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Opinion: Proposed EPISD school closures threaten our neighborhoods [1]
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Date: 2024-11-18
By Chris Canales
Schools are more than just institutions of learning — they are anchors of our neighborhoods, spaces where children discover and develop their unique selves, and hubs of community identity.
Chris Canales
In El Paso’s City Council District 8, we take pride in elementary schools like Putnam, Lamar and Zavala, as well as neighboring Carlos Rivera, which also serves many of my constituents. These campuses, serving tight-knit and often disadvantaged neighborhoods, have long been symbols of neighborhood resilience, achievement, and hope.
The El Paso Independent School District has proposed closing these schools, and several more across the city, as part of a plan to address declining enrollment and budget challenges. The EPISD Board of Trustees will vote this Tuesday on whether to move forward with the closures.
While the district’s financial struggles are real, the proposed closures reflect a process that has undermined trust and overlooks the broader consequences for our community.
Blue Ribbon campuses like Lamar and Putnam, and others with “A” and “Gold Ribbon” ratings among the closure list, represent educational excellence in neighborhoods that have faced systemic challenges for decades. Shutting them down is a blow not just to the students they serve but to their families and to the stability and future of entire communities.
Instead of hastily closing schools, EPISD should pause and reconsider its approach. For starters, a comprehensive equity audit is needed to ensure these decisions are grounded in community input and long-term sustainability. Such an audit is already underway; EPISD trustees don’t need to make a decision before receiving and analyzing the results.
This is a vote that will have an effect far beyond the walls of the campuses, and it will certainly weigh on more than just EPISD’s annual budget.
As I emphasize often, driving families out of the established neighborhoods in the core of the city increases infrastructure demands and utility service costs for all of us as El Paso sprawls further out, and those expensive changes are largely permanent. All of these long-term external impacts need to be weighed as heavily as any shorter-term impact on EPISD’s balance sheet.
The city government is finally moving in the direction of more and better infill development, hopefully bringing families into the urban core. EPISD’s stated problem is low enrollment, but what parent will move into a neighborhood without a school for their child?
The potential benefit of these closures has also been murky. Projections of savings have seemingly shifted multiple times, leaving taxpayers like myself questioning their validity. There is likewise little evidence of any savings from past closures, which have also left EPISD with the conundrum of what to do with vacant schools.
When the city purchased the former Morehead Middle School from EPISD for use as an emergency shelter and animal adoption center, I was shocked to see the abysmal condition it was in. Every window had been shattered; floors and ceilings were ruined by vandals who had sprayed all of the fire extinguishers; plumbing fixtures were destroyed.
How can empty and decaying campuses be considered progress for our city? How does this level of deterioration represent value to El Paso taxpayers?
Schools are vital to the success of our neighborhoods. Closing them should be the last resort in cutting costs, not the first option, and the stakeholders most affected by these decisions – families and taxpayers, teachers and staff members – need to be given adequate opportunity to meaningfully weigh in on the district’s future.
EPISD can build a thoughtful, transparent, and equitable plan for greater financial stability without jeopardizing the fabric of our community. That approach will lead to far better outcomes for both students and the neighborhoods that they and their families call home.
Chris Canales represents District 8 on El Paso City Council, encompassing the Southside, Downtown, and Westside areas.
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2024/11/18/opinion-episd-school-closing-plan-is-bad-for-el-paso-chris-canales/
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