SAN ANTONIO — Harlan High School parents are voicing their concerns after they said buses were delayed, students were late to class and hallways were overcrowded with students this week.
The Northside ISD school started its fall semester Monday, which is when Jamie Vera’s daughter captured a photo of a crowded area on campus.
“Seeing my daughter's pictures of what the campus looks like of children navigating through Harlan High School was scary,” Vera said. “I'm most concerned with the overcrowding.”
Vera said she and other parents were concerned about packed classrooms, cafeteria and hallways.
“We had children sitting on the ground in the cafeteria because there were not enough seats,” said Vera. “We had children bumping into each other so much in the hallways, the kids were falling downstairs, people being jostled side to side.”
While the COVID-19 pandemic still making a huge impact, Vera said the spread of the virus isn’t her only worry.
“I'm concerned for our students for what that means in a pandemic era for safety,” said Vera. “If an event happened at school, whether it was just a simple fire emergency or some other kind of emergency, there is no way that children would be able to safely evacuate under those conditions.”
The other issue upsetting parents: chaos on the roads. Video from the second day of school shows long lines of cars causing a major traffic jam and school bus delays, resulting in students being late to class.
Northside ISD leaders said construction in the area is the root cause.
“It’s out of our control,” said Barry Perez, Northside ISD’s executive director of communications. “We would love to have control over some of that construction, over some of the weather that I know has contributed to the delay in that construction.”
Perez said growth in the area has led to a significant increase in enrollment. Harlan High School has an additional 800 students this school year.
“Certainly, one of the things that they are maneuvering is more students this year than previous,” he added. “That, unfortunately, is something that the campus is aware of, that we are aware of.”
Perez said a new high school set to open in August of 2022 is expected to alleviate those numbers.
But for now, among other things, campus leaders have opened other spaces for students to gather, especially during lunch.
Perez said Harlan High leaders acknowledge some classes are large, and counselors are working to fix that issue after some enrolled students were“no-shows” during the first few days of school.
“One the first day, those enrollment numbers aren’t always what they look like by the end of the week,” said Perez. “One of the things that dedicated campus staff like counselors engage in is working to balance those classrooms.”
Perez said the district supports the mask mandate as their No. 1 priority is keeping students safe.
“Recognizing that while we may be limited in certain areas, the mask mandate was something that we could do to help mitigate the spread of it,” said Perez.
Vera said while she understands the construction issue is out of their control, she’d still appreciate better communication from the district.
“What is our plan B? Because right now plan A is failing and we don't have any communication about what's going on,” said Vera.
Perez said they are working on better opening the lines of communication.
“What we do have control over is the messaging and keeping our parents and community members informed, letting them know that we're going to continue to advocate, that we're going to continue to stay in communication,” said Perez.
Perez said students who are late to class due to transportation issues will not be penalized.