SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio ISD is considering closing 19 schools, most of them next year, in a new "rightsizing" plan that would help counter declining enrollment. See the full list of schools currently set to close here.
Saturday morning, the district held a meeting at Lowell Middle School to get feedback from parents and staff about the new rightsizing proposal.
The district has around 45,000 students, and 100 campuses, but some of those campuses are now only at half capacity, which can spread resources too thin. Saturday, Superintendent Jaime Aquino said the district gets around $9,000 per student from the state, but it can cost more than $14,000 to serve individual students on some campuses. He said he recently visited one campus that only saw their social worker once a week.
By shutting down schools and consolidating students, Aquino said some students could have additional electives such as theater, music, or even Mariachi classes in addition to better educational resources overall.
"When I spoke to one mother privately, she told me, 'so you're saying we could have the opportunity of a full-time music teacher?' I said, 'yes!,'" Aquino said. "I think that once we explain the rational and what the vision is, it alleviates some of the fears."
Still, community members had a lot of questions.
"How are you going to decide what administrators are over what school?" one person asked.
"Is there any concern as how merging the schools... is there no concern that these specific kids are going to have lower academic achievement?" another person asked.
Aquino said most schools had so much extra room that class sizes should not get too big, although some classes could still remain smaller. He also said the district wanted to keep all teachers and staff throughout the process.
"Nobody will lose their job, including our principles," Aquino said. "We are committed to making sure we find the right place for our dedicated staff."
Aquino also told parents that the district knew it had to look at each campus carefully so they don't lose students.
"If we don't do this process really well, we could lose kids, they could decide to go look for other options," Aquino said.
SAISD decided what schools to close by looking at enrollment, the cost per student, and additional "contextual criteria."
Aquino told KENS 5 some schools met the first two criteria for closure, but the school district would not have been able to provide "continuity of programs" for those those students, so they chose to keep the schools open.
Most parents, Aquino said, simply wanted to know who the new principle would be after two schools merged, or had security concerns about having middle school kids closer to elementary school kids.
Lowell Middle School Principle Yvonne Hernandez also addressed parents about the possible closure and said they were ready to merge with another campus if needed.
"Our staff here at Lowell is excited and ready should this get approved on November 13th. That's exciting," Hernandez said. "I hear over and over that school safety is a concern, that is my concern as a school principle every day. I know that when you drop off your child you are expecting and trusting that we take care of them. We are committed to that and should we merge, and that be approved, we are going to stay committed to that."
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