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A task force of parents, staff, and community members has released 11 ideas to consolidate schools in the Edgewood Independent School District.
Edgewood is the fourth San Antonio school district to consider school closures in 2023. Declining enrollment and tight finances are pushing the districts to downsize.
Several ideas suggested by the Edgewood task force would consolidate elementary schools and early childhood centers. A handful of others focus on the middle school grades.
The 11 ideas represent every possibility suggested by the task force, according to the district’s chief of staff, Olga Moucoulis. Edgewood only has 19 schools, and will most likely end up implementing just a few of them.
At a town hall on Friday, David Perez was one of several Edgewood Fine Arts Academy students to ask about the suggestion to close Wrenn Middle School and add 6th through 8th grade to the Fine Arts high school.
“A lot of our classrooms are currently being used at Fine Arts,” Perez said. “Will we have enough classrooms to fit the students?”
Edgewood Senior Director Mary Miller-Baker said the original plan for the academy was to make it 6-12 grade, and that building capacity was one of the reasons the suggestion was made.
A group of younger students also spoke in favor of Winston Elementary, some in Spanish.
“Lo que me gusta de esa escuela es — mi favorita special — es el arte porque hemos cosas divertidades. Y tambien hay una maestra que nos ayuda mucho. Se llama Ms. Franco,” said a boy named Timoty. "My favorite special is art because we make fun things," he said in Spanish. "I have a teacher who helps us a lot named Ms. Franco."
One of the task force’s suggestions would close Winston and move Winston students to other schools. However, the task force also suggested moving students to Winston from H.B. Gonzalez Elementary or the Gardendale Early Learning Program.
Whatever the district decides to do, Belinda Peña asked them to keep an option close to home for students like her grandson, who would have attended Gardendale before it became a pk-2 school.
“I live real close to Gardendale. I have to come all the way to Henry B. Now they're going to close Henry B and move us to Winston or LBJ. That is too far,” Peña said. “All these kids that live around there will just go to a charter school. You all are complaining you are losing kids. You are going to lose more kids.”
Several other speakers at the town hall focused on the suggestion to co-locate the district’s single-gender academies on one campus.
Jason Fonseca said he and his wife chose to send their daughter to Las Palmas because it’s a single-gender school and they wanted to instill a sense of strength in her.
“What Las Palmas is doing is creating that sisterhood and keeping them as an all-girls school, I feel, is important to me,” Fonseca said. “I'm going to be honest. We've already talked about if this happens, I'm sorry, but eventually we may pull her out.”
Edgewood has a final town hall on the initial suggestions Monday evening at Memorial High School.
Afterwards, the task force will narrow down their recommendations based on community feedback and financial feasibility. Those recommendations will be presented to the board on Nov. 7 during a public board workshop. The board will vote on the final list Nov. 14.
Each school in the district has a parent and a staff member on the task force. One of the considerations they’ve been asked to consider is the cost to repair the district’s buildings. It’s been nearly 15 years since Edgewood went out for a bond.
