Education

Edgewood ISD task force recommends two schools close

Texas Public Radio | By Camille Phillips

Published November 13, 2023 at 5:11 PM CST

People in t-shirts and jeans sit in burgundy auditorium seats and listen intently as a woman asks a question at a microphone. — Edgewood community members listen intently as a woman asks a question during a town hall about school consolidations at Edgewood's Fine Arts Academy October 20, 2023.

A group of Edgewood parents and staff tasked with finding ways to consolidate schools is recommending the district close two schools.

If approved by the board on Tuesday, Winston Elementary and Wrenn Middle School will close at the end of the school year.

Alma Lopez has two children at Winston. Instead of closing the school, she wants Edgewood to return it to a traditional elementary. The district converted it to an intermediate school for 3^rd through 5^th grade two years ago.

“There's never going to be that many students if you don't give the parents an option with multiple grades,” Lopez said in an interview with TPR. “If a mother has a kindergartner and a second grader and then a fifth grader, she's obviously not going to take her fifth grader there.”

At a board workshop November 7, Edgewood Superintendent Eduardo Hernandez said enrollment was declining at Winston even before the district changed the grade configuration.

“I don't recall the exact number, but I believe when it was a K-5 or PreK-5, we were a little bit over maybe 300, maybe right under 300 as a norm. And that number had been dropping for a few years,” Hernandez said.

Winston is the only Edgewood elementary school south of Highway 90. Lopez said a lot of parents in the neighborhood took their kids to nearby charter schools after Pre-K through 2^nd grade was moved to another school across the highway.

Even though Edgewood will provide transportation across the highway for students, Lopez said the highway will make it harder for parents and grandparents without cars to reach the school and participate in their children’s education.

“Are they also going to provide a bus for a parent that needs to go pick up their child at 11 a.m. because he has a fever, because he can't stay at school?” Lopez asked.

As part of the closure of Wrenn Middle School, Edgewood also plans to consider expanding the grades at the district’s fine arts academy to include 6^th -8^th grade.

District administrators are recommending Edgewood consolidate schools in order to make better use of district resources amid declining enrollment.

Texas Public Radio is supported by contributors to the Education News Desk, including H-E-B Helping Here, Betty Stieren Kelso Foundation and Holly and Alston Beinhorn.