The closure of San Jacinto may be done, but how it happened has raised questions about the fairness of the process and the lack of communication from the Board and Superintendent about their intentions. This has only resulted in more anger from the students’ families and the school’s faculty and staff.
No prior notice was provided to the parents, faculty and staff of San Jacinto that the Superintendent would be recommending closure and consolidation with Reagan before he announced it to the board at the pre-agenda meeting on January 13, 2025. They all learned about this plan from a Facebook post of a private citizen that evening. Closure and consolidation of San Jacinto was not listed on the public notice for that pre-agenda meeting. The agenda only listed “Facilities Update” and did not provide details.
Prior to the pre-agenda meeting Superintendent Dr. Christopher Moran is reported to have held a meeting at San Jacinto, ostensibly so the faculty and staff would not be surprised when San Jacinto was brought up at the pre-agenda meeting. Our sources tell us that during that meeting Dr. Moran never told them he was recommending the school be closed and consolidated with Reagan. The agenda for the meeting for January 21, 2025, posted Friday January 17, contained the first formal notice that the Board would vote on the proposed closure at the next meeting.
According to Carla Cardenas, one of the San Jacinto parents, the San Jacinto parents did not discover it was on the agenda until 3:00 p.m. the afternoon of the meeting. The meeting was scheduled to start at 5:45 p.m. At the meeting, under District policy, all public comments on items on the agenda have to be made during the public comment section at the beginning of the meeting, not when the item is called for discussion during the course of the meeting. This forced the parents there to speak at the beginning of the meeting against a proposal they had not even heard yet.
According to some of the parents, the District refuses to release the engineering reports on the structural issues with the San Jacinto building. Reportedly a public school advocate requested these reports through the Texas Public Information Act, but the District has fought providing these reports to the public. We have received unconfirmed reports that the Attorney General has ordered the reports released, but they have not yet been provided. The Concho Democrat was not able to independently confirm this fact by press time.
In responding to the argument about declining enrollment, Carla Cardenas said that Reagan by itself had over 400 students until the District moved the special needs students from Reagan to Lamar Elementary, in the Southwest part of town. This makes the San Jacinto parents suspect that the move of the special needs students was done to make space at Reagan in order to consolidate the schools. Whether this is true or not, the parents are upset with what they view as a rushed decision to consolidate the schools and close San Jacinto without public input or buy in.
Brant Woodworth, another San Jacinto parent at the meeting, was shut down by Board President Taylor Kingman when he kept talking beyond his permitted three minutes during public comment. A police officer had to escort him back to his seat as he continued to speak. He compared the swift action by the District this time to the process in 2023 when San Jacinto had been on the chopping block along with Austin and Alta Loma.
“We were on the cutting block two years ago.” Woodworth said. “Months went by after the announcement until the vote. SAISD held town hall meetings and we turned out in mass for San Jacinto. The only person not in attendance was our local board member. We rallied, walked the streets, went to every board meeting. We called our local board member only to be ignored. At the vote we turned out again in mass unlike the other two schools and we were spared, so we thought.”
This year things were different. “Come this school year, and a week before classes start, magically, a minor earthquake hundreds of miles away damages nothing but the school they wanted to close. We fight again, and again, and are completely ignored by our board member. We knew of foundation issues that were addressed at those town halls 2 years ago. We asked what was done from administration and received no answers. Classes were “temporarily” moved to Reagan. No updates are provided, no town halls, only silence.”
“One week ago Moran announces off agenda that he advises to close the school with no mention of a vote date.” Wentworth said. “The few of us that realized what was happening attended the meeting only to be allowed a paltry three minutes to speak with absolutely no comment from the board. We were absolutely silenced by the board and administration.”
“It is not about the building.” Cardenas said. To her it is about the loss of the community, of the San Jacinto neighborhood once the elementary school is gone. Having both schools at one campus has been difficult Cardenas said. “There are divisions between the schools.” Each school has their own administration faculty and staff and are not operating this year as one school. Picking up and dropping of students has been “ridiculous” Cardenas added. She said there was one instance of a student pulling a knife and increases in disruption at school. To Cardenas if the schools must combine it would be better to build a new school and to not combine one low performing school into another low performing school. She also wonders what will happen when they close Reagan Elementary in a couple of years.
While honest people can disagree whether the closure and consolidation was necessary at this time, there is no question that the process must be fair, above board, and open to the public. It remains to be seen what the next round of consolidations will be or what process the District will use to include the public in those decisions. Dr. Moran and the School Board would be wise to choose a more transparent way of doing business in the future.
