The Meaning of San Jacinto’s Closure

During its regular meeting last Tuesday January 21, 2025, the SAISD Board of Trustees unanimously voted to close San Jacinto Elementary School and consolidate its attendance zone with Reagan Elementary. After 118 years, San Jacinto Elementary School is no more. Its former students will now attend Reagan Elementary.

Most of the discussion at the meeting revolved around the structural and safety problems of the building. So it was easy to miss the forest for the single tree being discussed. Without directly saying it, what the Board voted for was doing away with neighborhood elementary schools in San Angelo. This is not so much a change in policy as a culmination of it. It is the Board acknowledging the reality and the results of decades of poor governance and poorer policy decisions at the state and national level. These things are far beyond this Board’s control.

During the meeting, SAISD Superintendent Dr. Christopher Moran began the discussion saying that because of the structural foundation being compromised his recommendation was that San Jacinto not be repaired. But the reasons for closure of the school did not end there. According to Dr. Moran, the declining enrollment in the District, and at Reagan and San Jacinto were another factor. He said that when the structural problem with San Jacinto presented itself last fall his hope was that the District would be able to construct a new elementary school. But the combined population of both schools was 450 and he could not justify the cost of building a new school for that number of students. A new elementary school costs around $45 Million to build. Dr. Moran said that in his judgment the best thing for the District moving forward was to continue with plans to “right size” the elementary schools. This would be achieved by using existing facilities with renovations or additions, not building new schools. Based on presentations and discussion at the School Board meeting, around 650 appears to be the “right size” for a 21st century elementary school.

Dr. Moran said he knew this will not be easy for the community. But he noted that at the beginning of this year the District was short 18 teachers. Across the District there are too many classes with small enrollment. By right sizing the schools, he said, “we can take the teaching staff we have and plug the holes” with more appropriate (larger) class sizes. He said the end goal is to provide for all our students and put quality teachers in front of them. He also said this would not be the end of consolidation of elementary schools. The District would need at least two more consolidations. Dr. Moran had already told that Board at the previous pre-agenda workshop meeting that he recommended closing Reagan and Bowie by 2027. It was not clear if the Superintendent meant two more rounds of closures in addition to these three schools or how many schools would be involved in the next two consolidations

The Board unanimously supported the recommendation and voted to close San Jacinto and move its students into Reagan. There was no discussion of how this would impact the jobs of staff and educators at either school, or how the transition to one school would take place. According to Carla Cardenas, one of the San Jacinto parents affected by the decision, it has been difficult at Reagan having two separate schools operating independently out of the same building. It remains to be seen how combining the two schools into one will be accomplished and how it will impact the teachers, families and students of both schools.

To be fair to the School Board, they ae largely reacting to forces and decisions that are outside their control and problems that long pre-date their service on the Board. Declining enrollment has been a chronic problem in SAISD long before there were charter schools or talk of vouchers. Demographic changes and an aging population are the primary culprit. San Angelo’ s population has continued its gradual decline, and with it the school age population of the District. The area has lost population since the 2020 census and there seems to be no sign of the trend reversing anytime soon.

Then there is the slow starvation of public education by the legislature over the last thirty years. In particular the Legislature and the Governor’s complete failure to fulfill their constitutional obligation to provide for our public schools has caused problems that are not unique to San Angelo. Because of the failure of the legislature to fund its public schools adequately, half of all School Districts in Texas are operating in the red this year. SAISD is not operating in the red this year because of the wise management of the District staff, and fiscally conservative approach of the Board.

These factors have forced San Angelo to struggle with elementary school consolidations and closures for the last two decades, primarily for enrollment and economic reasons. Families move away from these neighborhoods to find work or for other reasons, and no one moves in to take their place. The population ages, the area deteriorates, and the decline only feeds the problem. The list of elementary schools that have closed over the last twenty-years includes Blackshear, Sam Houston, Travis, Rio Vista, Austin, and Alta Loma. Now San Jacinto has been added to the list with Reagan and Bowie soon to follow.

Assuming the District follows through with those closures, there will be twelve elementary schools left: Belaire, Bonham, Bradford, Crockett, Fannin, Fort Concho, Glenmore, Goliad, Holiman, Lamar, McGill, and Santa Rita. Assuming there are two more rounds of closures and two to three schools are closed in each of those rounds, San Angelo may soon be down to six to eight elementary schools for the entire District. This is not much more than the original four ward elementary schools that were built in 1909.

Whether the Board realized it or not, the vote on January 21 was a decision to move the District away from neighborhood schools once and for all. It is easy to call such decisions “inevitable” because of the larger forces at work, but few things are inevitable. There were many steps along the way where policy choices by the federal and state government might have changed the outcome. But those did not happen. If not for good local government we would probably be in even worse shape.

The closure also raises questions for these lower income areas of the City about the fairness and equity of past decisions on which schools are maintained and remain open and which ones close. All of the previous school closures with the exception of Travis were in lower income areas of the City. This is not to say that those closures were made for discriminatory reasons. The District officials and Trustees who made those decisions were trying to do their best under difficult circumstances. But District decisions about school closures are not made in a vacuum. The lack of investment and reinvestment by private industry and government in these areas and the shift of population and economic activity to the Southwest area of San Angelo are all the result of policy choices made long ago. It is a system that for decades has prioritized profit and return on investment over people and communities like San Jacinto. The simple fact is that when you close a neighborhood elementary school, the heart of that neighborhood stops beating. What will take its place, we do not know.

The closure of an elementary school is tragic for students, families and that community. But what the School Board and the District are trying to do is reduce the number of elementary schools while increasing their size to gain economies of scale and efficiencies to save the district money so as to avoid cutting programs and jobs. We should all hope they are successful. If they are not, worse days may be ahead for public schools in San Angelo.