Save Neighborhood Schools! Save Houston Elementary!

The El Paso Independent School District is considering closing down several small neighborhood schools to save money. One of the schools is Houston Elementary, an 87 year old neighborhood school on Grant Avenue that serves as an anchor to the Manhattan Heights Historic District. I am including a letter that will be presented to the Board of Trustees tonight. I would encourage all residents of this area and people interested in advocating for small neighborhood schools and better school planning to attend a meeting tomorrow night, Wednesday, May 13 at 6 P.M., at Houston Elementary to discuss the closure of these small neighborhood schools. I would also encourage you to attend the Smart Growth for Schools Workshop that will be on Friday, May 29 from 8:45 A.M. to 3:30 P.M. at the El Paso Museum of Art. Seating is limited so RSVP for the workshop by contacting Melissa Kellum at 915.541.4730 or KellumMA@elpasotexas.gov.

May 12, 2009

Dear EPISD Board of Trustees:

When I stand before you I always have to acknowledge the incredible gift of education that EPISD has given me and my children. I grew up attending small neighborhood schools. I walked to Crockett Elementary. I walked to Bassett Middle School. I walked to Austin High School. I graduated valedictorian and was accepted with a hefty scholarship at Emory University, a private university, mostly attended by students from private high schools.

I remember worrying that coming from a public school, I would not be able to compete with my peers. Not only was I able to compete, but I excelled because of my education at EPISD schools. My children are now walking to the same neighborhood school that I walked to when I was little. And I expect that EPISD will offer them no less than what I received—an excellent education in a great neighborhood.

I am here today to advocate for small neighborhood schools, in particular Houston Elementary. Houston has been part of our neighborhood for 87 years. We want it to remain a part of our neighborhood. In 2007, you asked the voters to invest in that school with a new multipurpose center. We want you to continue to invest in that school, rather than abandon it.

Having grown up benefiting from the wisdom of small neighborhood schools, I have been frustrated for some time by new school development by EPISD and other districts. The schools are over-large, having negative impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods and the children that attend them. The schools are not connected to the life of neighborhoods. They are often not even connected to the neighborhoods by sidewalks. Because of the size and location of them, the schools’ service areas are so large that a majority of students have to drive or be bused. This large movement of cars and buses into a school campus causes unnerving congestion and dangerous traffic conditions for surrounding neighborhoods. Not having the option to walk is one less chance to stave off the biggest public health threat to our children, obesity. And most significantly for your mission, many studies have demonstrated a direct and positive link between small schools and student achievement.

As an example, the district closed down a small neighborhood school, Wainwright Elementary, that was easy and safe for most kids to walk to. The district replaced it with Moye Elementary, which sits on Dyer, a six lane highway that is a danger to pedestrians. There were no improvements made to Dyer to address pedestrian safety. The vast majority of students going to that school have to cross six lanes of highway in order to attend that school. Last year, a family was struck and one was killed walking to Moye Elementary for an evening school event. This type of school planning does not serve neighborhoods and it does not serve our children.

On May 29, the City is hosting a session on Smart Schools. We want to work with you to improve education and to also improve neighborhoods through smart school planning. Especially in light of the recent conversations to close Houston Elementary, a small neighborhood school, I would urge all of the board and senior staff to attend this session before you make a mistake that our children and our neighborhood will have to live with.

I want to thank our trustee Carlos Flores and Dr. Garcia for their commitment to slow this process down and include the parents, the neighborhood and the board in a more thoughtful deliberative process that is not solely focused on your bottom line and more carefully considers the hidden costs of this closure on the children, the neighborhood, your budget and the budget of families who attend Houston. Before we move forward, I would like the board to consider and analyze the following in debating this issue:

What hidden costs are you not considering?

• Will new portables need to be built to accommodate new growth at schools that will receive Houston students?


• How much will bussing students to the new schools costs? How much will it cost families who walk their kids to school to instead have to take them by car? What will it cost our kid’s health in terms of lost physical activity?


• What kind of congestion will this cause at the other schools? What will it cost either the district or the city to mitigate this congestion?


• A vacant abandoned building such as Houston will be a blight on our neighborhood. Over time this blight will decrease property values in this neighborhood, a neighborhood that has recently seen an increase in young families and new investment. How much will this blight cost our tax base and your ability to increase revenues?


• What impact will this move have on the classroom size at the schools that will be receiving them? Will it cost children at Paul Moreno and Coldwell who are now benefiting from small classroom sizes?


• This move to close down Houston will also cost you the trust of many voters, who supported you in building Paul Moreno, not knowing it would come at the expense of one of our oldest neighborhood schools. Paul Moreno Elementary is just three blocks from Houston. In 2007, you asked us to vote for a bond that included building a multipurpose center at Houston. We supported you. Now just two years later, you are telling us you want to close this school?

And finally, the most important consideration, what other options does the district have to achieve your goals without harming our kids and our neighborhood? I know this neighborhood and the residents of this neighborhood well. I know that many parents do not send their children to Houston, even though they are in the service area. Many send them to Mesita for the dual language program or to other schools where there is a more obvious commitment to excellence in education from the board and the administration. One of my friends who lives in the Houston service area commented that her whole block is full of young families and not one of those families sends their children to Houston. Maybe one option could be for the board to invest in better programming, such as dual language, as a means to grow the population of this school. Since Crockett has refused to consider this program, I know I would consider sending my son to Houston if there was a dual language program there.

What other options could be considered? Please work with the parents and the neighborhood to find a better solution for our kids and for our neighborhood.

Sincerely,

Susie Byrd
City Council Representative, District 2