Brenda Bonce has taken the short trek down Deep Forest Road to pick up her two kids from Smith Elementary School in Aldine ISD for the past two years, but that could soon change.
Last Monday, management at Aldine, who are facing a massive budget shortfall, suggested closing Smith Elementary and six other schools and redistributing kids among 19 other sites. However, Bonce has not received any information regarding the proposal from district or campus officials, including whether her first and third graders will be permitted to ride the school bus to their new school.
“I’m really concerned about it,” Bonce stated in Spanish. It complicates everything. I’ll have to take the wheel. It will be more difficult to take them off and pick them up if I work.
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Many parents, like Bonce, were kept in the dark about a crucial decision that may change their communities, daily routines, and connections with school personnel a week after Aldine authorities proposed closing seven schools at a poorly attended school board meeting. The misunderstanding comes after Aldine leaders failed to post material online, communicate plans to families, or set up community meetings over the proposal for a number of days.
District officials stated Tuesday that they want to begin hosting community meetings next week and publish details about the closure plan later this week in response to inquiries from the Houston Landing regarding communication with families.
The decision to close campuses, which would save an estimated $32.5 million annually, will be put to a vote by Aldine board members on February 25. The district passed a budget for this fiscal year with a deficit of around $100 million, after running a $65 million deficit in 2023–2024.
In an emailed statement, district managers stated that stakeholder interaction is a crucial and beneficial aspect of the process since we want to keep them updated on district accomplishments. Parents, the community, and staff will be able to attend and learn more at upcoming community meetings.
Plans for community meetings were not included in a projected timeframe when district administrators released their closure recommendation on January 7. In an interview with a reporter last week, Aldine Board President Kimberley Booker also chastised the Landing for releasing the district’s proposal before board members had a chance to vote on closing schools. “I wish you had waited until we made decisions,” Booker said.
Last week, Booker and Aldine Trustee Paul Shanklin told the Landing that the district did not want to alert parents or campus leaders about the proposal in a way that would needlessly alarm them. Booker went on to say that since parents are unaware of the financial resources required to operate a school system, they do not need to be included in the process.
According to Booker, when people see keywords like closures, they become worried and begin to worry about their child, removing them from school. We definitely want to include our parents and instructors in every decision we make, Booker stated later in the interview.
Approximately 3,400 elementary and middle school students who currently attend the seven campuses would be dispersed across 19 schools, the majority of which are a few miles from their current location, if trustees accept the final round of closures. The system now has roughly 75 sites after the school board decided to eliminate three elementary schools last year.
Aldine would follow the example of numerous large Texas schools that have shuttered campuses in recent years, such as Fort Worth and San Antonio ISDs, by meeting and engaging with families prior to a closure decision.
As one of the most emotionally charged decisions a district can make, those districts took months to notify parents and get community input before considering school closures. Following strong public opposition, Fort Worth officials abandoned plans to completely close campuses.
I wasn t prepared
If authorized, the campus closures will cut off ties to the community, force students to leave schools, and possibly increase family commuting times. Because so many working parents in Aldine walk or take public transit to get their kids to school, location is crucial.
18 parents whose kids attend one of the threatened campuses were interviewed over the course of the last week, and all but one of them stated they were not aware that their school was going to close.
Carina Zelaya, whose daughter has been enrolled in Smith Elementary School for the past two years in the second grade, claimed that she has not heard anything from campus or district officials on the potential closure of the school located in northeast Harris County. Three campuses, each roughly one to three miles from Zelaya’s present school, would be attended by her daughter.
To be honest, it worries me,” Zelaya remarked. I was unprepared and didn’t know. Since this campus is plainly far closer than any other, I now have to think about my daughter and my commute.
How Aldine ISD s proposal to close 7 schools would impact thousands of students
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Although he may have seen something about the plan in the news, Nasir Qureshi, whose 8-year-old son attends Smith Elementary, similarly said he had not heard anything from district staff. According to Qureshi, university employees have historically been quite vocal.
According to Qureshi, they are somewhat transparent, but nobody is completely so.
For Esther Martinez’s family, Oleson Elementary School, an East Aldine site that is on the chopping block, holds great significance. Her oldest son went to Aldine’s MacArthur High School a number of years ago and is still a student there. She volunteers on campus, picks up her son from school every day, and lives in the area behind Oleson Elementary.
Martinez reported that she overheard school officials talking about the plan on Monday to transfer Oleson Elementary pupils to Johnson Elementary School, which is roughly 2.5 miles away.
Martinez said in Spanish, “It’s sad.” I informed my son, who had recently started, “Aww, you’re going to your brother’s school.” They are now stating that they wish to close it. I hope they don’t.
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The possible closure of two primary schools, de Santiago Early Learning Center and Stovall Early Learning Center, could particularly affect parents who don t want to put their young children on the bus. Aldine expanded its prekindergarten programs this year from three campuses to 12, but the closures would reduce that number of 10. A small percentage of students would have to attend a campus five-plus miles away.
At Stovall Early Learning Center, Marete Reyes said she was shocked to hear that the campus where her 5-year-old granddaughter attends kindergarten may close. Students attending the school would be spread across three other early learning centers.
It seems very bad to me, Reyes said in Spanish. There s a lot of students here. Where are they going?
A different approach?
When district leaders voted in late February 2024 to close three campuses, they gave residents little advance notice of the decision.
Aldine administrators didn t publish any information about the potential closures in monthly newsletters sent inJanuaryandmid-February. They didn t issue any press releases about the impending decision. And aweb page about the closureswith an FAQ section for parents went up after the vote.
Last week, district leaders appeared ready to follow the same playbook for the latest round of potential closures.
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A timeline presented at the Jan. 7 board meeting showed plans for communicating with parents at potentially closed schools would start in March 2025, after the vote. A newsletter sent to families Thursday contained no mention of potential closures.
In an interview Thursday, Shanklin said he was very satisfied with the community engagement work done to date, though when asked to elaborate what work had been done, he replied I can t. At a board meeting four days later, Shanklin said at least six community members had approached him about the proposed closures.
The word is out there, Shanklin said. I m glad the word is out there. I m hearing from the community.
One board member, Viola Garc a, has criticized district leaders for a lack of transparency, saying during the Jan. 7 board meeting that families were feeling a sense of abandonment.
In the past few days, district leaders appeared to heed Garc a s words albeit with few details attached. At a school board meeting Monday, Aldine Chief Transformation Officer Adrian Bustillos, said district leaders plan to host another board workshop to receive feedback from the board of trustees before the official vote.
Additionally, Goffney said there is a draft list of planned meetings for the following weeks and a website detailing the proposal is in the works.
There are different ways in which we re going to be working with all of our stakeholders, and so it s a full schedule prior to our board meeting, Goffney said.
The board s ultimate decision will impact parents like Milton Arbalo, who paused to ponder the ramifications Monday while idling in the pickup line outside Stovall Early Learning Center.
I don t know what to think since I m just now hearing about this, Arbalo, the parent of a prekindergarten student, said in Spanish. I have to talk to my wife, my kid. This affects our whole family, our schedules. This is the closest school. There are many, many things to think about.
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