The Brownsville Independent School District has begun rolling out a framework for school consolidation that could eventually see establishment of a collegiate elementary school.
The plan envisions creation of a school consolidation advisory committee a year from now, and town hall meetings in July 2023, both involving all stakeholders: students and parents as well as school personnel.
“And a reminder to everyone: BISD is looking at consolidation within a couple of years but with no reduction in force. It will all be by attrition, so I want to make sure that is communicated. We would visit successful collegiate elementary schools and begin implementation of this strategic plan in the fall of 2024,” Anysia R. Trevino, deputy superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, said as she outlined the plan Tuesday to the BISD Board of Trustees.
“We certainly also would be having staff meetings at campuses that would qualify for consolidation and conduct student interest inventory for consideration as to what STEM or fine arts academies we would consider opening. So we want to hear from the students. We think that they may be interested in STEM but they may be interested in fine arts or they may be interested in a leadership school. So we want to get input from students and from the parents before making that final recommendation if possible,” Trevino said.
“Also, if in fact we choose to go with a collegiate elementary school, we’d like to be ready for that. So in the spring of 2024 we would be visiting other schools throughout the state that are very similar to what we’re looking at, their curriculum, the resources that they use, as well as their facilities because if we choose to go the route of the collegiate elementary school we want it to be the very best,” she said.
Three years ago, BISD consolidated Resaca, Longoria and Victoria Heights elementary schools into nearby Canales, Perez, Putegnat and Sharp elementaries. Talk of further consolidation surfaced at a March 30 budget committee meeting when consolidation of Cromack and Castaneda elementary schools in Southmost emerged as an option since the two schools share a common rear property line.
Committee members said consolidation in 2022 was too soon, but on Tuesday they were more receptive to 2024 as an implementation date.
Responding to a question from the board, Superintendent Rene Gutierrez said the consolidation process needs to be as open, transparent and inclusive as possible.
“We’re going to start the planning phase in July ‘23 and that gives us time to involve the stakeholders that we need to involve in the town hall meetings,” he said. “It’s going to be a lengthy process. Based on the input that we’ve been getting, to have a process, to have transparency, to have input, it’s going to take us about a year just to get all of this in place so that when it happens everybody is as well informed as they can be and the decisions that are going to be made by the board will be well-informed decisions.”
