District finalizes attendance zones
The new Rodriguez Elementary School will have 340 students when it opens, and starting in the 2020-2021 school year, students moving up from Rodriguez will attend Miller Middle School.
At its most recent meeting, the SMCISD board of trustees approved new elementary school attendance zones that reflect the opening of Rodriguez Elementary. The new campus will most notably relieve pressure from Hernandez and Mendez elementaries, according to figures from the district; under the accepted rezoning plan, attendance at Hernandez will drop from 623 students to 468, and attendance at Mendez will drop from 587 to 487. Additionally, capacity would increase at Bowie from 662 to 728 and at Travis from 622 to 644. The Rodriguez campus will have a capacity of 660.
The school board was given two options for redrawing the elementary school attendance boundaries. Andrew Fernandez, head of communications for the district, said that the second plan was the result of public input.
“The only reason we would lean toward Plan 2 is it was based on feedback from the community meetings,” he said.
Before voting, the board had requested a breakdown of student ethnicities at the different elementary schools based on current enrollment and anticipated enrollments under the two different rezoning options. However, regardless of ethnicity, all of the SMCISD elementary campuses are majority minority and majority economically disadvantaged.
“Economic disparity knows no racial boundaries,” trustee Miguel Arredondo noted. “Although ethnicity plays a significant role in that … I’m confident that our budget office, our superintendent of schools, current and future boards will make sure that funds are allocated properly, and regardless of what our schools, on paper, look like, all of our students are going to be taken care of.”
Fernandez noted that starting in the 2020-2021 school year, students from Mendez, Bowie and DeZavala will be zoned to attend Goodnight Middle School, while students from Crockett, Travis, Hernandez and Rodriguez will go to Miller.
A motion to approve Plan 2 for rezoning was approved 6-0.
