SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio ISD administration sent district families and staff an email Tuesday announcing the closure of Rhodes Middle School.
“The Rhodes Middle School building will close at the end of this school year, and Rhodes students will be assigned to Tafolla Middle School as their home campus,” the email said.
The school board still needs to vote to finalize closing the school, so families in the district planned a protest against the closure.
“I’m worried of what would happen to people in special needs [classes] because I’m in special needs [classes],” Steve Zapata, a Rhodes Middle School student, said.
Families chanted in support of Rhodes and against the administration’s decision just outside of the school’s gate on Friday afternoon.
Stephanie Torres, a parent in the district and a San Antonio ISD board member, told KSAT that the school board knew about this plan from the administration for “maybe like a month”.
Zapata said the decision was brought up around the same time as the decision to close Carvajal Elementary was made.
San Antonio ISD is in a $45.9 million deficit, according to the district. However, a district spokesperson said the decision to close Rhodes Middle is not about the district’s deficit.
“The administration’s recommendation to close Rhodes Middle School is related to multiple years of poor academic performance and the proposal to build a new, state-of-the-art facility for that community using bond funds allocated for Rhodes Middle School and Carvajal Elementary School,” the statement said.
Council member Teri Castillo showed up at the Friday afternoon protest in support of Rhodes Middle School families.
“For teachers, support personnel and parents to learn about this proposed school closure, well the school closure and then the merging and working with charter schools, is completely disrespectful not to have a public input process,” Castillo said.
The district said Tafolla Middle School will be operated by Third Future Schools, a charter school. However, Third Future told KSAT that this deal is not yet finalized.
“What we know is with this model, teachers are going to have to reapply for their job,” Castillo said. “They’re just now learning at the end of this school year that they’re going to have to reapply to secure a job at the Tafolla Middle School.”
Torres said she hopes enough parents show up and speak out against the closure during the 5:30 p.m. meeting on March 23, so the school can be saved.
Rhodes Middle parent Ashley Chavez said she and several other parents plan to be at Monday’s meeting.
“We are our kids voices and we need to stand together and make this happen so our school can stay open,” Chavez said.
If Rhodes closes, it will be the 26th school closure for the district in the last ten years.