As its latest cost-cutting effort, the San Antonio Independent School District’s board voted Monday night to permanently close Rhodes Middle School at the end of the 2025-2026 school year, the Express-News reports.
The shuttering of the historic West Side campus is the district’s 17th closure over the past three years, according to the daily. In common with other inner-city districts, SAISD is grappling with rising costs along with enrollment declines due to lower birthrates and rising competition from charter schools and private campuses.
Parents and activists have accused SAISD of not seeking community feedback as it targets schools for closure. They have also lamented the lack of warning the district has offered when campuses are scheduled to shut down.
Those concerns were reflected in Monday’s split vote by the board. Two of the seven trustees voted against the closure decision.
“What we are seeing is not new. It’s a pattern, a pattern of decisions made without families, and families are paying the price,” West Side education activist Maribel Gardea told the Express-News. “Schools do not fail on their own. The leadership does.”
Gardea has two children in SAISD schools, according to the daily.
Rhodes has received failing grades from the Texas Education Agency for three consecutive school years, according to the Express-News, and district officials said the campus was headed toward its fourth. Under Texas law, if a campus receives five consecutive F ratings, it must be shut down or the state can initiate a takeover of the entire district, replacing elected board members.
Students originally zoned to attend Rhodes will now be enrolled in Tafolla Middle School, according to SAISD officials. However, rules allow students to enroll at any school within the district that fits their grade level.
On Monday, the board also approved a partnership with Colorado-based charter school network Third Future Schools to help operated Tafolla along with Hirsch and Ogden elementary schools, according to the daily.
While the vote closes the chapter on Rhodes, the pain of SAISD’s downsizing appears far from over.
Ideally, district leadership wants to whittle its number of campuses down to 50 from its current level of 84, the Express-News reported in December. However, that appears unlikely since most of its schools now in operation aren’t large enough to house the influx of students from shuttered campuses.
Critics also worry the state’s newly enacted voucher program, which gives tax dollars to parents interested in sending their kids to private campuses will accelerate the damage to already struggling public school districts.
Indeed, nonpartisan legislative think tank Every Texan last year estimated San Antonio school districts stand to lose $100 million in state and local funding under the state’s Republican-backed voucher system.
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