Middle School Redesign Progress Update

Sandra Hernandez, SFDR-CISD Chief Administrative Officer, offered an update on the progress of the Middle School Redesign project during Tuesday, February 24th’s School Board Meeting. “The last time that we presented an update, the school district was working on the process for parent notification for the middle school and Garfield rezoning,” Hernandez began. “Since then our school district has been working with a company that has been assisting us with the delivery of over 2400 letters to notify parents which campuses they will be assigned to in the fall.” 

She revealed that the rezoning process for middle school students was aided by the information provided by the demographic study, enabling the district to best assign students to the three middle school campuses in the fall of 2025, as well as the Garfield Elementary School students that have been rezoned to other elementary schools across the city. “Parents should be seeing these letters within the next 5-7 days.”

Hernandez then provided an update on the New Tech Academy that will be at the San Felipe Memorial Middle School campus starting in the fall. “Our principal Mrs. Pond has been very busy visiting the elementary campuses and meeting with parents at the informational meetings about the New Tech Academy that were held throughout the month of January. We currently have 229 students that have registered to attend the New Tech Academy and the parents will receive rezoning letters that will also identify that if their student has been accepted into the New Tech Academy, they will receive a follow up letter next month that will tell them that they’ve been accepted and will be rezoned to SFMMS.” Parents were also provided with FAQs and additional information about transportation, address changes, and contact numbers for help alongside their rezoning letters. 

The district has also begun meeting with librarians to ensure that Garfield Elementary library and text books will be redistributed to other elementary schools across the district and are conducting similar plans to redistribute books to all three middle school campuses, with the majority of the textbooks and library books set to be transferred after state testing in May and June. 

The next steps for the redesign project include transferring rezoning lists and zoning maps to student services to allow for assistance with address changes, New Tech Academy acceptance letters going out to parents in March, work on finalizing transportation and bus stops for the 2025-26 school year, finalizing staffing plans for middle schools and elementary schools by end of March, and the citizen’s committee will be reconvening to review other district needs.