SFDR-CISD Holds Town Hall to Discuss Proposed Middle School Reconfiguration

Superintendent, Dr. Carlos Rios presents the reasons for the proposed 6th-8th Grade Level Reconfiguration introducing three separate Middle School Campuses.

SFDR-CISD held a Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday, September 10, 2024 to outline the proposed plan for middle school campus 6-8th grade level reconfiguration for the upcoming 2025-2026 school year and receive community input before the proposal is presented to the Board of Trustees at the next School Board Meeting. 

Superintendent Carlos H. Rios began the presentation by giving a bit of background on the current configuration of campuses across the district and explaining how the consolidation of the San Felipe and Del Rio School Districts played a role. “Because the district went through transitions during the consolidation of the two districts, there were probably more campuses than we needed but none big enough to house everybody,” Dr. Rios began. “At some point they formed a very large middle school, and at the time it probably made sense financially to build a school for that many students and that’s what we’re dealing with now.” 

Superintendent Rios went on to state that “the problem is twofold, on one side it’s safety and student behavior, and on the other, equally as important, is student achievement, measured learning, how kids are prepared.” 

Throughout his presentation, Dr. Rios laid out the biggest issues that the middle school campus currently faces, that also serve as the reasons for this proposed change. Including the safety and behavior management of a campus that yields a population of up to 1500 students at a time and the hit that academic achievement takes because of that number. “In the last 20 years that the middle school has been open, that has been the theme,” Dr. Rios began. “The largest discipline, Del Rio Middle School, the largest absentee rate, Del Rio Middle School, the largest failure rate, Del Rio Middle School, and it’s not for a lack of investing in the programs, it’s a large school, too large.” 

The main reason for the proposed Middle School Grade - Level Reconfiguration being the limited student participation in Fine Arts, Athletics, UIL Academics, and other leadership groups and Honor Societies because of the large number of students on one campus, and the decrease of student enrollment at the middle school level. “We have a lot of students graduate with certifications and endorsements, but do we have the majority of students maximizing the programs?” Dr. Rios stated. “There are students that are successfully preparing for high school and participating in these programs and activities, but it is not the majority.” 

He continued to stress the importance of bridging the gap between middle and high school successfully by creating college and career pathways, academic coursework, and meeting graduation program requirements. Currently, according to the data presented by the Superintendent, the Del Rio Middle School system has few students prepared academically for high school coursework, students struggling to complete graduation program requirements, few graduating with certifications, few students entering rigorous programs, (CTE, Medical, etc), and few students passing TSI college entrance exams once they have entered high school and beyond. 

Before moving on to the proposal itself, Dr, Rios stated, “The safety of a campus that large is tremendous, and when you have that many kids, it’s going to be hard to facially recognize every single one,” he said. “The more successful campuses that I’ve seen not only in Del Rio but across the state, are smaller ones, research tells us that on a smaller campus there’s more connections, not only with staff but with students participating in extracurricular activities because there’s more opportunities, and kids achieve at higher levels.” 

The proposed reconfiguration involves forming three separate 6-8th grade middle school campuses utilizing the current Del Rio Middle School, San Felipe Memorial Middle School, and the current Garfield Elementary School campus. Each campus would become 6th, 7th, and 8th grade campuses with teachers and staff being transferred across the three campuses and a smaller number of students per middle school campus. The three fully-functioning 6-8th grade campuses would have three athletic departments and sets of sports teams, three fine arts programs, three honor societies, and so on, giving students triple the opportunity to participate and succeed. Dr. Rios stated that these campuses were chosen because they are the larger campuses available with competition gyms, tracks and fields equipped for athletic and other extracurricular programs. 

Answering the question of what would happen to the Garfield Elementary students and staff, Dr. Rios told those in attendance and those watching online that Garfield Elementary would be reassigned to the current Blended Academy campus, becoming a smaller, neighborhood elementary school for the population in the surrounding neighborhoods. Because it would be a smaller campus, other students would be rezoned to Dr. Lonnie Green, Buena Vista, and Dr, Fermin Calderon Elementary Schools. Blended Academy would be relocated to the old Cardwell Campus after a remodel of one of its wings. 

Board President, Raymond P. Meza, reiterates the academic success found on smaller campuses and urges parents to get involved through the committee.

Upon opening the floor for feedback from parents and community members, there were mixed reactions and concerns raised. 

Grandfather to three SFDRCISD students, one in middle school, one in the first grade, and the other in the 3rd grade, Tomas Cerna Diaz asked why the three middle schools are all set to be on the same side of town when that doesn’t seem to alleviate any of the issues and the growth in town is to the north, to which Dr. Rios replied, “The middle schools are still in the downtown area but here’s two things that we considered when we thought about distributing the schools, one of the things that we want to avoid is any appearance of segregation,” he began. “For one, none of the campuses on the north side have the gym, cafeteria or overall space needed and that would be a costly fix, the other issue is that by doing so, the city begins to be sectionalized by neighborhoods, but if we keep them all here in the center of town, you ensure that each campus has diversity and no one school is positioned to have an advantage, and that's why those campuses were chosen - facilities and keeping the community together.” 

Piggybacking off of that concern, parent of a 6th grade student and one entering the 6th grade, Carissa Zavala countered, “You are still sectionalizing, students in San Felipe are staying at San Felipe Memorial Middle School and you’re giving the students in the north the school with the brand new gyms, the new football field and whatever other renovations are happening there,” she began. “The other students are gonna be in the newly renovated Cody Wardlaw gym, meanwhile the San Felipe students are gonna be in the old gym with asbestos that just got removed and you’re still having A/C problems (at the SFMMS campus), until you can offer equal campuses and facilities, I don’t think we should have conversations about splitting the middle school up.” 

Many other parents shared similar concerns about equal access to resources and funding across the three campuses to which the Superintendent assured that all of the same activities, facilities, funding, renovations, and programs, including special education, would be provided equally across all three campuses. Addressing parents who felt that the district should postpone this proposal, Dr. Rios had this to say, “I don’t think we can wait a single day, everyday that goes by that we have that large school, is a huge problem for the reasons I mentioned, and I don’t think we should even have gone this long because with the campus the way that it is, we haven’t prepared students the way that we should’ve for high school, so I don’t believe we should wait another day.” 

Parents who had these concerns and others related to blending 6th grade students with the older 7th and 8th grade students for the first time, were urged to become involved with the public committee that would be collaborating with the district on the proposed reconfiguration. 

On the other side of the discussion, educators and faculty members currently serving the Del Rio Middle School campus shared their thoughts on why this reconfiguration could be a positive change. “I’m a Del Rio Middle School teacher, I have been for 15 years, and this has to be the best idea that could be given to us,” Yvonne Michelle Gomez, an 8th grade Social Studies teacher stated. “We work so hard to teach our kids and they're gonna slip through the cracks because there are so many of them, if we had less kids, we would be far more successful because we could give them all the attention they need.” 

7th and 8th grade Library support staff, Jessica Aguirre Fuentes, followed by sharing that she “spends a good deal of my day walking hallways just to make sure there aren’t students roaming the halls, hiding in bathrooms, and making sure it’s safe because of the sheer size of the campus,” she started, “I think we have an overcrowded campus and I do agree that three separate middle schools are a really good idea, and we do have ways to keep these kids separate by grade levels, through things like scheduling, so for any concerned parents I would urge you to listen to these suggestions because we do have effective ways of keeping the grades separate and the kids safe.” 

The proposed Middle School Grade Level Reconfiguration for the 2025-2026 school year will be brought to the Board of Trustees for a vote during Monday, September 16th’s board meeting and if passed, would still be open to collaboration and input from parents, teachers, staff and the proposed committee to decide on a final course of action. The meeting closed with words from members of the board encouraging parents to get involved as this proposal moves forward and an announcement that a survey would be emailed or texted to parents of students enrolled in pre-K through 7th grade, in order to receive as much community input as possible. 

This is an ongoing story and Connect Del Rio will be following the issue closely.