By Louis Zylka
The 830 Times
The public school district’s board of trustees have approved a plan to create three new middle school campuses for the 2025-2206 school year.
The trustees made the decision during a special school board meeting on Tuesday.
Dr. Carlos Rios, school district superintendent, presented the proposed plan to the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees. The plan is to reconfigure the middle school grade levels at Del Rio Middle School into three separate campuses.
Board member Linda Guanajuato Webb made the motion to approve the reconfiguration plan, and board member Rebekah Chavez gave the second.
The topic began with Dr. Rios explaining the reconfiguration of the middle school grade levels and the changes to the plan.
The proposed plan would involve using the San Felipe Memorial Middle School campus on West Garza Street, the Garfield Elementary campus on West Martin Street and Del Rio Middle School on De La Rosa Street to accommodate sixth, seventh and eighth grade classes.
The staff of DRMS will be divided among the other campuses, and the changes will take effect by August 2025.
Rios held two town-hall meetings, the first on Sept. 10 and the second on Oct. 7, and mentioned he has met with the staff at DRMS, Garfield Elementary and San Felipe Memorial Middle School to discuss the plan.
“We want to continue with recommending three middle schools, sixth through eighth-grade levels . . . . However, the students at Garfield were originally recommended that 50 percent of the students would be assigned to Blended Academy as a small neighborhood school, and the remaining 300 will be rezoned to nearby campuses,” Rios said.
“That is still part of the plan, except I want to inform the board that currently we have approximately 1,100 extra seats in the district for elementary (classes). So there is a possibility that all 600 students could be rezoned to nearby schools, and not cause one population to increase above 625-640 students.
“However, I want more time to engage with the parents of the Garfield community to decide if they want a neighborhood school (at Blended) or if they want (their children) to be rezoned. There was mention at the Garfield staff meeting that maybe using Blended Academy would not be the most equable thing to do . . . I think that will be better decided by the parents,” Rios said.
Rios recommended moving forward with the reconfiguration, and then he opened the meeting for questions from the board members. Joshua Overfelt, vice president of the school board, mentioned his concerns about Rios’ plans for the reconfiguration.
Overfelt talked about the three areas he was concerned about the most: safety, academic results and finances. He talked more about his concerns towards finances and what would come out of the changes from the reconfiguration.
“In order to do this, we’re going to have to make some conversions at Garfield and bring the restrooms up to code for middle school individuals. And then there is security fencing for San Felipe Memorial, which would be grant funded,” Overfelt said..
“Do we already have the money to begin (installing the) fencing and have it ready to go by August 2025 to have the San Felipe memorial campus for the first day?” Overfelt asked.
Rios then asked SFDR Chief of Police Jose Faz when the school board is expected to get the rest of the safety and security grant funding. Faz said the district will get the additional $73,000 funding to use for the fencing.
Overfelt made additional comments about his concerns regarding the increase in student populations at the rezoned elementary-school campuses.
“I know we talked about the issue of moving those students out from Garfield, and that is still to be determined . . . And I know you mentioned the seats that are available (in the district) . . . I just want to share that we’re not going to overcrowd some of the in-town elementary campuses,” Overfelt said.
Rios reaffirmed Overfelt’s concerns by saying there will be no campus “overcrowded.” He also mentioned the help with rezoning will come from a hired demographer.
Diego M. Almaraz Jr., board member, asked when there would be meetings set up with parents of the students from Garfield Elementary. Rios said meetings can be scheduled between the last week of October and the first week of November.
Almaraz said he wants people to know the school board is not planning to close any schools down, mentioning there will be a facility “up to standards” for students to attend.
Board member Amy Haynes talked about how the Blended Academy campus needs to be “up to-date” for elementary school students to attend school there. “I think that the citizens of Chihuahua are going to have their kids at Blended Academy . . . I don’t think the majority want their kids dispersed . . . Now we’re going to have to get the funds to get Blended Academy up and ready. Can we do that?” Haynes said.
Rios said “yes” to getting Blended Academy campuses updated, and he mentioned that the district will need to get input from the parents.
Haynes asked Rios which students would go to Blended Academy. Rios answered saying the 300 students closest “geographically” to Garfield Elementary would go to Blended.
Although Rios gave his answers, Haynes did give her concerns over the proposed plans.
“I’m feeling some type of way about this . . . We had plenty of time, and I appreciate you, Dr. Rios have been having these meetings . . . There weren’t enough people or parents at yesterday’s (town hall meeting), so I am a little disappointed in that,” Haynes said.
I have had emails and people contact me, and I appreciate that, because I had more thinking to do. I do want to be clear that something has to be done at DRMS. It is a safety issue, and I agree with that,” Haynes said.
Raymond P. Meza, president of the school board, said he visited Garfield Elementary campus, and mentioned he wanted to make sure the rezoned elementary school students would have the needed resources available for their classes, including computer labs, libraries and the other programs available at the other elementary campuses.
Jesus Galindo, school board secretary, asked what the timeline would be for the entire reconfiguration. Rios said they will begin work at Blended Academy in January 2025, and the work will be done in May 2025. He mentioned the work for the restrooms will be done during the summer of 2025, and students will be ready for the classes in August 2025.
The motion to approve the reconfiguration plan was approved on a 5-1-1, with Haynes opposed and Overfelt abstaining.
