McAllen ISD weighing personnel, student shuffle to close Crockett

McAllen ISD may finally move staff out of David Crockett Elementary after over a decade of failing to do so.

Last month school board trustees heard a presentation from the district’s administration that, through a somewhat complicated series of staff and student relocations, would ultimately result in the couple dozen administrators who work out of Crockett working elsewhere.

Those people need to work elsewhere.

Crockett was described as dilapidated over a decade ago when the district stopped educating students in the building.

Some students who went to school there at the time are college-aged now, and the 74-year-old school’s aged accordingly.

Superintendent René Gutiérrez described the situation at Crockett as “dire” last month and MISD Board President Debbie Crane Aliseda said conditions at the building are “horrible.”

It’s not safe, she said.

“When we closed it back in 2011, we said we were going to raze it to the ground, and here we are all these years later and we’re still holding onto it,” Crane Aliseda said. “We still pay money to maintain it, which is crazy that the district’s been doing that.”

It is crazy that the district’s been doing that. The district loosely estimates that it spends about $200,000 a year keeping Crockett operational for a couple dozen staff members.

“Operational” is probably too kind an adjective to refer to a building that trustees have increasingly described as having a sieve-like roof in recent years.

The board nixed a potential $700,000 reroofing project for the school last year. The grounds for doing so are evident: it would take millions of dollars to fully renovate Crockett and declining enrollment means the district probably won’t need to use it as an actual school anytime soon, so there’s no way to really capitalize on any investment.

The district could also move staff out and raze the building. That would cost money, but less money than the district has spent keeping the mostly abandoned building open.

Based on district estimates from 2021, demolition would cost between $300,000 and $500,000. If the district had razed the building then, it wouldn’t be running in the red keeping the lights on now.

The school board also probably could have made that decision without significant public criticism, which is often a factor when a public entity tears down an old building. If Crockett has a significant historic or sentimental value to the community, the community hasn’t mobilized to protect it.

So why hasn’t the school district rid itself of Crockett’s fiscal deadweight?

One problem is that it’s a largely valueless old building on an invaluable piece of property.

Crockett sits on almost 12 acres of land in the heart of McAllen, in a sleepy old neighborhood on Main Street just a mile north of downtown. It’s one of — if not the only — largely undeveloped tracts left in that part of town.

That potential has paralyzed board action on the property.

Before struggles with leadership changes and financial difficulties, Crockett was the chief controversy for McAllen ISD’s board of trustees.

Trustees weighed parting with the property through 2021. At various times, some supported selling the property to private interests while others supported selling to the city, so it could develop a full-fledged park there. Most, ultimately, thought it was too valuable to part with.

Trustees at the time failed to solve the Crockett problem. The board turned down an offer from the city of McAllen to buy the property and the most significant outcome of a year’s worth of debate was the city investing more money into parkland it currently operates on the land.

The other problem with closing Crockett is, evidently, what happens to the staff who work there.

At no time in 2021 was divesting the school of its administrative staff described publicly as a difficult issue.

The new administration says it is one, and proposed a plan to solve it last month.

Essentially administration proposed moving about 80 students enrolled in its Options in Education Program at Lamar Academy to some upgraded portables at Achieve Early College High School.

The district thinks that would result in almost $500,000 in cost savings, seemingly through staffing adjustments.

Moving Options would allow the district to concentrate staff from Crockett and other less-centralized offices at Lamar.

Though trustees agreed staff have to be moved out of Crockett, some expressed concern over the move negatively impacting students.

“I don’t see moving students to help the adults. You’re talking about moving an entire program of 150 (sic) students for 30 adults at Crockett. I just don’t think that there’s any sense in that,” Crane Aliseda said.

Trustees spitballed other possible solutions last month and Gutiérrez said administration may pitch alternate options at a subsequent budget workshop.