By Daniel Call
The recent El Paso Independent School District school board meeting was nothing short of surreal. In the middle of a projected $31 million shortfall for next budget year, board President Leah Hannany and her allies pushed forward a proposal to reopen one school — Lamar Elementary — at a cost of $3.2 million per year.
This vote was taken without a staff presentation, without updated data and without a coherent financial plan.
It’s hard to call that leadership. It felt more like winging it in a crisis.
Let’s be blunt: this isn’t a plan — it’s a political payoff. Lamar just happens to sit in the board president’s district, not to mention that it is the one school she publicly promised to reopen during her campaign.
There are seven other schools — Rivera, Putnam, Rusk, Travis, Zavala, Newman, Stanton — slated for closure in El Paso ISD over the next two years, but only one got special treatment. Why? Because it’s in the right ZIP code.
This kind of shady backroom favoritism and selective decision-making gets school districts sued and taken over by TEA — and gets elected officials perp-walked. At El Paso ISD, we’ve seen this episode before, and I worry we’re heading that way again.
Let’s talk numbers. Lamar costs $11,474 per student to operate, but the state only gives us around $6,000 per student. That means the district has to subsidize Lamar with money pulled from other schools, which are already facing cuts.
With projected enrollment next year at just 180 students, that’s $3.2 million more in personnel costs per year, 30% building capacity, and a 1961 facility in need of $12.5 million in renovations. This isn’t an investment in excellence — it’s a money pit.
We’re not in a position to make emotional, politically motivated decisions. We’re in survival mode. You don’t fix a sinking ship by drilling new holes.
Even before Lamar, our budget faced difficult choices. Using our rainy day fund to cover this kind of spending will drop us from 70 days of reserves to around 50. That’s dangerously close to where Ysleta, Socorro and Canutillo ISDs found themselves — right before layoffs, arts cuts and class-size hikes.
Hanany claimed recently in the media that this is an opportunity to “redefine fiscal responsibility.” No one redefines fiscal responsibility. You don’t get to reinvent math. The laws of finance and good governance aren’t optional, and this board can no more suspend them than it can suspend gravity.
Given the history of corruption and mismanagement in El Paso and its school districts, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard of ethics. We reopened one school — and it just happened to be the one with the most political value. The public sees through that. And they should.
I’ve spoken with many of our employees and families, and many are scared. I don’t blame them. While the powerful play political games, it’s the everyday employees and 47,000 students who pay the price.
I did everything I could to stop this decision. I asked the questions. I pushed for data. I spoke for the other seven schools left behind. But I couldn’t change the outcome.
So let me be clear: I wash my hands of this.
Throwing $3.2 million onto a $31 million bonfire is not leadership — it’s lunacy. And I want nothing to do with it.
In the years ahead, when this decision and El Paso ISD unravels — as I believe it will — I hope those trustees who voted for it will look in the mirror and take full responsibility. Not blame the state. Not blame staff. But own the truth: the majority of this board made the crisis worse.
Let the record show: myself and Trustee Valerie Beals stood against this in the strongest possible terms.
Daniel Call represents District 7 on the El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees.
The post Opinion: Reopening Lamar Elementary is a political favor, not a public good appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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