El Paso Matters – School shutdowns, dwindling enrollment shape EPISD trustee elections in Austin, El Paso, Bowie high areas

As it prepares to shutter schools amid declining enrollment and broader financial challenges, the May 3 school board election for El Paso Independent School District will determine who will govern the district for the next four years.

EPISD has seven single-member district seats, four of which are on the ballot this year with candidates hoping to either shift or maintain the majority between two factions within the board. The factions were created when the board voted in November to close eight elementary schools next year to address declining enrollment and budget deficits. About 270 employees are being reassigned to other schools.  

In District 1, which covers the Bowie and El Paso High School areas, and District 3 in the Austin High School neighborhood, school board candidates voice declining student numbers in the core of the city as their top issue. 

Four of the eight schools EPISD plans to close next year are in Districts 1 or 3. And the question of what to do with soon-to-be-empty campuses is the next challenge for the school board. 

A bill to create vouchers that cover a portion of the cost of private school tuition is also a top issue candidates discussed in interviews with El Paso Matters. All of the candidates for the two school board seats said the measure – likely to pass in the Texas Legislature – would hurt EPISD schools by redirecting public schools funds to private and charter schools,  

Trustees set the annual operating budget, determining how much money to allocate to different programs and initiatives – and how much to pay teachers, counselors and other employees. They also adopt a tax rate, which determines how much to collect in property taxes. School boards are also responsible for hiring and evaluating a superintendent. 

School board members are nonpartisan and are unpaid. They serve four-year terms with no term limits.

District 1

Incumbent Leah Hanany, who was elected to EPISD’s board in 2021, is facing challengers Monica Benjamin, who described herself as a stay-at-home mother of two and office administrator, and Nelson Bank, a 75-year-old former teacher.

Benjamin, 50, said she decided to run after spending years as an active member of the Parent Teacher Association at El Paso High School and seeing a lack of feedback or information from administrators at times. 

“The (Destination District Redesign) was also kind of a jumping point for me,” Benjamin said, referring to EPISD’s initiative to close schools with dwindling student populations. “Because the transparency, the accountability, the information provided to the stakeholders, I don’t think was very transparent.”

Bank said he decided “instinctively” to run for the school board seat. He said he’s developed a new curriculum to teach English and Spanish as a second language, and he wants to implement that at EPISD schools to improve dual language education. 

Hanany said she’s seeking a second term on the board to defend public schools after the Texas Legislature this week sent a voucher bill to Gov. Greg Abbott to sign that would siphon money from public schools. And she also wants the district to address issues with a focus on equity. 

Hanany voted against EPISD’s school closure plan last year. She said the district should not have closed Lamar Elementary, which is a high-performing school in a low-income area that will soon be vacant.  

“When you don’t deliver a proposal that saves high-performing, high-poverty schools, it doesn’t just fail students, but it costs the entire community,” Hanany said. “We want to make sure that we’re not seeing short-term savings on paper and also looking at what the hidden costs will be, not just to the district but to the city of El Paso.”

For his part, Bank said he hadn’t tracked closely the district’s school closure plan. 

“I don’t follow the money issues very much, because they get in the way of learning, they get in the way of teaching,” he said. “I know they’re necessary, but they’re sort of one step removed from what I’m interested in, which is teaching and learning.”

Benjamin said the school closures were necessary to save teachers’ jobs. 

“It goes down to what is more important at the time in our economy? Is it to continue to go in the hole as a school district, or is it to be responsible about the money and ensure people have a job the next day?” Benjamin said. She added that school closures are not ideal. 

“It’s kind of unrealistic for the older population that’s in the central city to expect the school to be open if there’s no kids,” she said. “I think it’s a city of El Paso issue, as we allow the developers to keep spreading the growth of the city to the outskirts.” 

Both Hanany and Benjamin said they oppose vouchers, and the general push to divert dollars away from public schools. 

“I’m wholly against vouchers and the funding of parallel educational systems that hurt public education,” Hanany said. “Vouchers are a dangerous distraction and divert public dollars away from our neighborhood schools and funnel them into private institutions that don’t have to serve all students or follow the same rules.”

Benjamin said her campaign has been largely funded by the Kids First Political Action Committee, which is associated with the Council on Regional Economic Expansion and Educational Development. CREEED has historically contributed to charter schools and traditional school districts. 

Still, she said charter and private schools aren’t the best choice for El Pasoans. 

“I’m running for public school board. If I was in support of those other two, I’d be running for city council,” Benjamin said. “I believe in public schools. And I chose to have my kids in the public schools, and I think it’s the right place to be. And the more we detract from going to public schools, the less money the public schools are going to have.”

Hanany, Benjamin and Bank opposed the idea of incorporating Christianity or other religions into public schools – as some members of the Texas Legislature are seeking to do. 

Bank said he supports the idea of arming teachers and staff to improve school safety, but Hanany and Benjamin rejected that. Benjamin said a monitor at a school’s entrance to buzz in visitors is effective for security, while Hanany said a school’s layout can ensure safety but so can offering students mental health resources and emotional support.   

Benjamin has reported raising $1,075 for her campaign, mostly from two out-of-town donations. She’s spent $84 so far, according to a campaign finance report. But Benjamin said Kids First PAC paid for her campaign manager and literature. 

Kids First PAC has not reported campaign spending as of Dec. 31. The PAC will have to submit an updated report next week detailing its more recent campaign spending 

Hanany reported raising $4,625, and spending just over $1,400 on her campaign. She received $1,000 each from Lane Gaddy, CEO of W. Silver Recycling, and Deborah Kastrin, vice president of local real estate development firm Kasco Ventures. 

District 3

In District 3, appointed incumbent Jack Loveridge, 40, is seeking to hold on to the position after he was appointed a year ago to replace  Josh Acevedo, who successfully ran for City Council. 

Loveridge, who graduated from Burges High School and heads a technology startup, is facing John Ponce De Leon, a 39-year-old public relations director for Saratoga Homes who graduated from Austin High School. 

Despite being an EPISD board member for only a year, Loveridge has faced contentious issues, such as his vote against the school closures.

Both candidates highlighted as a main concern the fact Austin High School’s enrollment is now below 900 students – a decline from more than 1,500 students in the 2013-14 school year. 

They each said the school board has a role to play in improving schools in Central El Paso and attracting residents back to the urban core from the faster-growing areas on the periphery of El Paso. 

Loveridge said he’s “been disappointed” with how EPISD’s board has operated over the last year – arguing there’s been too-little discussion and consensus-building during board meetings.  

When he voted against the school closure plan, he said that was in part because the district’s administration and the other school board members were inflexible, and he was surprised by sudden claims the district would lay off 600 employees if the board rejected closing schools. 

Instead of closing eight schools, Loveridge unsuccessfully called to close six schools in two rounds. 

“It is controlled by a majority, and that’s expected,” Loveridge said of EPISD’s board. “But it is to the detriment of areas of the city that are not represented by that majority.”

“If you have a board, it needs to try to find the mean of itself, try to find the average,” he said. “In leadership, you need to really find what that average is, so you’re not leaving out a section of the city.”

Ponce De Leon, meanwhile, said the school board must focus more on what to do with empty school campuses in his neighborhood – such as Bassett Middle School – and also Travis and Rusk elementary schools, which EPISD is planning to close next summer.

“They take care of Manhattan Heights, and they take care of Radford very well in Central El Paso. But this part always gets neglected,” Ponce De Leon said as he drove past Bassett Middle School.

“Why we are not doing anything with (Bassett Middle School) to attract people to come back to Central El Paso, it drives me nuts,” he said. “Everything is going out to the Eastside, to the Northeast, to the west. Why can’t Central be a part of that conversation? Why can’t we attract people to come live in my community?” 

Ponce De Leon suggested Bassett and Travis Elementary are both in a residential area, and would be good sites for future apartments that would allow families to move in repopulate neighborhood schools. 

And the school district could use cash from selling properties to install new refrigerated air conditioning units at schools that have aging and ineffective swamp coolers, Ponce De Leon said. 

“It’s hotter now,” he said. “Every school that we still have needs refrigerated air.” 

Ponce De Leon said if he’s elected, his employer Saratoga Homes – one of the major home builders in El Paso County – will not bid on surplus school properties that are put up for sale.

Loveridge agreed crafting a plan for vacant school properties is a major priority. Going forward, the district should come up with a plan for what to do with school properties before closing the school.

And he pointed to the property on Grant Avenue that houses EPISD’s College, Career and Technology Academy, which Loveridge said could be a good place for apartments. 

However, the school board has limited power over what the district’s administrators do with vacant properties, he said.  

“It’s not like we can say magically as a board, ‘Go sell this property.’ We can direct them to an extent to prioritize that,” Loveridge said. “At the same time, we also have to remember that this is not a permanent fix. … There’s a limited amount of money and it’s a one-off if you sell them.”

One way to make schools in Central El Paso more attractive for students outside the area is through “thematic” campuses that have a particular focus area. Loveridge pointed to the Fine Arts Academy at Crockett Elementary, or the Young Women’s STEAM Academy. 

“If people know that their child going to that school means they’re child has a better shot at a great college or a better shot at a great career, it will help us fill those classrooms and fill those seats,” Loveridge said.

In order to more quickly sell properties, Ponce De Leon said the district must conduct an audit examining the district’s asking prices for surplus properties, who is bidding and what zoning-related issues a property might have, if any.  

Both Loveridge and Ponce De Leon said they oppose any introduction of religion into classrooms, and both rejected the idea of arming school staff and teachers for security. 

Neither candidate supports the state’s voucher program to help students pay for tuition to private schools. 

Loveridge, who received a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin, has also attended Stanford, Oxford, Yale and Harvard universities. He said he planned to spend his career in academia before changing course, moving back to El Paso four years ago and founding a history-based technology startup company.

Ponce De Leon served in the U.S. Air Force for six years and received a bachelor’s degree from University of Phoenix. Spanish and English words mix as he shares stories about growing up not far from Grandview Park. 

“Pos, me agüito,” Ponce De Leon said, lamenting the planned closure of 105-year-old Rusk Elementary. “That little school is going to be going. And they have a nice little community there. 

“I just want better for this place,” he said.  

Ponce De Leon has raised $1,741 for this campaign, mostly from his own funds, and spent $1,318. He received one $100 in-kind donation and $40 from another donor. 

Loveridge has raised $18,280 for his run, and spent $11,269 so far. Loveridge contributed $2,500 of his own money to  his campaign. Another big donor was state Sen. César Blanco, D-El Paso, who gave $1,000.  

“There’s only 885 students at Austin, and I know this community loves Austin High School,” Ponce De Leon said. “And, so, I want to do everything we can to attract people to where we are not having conversations of losing these schools that have been in our community for generations.”

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