La Joya ISD proposes five school closures and a career academy, estimates $27 million for reinvestment

La Joya Independent School District leaders on Tuesday outlined five proposed school actions that would close or temporarily close five campuses and reassign students to nearby, higher-rated schools, with one building planned to reopen in 2027-28 as a districtwide career academy middle school.

Doctor Little, the district official leading the presentation, told the board the recommendations were driven by three priorities: ‘‘academic excellence, addressing enrollment declines and financial sustainability,’’ and said the package could "free up potentially 27 plus million dollars that can be reinvested" in programming and avoid major capital spending on aging facilities. "We are not asking you to take a vote on this this evening," he said, outlining an engagement and approval timeline that would bring a formal request back to the board in January.

The five recommendations are: close Benavides Elementary and reassign its pre-K to fourth‑grade students to Fordyce (Benavides cited as a D-rated campus moving to an 87/B-rated campus); close Pena Elementary and reassign students to Clinton or Gonzales based on residence; close LEO and reassign students to Flores and Ibarra (those receiving campuses are C-rated and the closure is not eligible for school-action funding); close Anne Richards Middle School and reassign students to Garcia and Memorial; and temporarily close JD Salinas with students attending Trevino while the district plans to reopen JD Salinas as a career academy middle school in 2027-28.

Doctor Little said some of the closures (Benavides and Pena) qualify for state school-action grant funding to support transitions, while the JD Salinas plan would seek funding to hire a founding principal and support design work. He said district staff will walk buildings classroom-by-classroom, refresh capacity figures and hold multiple community engagement sessions in December and January before the board is asked to act.

On staffing, Little said the district intends to follow the program-change process in policy DFFB local: "All staff would be released through a reduction in force" and then would be eligible to apply for vacancies across the district, with an internal hiring window before roles are posted externally. Little described the approach as intended to ensure the "highest quality educators" are placed in receiving classrooms.

Board members asked about class-size impacts, eligibility for state grants and how quickly student outcomes might improve after a reassignment. Little said class sizes at receiving campuses would increase toward typical ratios (for example, a third-grade class of 13 could grow to the low‑20s) but not to extreme levels, and argued that placing students in higher‑quality classrooms can yield rapid academic gains. Superintendent Doctor Sorensen acknowledged the difficulty of closing buildings with long histories but said the district must weigh fiscal realities and reinvestment opportunities.

The district's timeline calls for community outreach in December, stakeholder input and boundary work in January and a board decision in late January, with nonrenewal and reduction‑in‑force steps in February if the board approves.

The presentation emphasized the district's strategic plan and the North Star goal (increasing the share of students in A/B-rated campuses), and identified programmatic goals for a proposed career academy, including early exposure to career and technical education pathways. Doctor Little said the proposals are aimed at improving educational opportunity while reducing underutilized facility overhead.

If approved, the board and district plan to submit applications to the Texas Education Agency for available school-action funding and to hold multiple in‑person and digital engagement opportunities for families and staff.