09:09 AM CDT on Friday, April 15, 2005

From 11 News Staff Reports

The Houston Indepedent School District board met Thursday afternoon to talk about closing nine elementary schools. They ultimately decided that Argyle, Brock, Clinton Park, Douglass and Ryan elementary schools would be closed at the end of this school year and the students be transferred to other nearby schools.

"It is our job to provide the best education for kids that we possibly can," Dr. Saavedra said. "Unfortunately, the enrollment of these five schools is so small that they can't offer the full range of educational services that children need. We need to offer those kids more than they're getting now. This is an issue of educational effectiveness and efficiency."

Four of the five schools have experienced sharply declining enrollments as neighborhoods have changed. As families mature and leave school, and as others leave neighborhoods to move to other parts of the Houston area, school enrollments shift dramatically.

HISD Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra said after public hearings and further consideration, he will not recommend closing Isaacs Elementary, which had been on the original list of schools considered for closure.

In addition, the administration will recommend that four other elementary schools be closed during or after the 2005-06 school year and that those students be moved to brand new schools nearby that are being built as part of HISD's school construction bond program.

Those four schools are Chatham, Easter, Fairchild and Anson Jones elementary schools.

The HISD administration decided not to recommend closing Bowie elementary school and moving the students to a brand new school at another site. The administration decided instead to recommend building the new school at the Bowie site, as originally planned in the 2002 bond issue, because of expected population growth in the area.