The district cited financial constraints, an overprojection in enrollment, funding formulas and inflationary factors that led to their decision.
SAN ANTONIO — The final hours of school heading into Christmas break are usually tinged with excitement and joy.
But the last day of Crystal City ISD’s fall semester arrived with a bombshell: When students return next year, dozens of teachers and staff won’t be there to welcome them.
Forty employees learned this week that Friday would be their last day at the district, which services about 1,700 students across five schools. Making the holiday-season news even frostier, officials said the Pre-K3 program is closing at the start of 2025.
Superintendent Dina Briones says they’re helping those workers with career transition services and other support programs.
The decision was made amid financial constraints, according to the Crystal City Board of Trustees, which voted to dismiss dozens of workers in a livestreamed Dec. 16 meeting. Those affected learned their fate in a letter notifying them they wouldn’t have a job come the spring semester.
Angelica Peinado, a fourth grader in Crystal City ISD, learned Friday that her science teacher wouldn’t be coming back.
“It made me feel sad because she was a very nice teacher,” Angelica said. “I think it’s gonna be hard to focus without her.”
In another blow, parents of 53 children in Pre-K3 are now left scrambling.
“There were some kids that were crying, ‘I don’t want you to leave us!'” said one mother whose child attended the Pre-K3 program in Crystal City ISD.
The mother, who wished to remain anonymous, told KENS 5 she was notified Friday the program would no longer exist come Jan. 1, leaving 3-year-olds without vital early learning and development opportunities.
“My son does speech therapy and that’s what really helped them be out there, be more talkative. Now I feel like he’s going to fall back on his speaking,” the mother said. “He was always excited to go to school. Even on the weekends he’d get up and get ready thinking it was school time.”
“No school, no sitter,” she went on to say about her and her son’s current situation, one felt by other families in the small Zavala County city. “Some parents are single moms and that was their only job, and they take that away from them.”
Crystal City ISD says an overprojection in enrollment, funding formulas and inflationary factors led to the board’s vote.
But it’s a vote that now has left employees without their livelihoods, said Crystal City ISD alum, Victoria Noel Peinado.
“This is what they came back to our town to do,” she said. “Some of them never even left because they wanted to put back into their community doing this with the school district.”
Victoria is now organizing a peaceful march this weekend in support of all those affected. In doing so, she’s following in the footsteps of her grandmother Juanita, who joined the town’s student walkout of 1969.
The march is set to take place Sunday, Dec. 22 at 4 p.m. It will start at 1206 E. Bexar Street in Crystal City and walk around the schools.
“It’s in their position to make sure the youth is educated and comes back to put back in(to) the community,” Peinado said. “They can’t do that if that’s not an option anymore.”
Crustal ISD released the following statement: