Rebeca Rivera has lived in the same house in East Aldine for 23 years, a two-minute walk from Oleson Elementary School. All four of her children attended Oleson Elementary, and her youngest, Logan, is finishing fourth grade at the Aldine ISD campus. 

Although Logan only has one year left before moving to middle school, Rivera hoped he would finish out his elementary school experience like his siblings did: in the small, aging building on Vickery Street.

“It’s like a family school,” Rivera said.

But Oleson is one of seven schools the district is considering closing at the end of the school year as the district faces a budget deficit due to declining enrollment, no major increases of state funding and the end of pandemic stimulus funds. The school board is expected to vote Feb. 25 on whether to close some or all of the campuses. 

The closures would affect more than 3,000 students across Aldine, including dozens of Oleson Elementary families that gathered Thursday for the first of three community meetings held by district officials ahead of the vote. In interviews and comments to Aldine leaders during the meeting, parents voiced their concerns about transportation, the potential loss of well-liked teachers, academic ratings and more.

The event at Johnson Elementary School provided parents from Oleson Elementary with the opportunity to step into the campus their children would attend in the fall if Aldine’s school board approves the closures. With its high ceilings, sleek architecture and airy hallways, Johnson Elementary is considerably more modern than Oleson Elementary — albeit with lower math scores and similar reading scores on state standardized tests.

The fresh campus impressed some families, though parents still lamented the loss of the community around Oleson Elementary and the challenges a new campus could bring.

Rivera said she wasn’t sure how her son would adjust to the size of a combined school — Oleson Elementary enrolls about 400 students, while the merged campus would approach 1,000 students — and doesn’t want to leave a school that serves Latino students well. The longer commute also gave her pause since Johnson Elementary is 2.5 miles northeast of her home.

“I understand they say it’s eight minutes on the map, but in the morning with more cars it will be more like 20 minutes,” Rivera said. “We have a lot of walkers and bicycles. … Now, with the new schools, we won’t have that.”

Like Rivera, Lupita Martinez also worried about the new drive to Johnson Elementary. The mother of 8-year-old twins, Martinez works three minutes away by car from Oleson Elementary and appreciated that she could get to the school quickly in case of an emergency. 

“I’m going to have to leave earlier to drop them off, and get home later when I pick them up,” Martinez said in Spanish. “It makes everything a little more difficult.”

Marina Ramirez, a parent of two students at Oleson Elementary, said it was “very shocking” to hear about the campus potentially closing because she and her sister attended the school as children. Still, Ramirez said she understands the district’s decision to potentially close it.

“I do hear that they have a lot of upgrades,” Ramirez said.

For Ernestina Ponciano, who walks her children to Oleson Elementary every day, closing the campus would leave her with no way to quickly get to her kids. Her family doesn’t have a car, and she worries about what would happen if her children get sick during the middle of the school day.

Aldine’s assistant superintendent of government relations and constituent services, Abel Garza, stressed to Ponciano and a small group of parents that students would get district-provided transportation to school — an option Ponciano said her children would have to take.

Despite the potential challenges with transportation, Ponciano said she likes the niceness and size of Johnson Elementary, which is nearly twice as big as Oleson Elementary. 

“We’re going to feel strange for a few days while we get used to the change,” Ponciano said.

Aldine administrators have said the closures are needed to help address the district’s financial problems. While Aldine stockpiled about $200 million in savings during the pandemic, the district ran a $65 million deficit in 2023-24 and passed a 2024-25 budget last June with a projected deficit of nearly $100 million. (School districts often end the year with a smaller deficit than projected.)

While Aldine remains on solid financial footing for now, it risks financial trouble within a few years unless it makes significant cuts or gets more funding from the state. Aldine Superintendent LaTonya Goffney told families Thursday that the district needs to balance its budget. 

“This is not just an Aldine issue,” Goffney said. “This is a statewide issue and a nationwide issue.”

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