A 45-student district on Texas’ border with Mexico is being dissolved by the state because of its poor academic performance and an unsafe facility.
Commissioner of Education Shirley J. Neeley last week ordered the K-8 Mirando City Independent School District to shut down July 1 and merge with a neighboring district.
The students attending the Mirando district’s only school will transfer to the 333-student Webb Consolidated Independent School District, which serves the county surrounding the city of Mirando. The students who graduated from the Mirando district attend high school in the Webb district.
Ms. Neeley said she decided to close the district because it has been declared academically unacceptable three of the past four years. Its facilities are “abysmal,” Ms. Neeley said, citing open cesspools near the school’s cafeteria.
Claudia Rodriguez, the superintendent of the Mirando district, acknowledged that the school is in disrepair, but said the district doesn’t have the money to fix it. Under the Texas school finance law, the district must give 64 percent of its property-tax revenues to the state to be distributed to poorer districts, she said.