Bonham Elementary School closes this month
Photo by Danny Fulgencio
When DISD announced plans last year to close 10 elementary schools, including Bonham, the community immediately took a stance to protect the beloved neighborhood school on Henderson Avenue. In the end, a savings of approximately $1.1 million won out, and the board of trustees voted to close Bonham, a Blue-Ribbon School that’s rated “Exemplary,” despite the neighborhood’s best efforts to save it. Parents were sad, angry, disheartened. But now they’re facing reality, making plans for the coming school year. Bonham faculty, staff, students and parents will say goodbye, as they do at the end of every year, at field day this month. Bonham principal Sandra Fernandez and the entire Bonham staff are moving to a new school, Adelfa Botello Callejo Elementary School in Pleasant Grove. “I think they have a fabulous group of teachers, and we would’ve loved to have them teaching our kids,” says Velouette Zavadil, whose child is entering kindergarten at Robert E. Lee Elementary next year. “But Lee has done an excellent job as well.” A few parents are following the Bonham team to Callejo. Some have enrolled in Kennedy Learning Center or Dealey Montessori Academy. And about 150 are expected to enroll at Lee. Lee PTA officer Claudette Copeland reached out to Bonham parents soon after the board of trustees’ vote. “The decision’s been made, and now we should go forward with a lot of spirit and working together in building a better PTA and school,” she says. The PTA and teachers at Lee have been preparing students for the change, Copeland says, encouraging them to make new friends. The friendliness of the Lee PTA and teachers went a long way in convincing some parents to send their kids there, says Sofia Hurley, a Bonham PTA officer whose son is entering kindergarten at Lee. And Lee, after all, is also a good school, rated “Exemplary” by the Texas Education Agency. “I thought I would give Lee a try,” Hurley says. “If something doesn’t feel right, I can always go somewhere else.” One advantage of the change is that Lee is in the J.L. Long Middle School-Woodrow Wilson High School feeder pattern. Bonham students advanced to Spence Middle School and North Dallas High School. Anna Short, who was involved with the Save Bonham movement, is sending her daughter to kindergarten at Lee because they weren’t accepted to Dealey. Although she’s planning to apply to Dealey again, Short is cautiously optimistic about Lee, which is actually closer to her house than Bonham. She likes that Lee has a garden, a nice library, a focus on health and fitness, and “that funky spirit” that engages the community. If there are any doubts about Lee, Claudette Copeland just might be the one to dissuade them. “I have been very, very satisfied with Lee from the get go,” she says. “I think the teachers are exceptional, the principal is great; we don’t have any discipline problems whatsoever.”
