The Eanes board passed motions Jan. 14 to close Valley View Elementary (VVE) and discontinue the Spanish immersion program starting in the 2025-2026 school year. These decisions  join the removal of PLC periods back in December as a series of changes Eanes has made to combat increasing budget deficits. The students from Valley View will join the population of Barton Creek Elementary (BCE) next school year, while the teachers will be reassigned throughout the district. 

The VVE community is tight knit, with entire families going through the elementary school, and many teachers seeing generations of students over the years. Bringing such big changes to the community has made an emotional transition for teachers, students, and everybody who has passed through Valley View’s doors at some point in life. 

“[Being here], it’s incredible,” Bogan said, who has taught at VVE since its opening. “That’s the reason I keep teaching, is because of Valley View and the love you feel in the building and within everyone”.  

Many of the staff have a special connection with VVE and its community, including third grade teacher Stephanie Brock who has been teaching at the school for 27 years. 

“I went to school here the year it opened,” Brock said. “We lived in Lost Creek at the time, and my mom has memories of helping move furniture in here. So I did spend two years here. Ms. Bogan was my music teacher, so it was kind of neat to later come back and be in a place where I had once been a student”. 

Teachers were informed in October of the likely possibility of VVE closing. Lack of state funding for schools created gradually rising budget deficits for the district, and VVE faced gradually lowering attendance rates. Some feared that the school might close, but the final news of the closing was more than a surprise for the community. 

“Before [October], we were told that we would be able to stay open for three or four years for sure, using Spanish Immersion to boost the population”, Bogan said. “So we were all set for three or four more years, and then we would revisit the possibility of closing. So it kind of caught all of us off guard”. 

Still, the possibility of closure had crept in the back of many teacher’s minds, and for P.E. teacher Ryan Sanderson, it seemed like a logical choice when the time came. 

“I think [it] was presented to us like, these are the options, and this is what we’re up against,” Sanderson said. “And when you look at that, and you take out the emotional part, you kind of do see like, hey, there’s not really many options that are left on the table that could do what they need to do in order to keep the Eanes community thriving and still offering the level of education that they want”. 

Eanes has promised to disperse VVE’s staff throughout the district, but teachers are still unsure of where they will be next year, or what they might teach. This is a shock to a lot of teachers with long tenures, inlcluding third grade teacher Danielle Rivas. 

“When I interviewed for the job, I knew I was going to be long term,”  Rivas said. “I said in my interview, I’m here until I retire. So this is the first time in the past 20 years that I’ve been unsettled”. 

The news of the closure hasn’t just affected teachers, it impacts the entire VVE community. Parents and young students are as equally shocked as teachers are. 

“I think that the families and the students are used to a really small, very intimate, very personalized experience,” Rivas said. “[And], you know, just going from a super small school to a much bigger one is going to be a little tricky to navigate”. 

Change is a big thing for elementary schoolers especially. It can be scary as much as it is exciting, and teachers want their students to look forward to next year at BCE as much as possible.

“I think that the morale has been kind of low, but I think that now that people are starting to really wrap their brains around the idea and we grown ups want the kids to be excited about their next step, no matter what it is,” Rivas said. “Like we want them to be happy and looking forward to it”. 

The events of the closure has all happened during the school year, and despite the shock, teachers still came to school and did their job everyday, and they will until the end of the school year. But this is not a normal school year that the teachers have become so used to. 

“It feels like there’s going to be an exclamation point on the year,” Sanderson said. “For me personally, it does feel like the end of one book, as opposed to a chapter, and then whatever comes next will be a completely new book, maybe part of a trilogy or something”. 

While the closure of VVE is upsetting for the community, there comes a point where you can’t do anything but look forward. 

“We’ve gone through a variety of emotions, to shock and to a lot of sadness, but now I think we’re on the upswing to say, Okay, what’s next,” Bogan said. “And let’s have a great, incredible spring and make it fun for everyone. A spring to remember”.