With her toddler son in her left arm, Gladys Garcia carefully flipped through pages of yearbooks in the corner of Charles E. Nash Elementary’s packed gym.
She joined more than 200 people celebrating the Fort Worth ISD school. Kids screamed in joy as they chased each other, their footsteps adding to the cacophony of adults chitchatting.
Garcia barely noticed. She just wanted to find photos of her brothers.
But a sadness lingered in her mind.
The school will never turn 100. After 99 years of classes, teachers and students, Nash Elementary closed May 21 at the sound of its final bell.
Garcia still remembers the day her pre-K and second grade students told her about the school’s closure. She didn’t believe them.
“Maybe it’s a lie,” she told them.
Then she learned the truth. Her children weren’t wrong.
They asked their mother a question — one she couldn’t answer.
What happens with my friends?
Garcia had a question of her own — another one she couldn’t answer.
Why close it?
‘They will be loved’
On a recent Friday afternoon, people walked along the sidewalks near Nash Elementary. Some were enjoying a stroll before sunset. Others held onto a leash as their dogs trotted. Some stopped and looked at the school as they heard music blaring from the celebration.
Few kids were around.
In the area surrounding Nash Elementary, census data shows 288 kids between birth and 9-years-old. Adults between 20 and 39 make up more than half of the 4,165 nearby residents.
Apartment complexes surround the campus, stringing along the banks of the West Fork Trinity River. Hotels are just down the block.
FWISD data shows 200 students who live in Nash Elementary’s attendance boundary are enrolled at the school.
Although the 263-seat campus was 84% full, FWISD closed the school and will trisect Nash Elementary’s zone. Students will attend Oakhurst, Versia Williams or Rufino Mendoza elementaries.
Principal Amber Jarden knows kids and parents alike are nervous about their new campuses for next year. They’ve asked her throughout the year, “What are we going to do next year? What are our babies going to do without their teachers and administrators and counselors?”
Jarden assured them.
“I have guaranteed parents that wherever their children go, they will be loved,” the principal said. “We built that in our parents. We built that sense of safety for our students. You created that culture of empathy, care and love with a drive that every student will succeed.”
‘We’re still family’
Deborah Miller kept her sunglasses on as she sat in the front row inside the school’s gym.
She watched students dance and sing. She listened to a student recite a poem in Spanish. Then Jarden recognized retired administrators, including Miller.
Behind her glasses, Miller wept.
Memories rushed back. She thought about all the children who came through the nearly century-old building. She remembered all the times a local radio station provided gifts and shoes to students. She recalled the parents who always jumped in to help.
Most of all she cried over the loss of a special school where she worked for six years, she said.
“When I came, they pulled me in like I’m family,” Miller said. “And it continues that way. Even with the closing, we’re still family.”
Debra Davis smiled and greeted people as they toured Nash Elementary, welcoming them into her pre-K classroom.
Davis is a long-term substitute for the class of 19 students — or, as she describes them, her wonderful babies between 4 and 5. She’s been with her students for the past year.
She could not shake the school’s impending closure. Through it all, Davis focused on teaching her little ones who she’s certain weren’t aware that their first year at Nash Elementary would be their last.
“I don’t know that they really understand that,” Davis said. “But the other kids in the higher grades? I have no doubt that they do.”
‘These walls hold stories’
Miller hopes the building will be saved.
Fort Worth architect Wiley G. Clarkson designed the campus in a Spanish Colonial style. Tan bricks tightly laid form the exterior. Red terra-cotta tiles form the roof. An octagonal turret juts from the southeast corner of the school.
“These walls hold stories of growth, perseverance, joy and community,” Jarden said. “Stories that will always be part of Fort Worth and be part of you.”
Back in the corner of the gym, Garcia rifled through yearbooks. Then she found them. Her brothers.
“They were so little,” Garcia said, inspecting the photos by bringing the yearbook closer to her face.
Their stories. Her kids’ stories. All are part of the story of Nash Elementary.
Garcia lingered on the pages a moment longer, then closed the yearbook gently.
Disclosure: FWISD manager Pete Geren leads the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. FWISD manager Laurie George is a member of the Report’s reader advisory council. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
Jacob Sanchez is education editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
