This week, 49 6th grade students from CAST Imagine, CAST’s very first middle school, toured the Arboretum San Antonio, a brand new park designed to be a place for trees and native trees on San Antonio’s Southside.

The Arboretum, a former golf course, has been hosting a series of focus groups and surveys with community members, listening to diverse voices and capturing perspectives so as to ensure the park serves the needs of those around it.

The first school to tour the space was CAST Imagine. Before the field trip, students completed the community survey, and prepared to share their views on what would make the space truly special. 

These sixth graders even wrestled with the complex question of public funding, creating a discussion board where they commented on the value of natural spaces, clean water, teaching about the importance of trees, and ensuring habitat for wildlife. 

Some worried about limited public dollars, acknowledging the importance of roads, police, and public safety, but the majority came down on the side of Jasmine Mendoza, who argued that public spaces are for all to enjoy, saying: “a park is an ecosystem that both people and animals could share, as well as save any endangered animals or trees!”

When San Antonio ISD asked CAST Schools last year to open a middle school co-located at CAST Med High School at Brooks on the Southside of San Antonio, we were both excited and nervous.

Why those conflicting feelings?

CAST follows a design process similar to that of the Arboretum, working to co-create with the community over the course of a design year, before welcoming its first class of students.

However, with CAST Imagine, we had a compressed timeline of just a few months to design. Nonetheless, we held focus groups with students and parents, and design sessions with the community, and pushed out a survey. 

It was a joy to hear students share their desire to take learning outside the school building, to learn more about their community, careers of the future, and engage in hands-on learning.

These possibilities inspired one of our long-time beloved teachers at CAST Med, Colleen Quirk, chose to move to the middle school, and she was joined by a rock star team including Eugene Jimenez, who came to us from the DoSeum. Now they are busy doing just what students asked for, including taking them to places like the Arboretum.

SAISD projected CAST Imagine would open with 58 students; instead we welcomed 78, and we are preparing to add another 20 from our wait list once we are able to hire an additional teacher and move some of our upperclass students at CAST Med into portables provided by the district.

There are always hiccups with a new school, but we are excited that our building and gym are under construction, slated to open for the second semester of this school, allowing our new and growing middle school space to breathe and grow, and us to continue to co-create with students and families as this exciting middle school evolves.

Jeanne Russell

Executive Director

CAST Schools