(Ed.'s Note: While the Brownsville Independent School District board and administration fell over themselves trying to spend the $120 million over five years and naming facilities after their cronies, the state of some of the BISD buildings on school campuses have become hazardous eyesores.
Take, for example, some of the buildings that are still on the J.T. Canales Elementary campus on International on the northern fringes of Southmost.
Although they are no longer in use, they have been allowed to deteriorate to the point where they constitute a danger to students and people who may have to work in the area. In fact, the buildings have been left lie fallow for so long that some of them even sport burglar bars, long prohibited by the fire code. Parents from Canales sent us these photos and say that the old buildings have been falling apart for years and have been visibly deteriorating. They are afraid some curious kids may wander among the ramshackle buildings and get hurt by a rotten beam or cut by glass or a piece of corrugated metal sheet. The condition of this campus would make most administrators cringe in horror. Will it take concerned parents to get the new board to nudge the administration to action to remove this hazard? We'll see.)