EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — For several weeks, parents, students, community advocates, city and county leaders, and even three EPISD trustees, voiced their opposition to the El Paso Independent School District’s (EPISD) plan to close down multiple elementary schools to mitigate the district’s $32 million deficit.  EPISD releases transition plan after board votes to close schools Through these efforts, they tried to urge EPISD to halt or even delay any decision until their equity audit was completed and factored in as part of the decision.  Those hopes came crashing down Tuesday night when a divided board voted 4-3 in favor of proceeding with the closures.  The original proposal considered 10 schools for potential closure, and that number only went down to eight after a short round of community meetings. Six of those schools will immediately shut down at the end of this school year in 2025, while Stanton and Travis Elementary will not close until 2026.  Among the six schools closing immediately is Lamar Elementary, located in Central El Paso just below the Franklin Mountains.  A day after the decision by EPISD was made, parents and students spoke about the decision. The overwhelming sentiment was that of sadness, devastation, and hopelessness.  “This hurts our community and our students. (Lamar) is being closed down out of ignorance. (EPISD) could have invested more in this school through programs and projects. Instead of taking advantage of this educational facility, they chose ignorance,” said Cristina V., the mother of a student attending Lamar. “The transition is going to affect us. Geographically it does not help us. I will have to take my son to a school further from here where there’s more chaos with traffic.” Cristina, like many parents with students at Lamar, has older children attending the neighboring Wiggins Middle School. The primary issue for them will be having to make two separate trips in the mornings to drop their kids off at schools located in separate areas.  The recommended sister school for students of Lamar to relocate to after the closures is Mesita Elementary. Mesita is over two miles away and regret the fact that they will have to drive through the traffic jams at Mesa Street to get their kids to school. “I think the decision was rushed. I hope this decision was not made because we are a minority in this community. We are predominantly Hispanic. Our kid’s first language is Spanish,” said Belma Alvarez, a mother with children attending Lamar. “Our neighborhoods here near the school are very united. If a parent cannot pick their kids up, we will help each other out. Moving to another school will complicate that for us and our kids will have to walk further.” Mesita is about a 45-minute walk and climbs up the hills from the houses near Lamar Elementary. Despite EPISD's plan to offer busing to students, many parents said they would prefer for their kids to not have to use the bus. Another resounding sentiment among parents from the Lamar community was that EPISD’s decision was seemingly premeditated and that their concerns were not genuinely considered.  “They didn’t inform us with enough time for the (community) meetings. And then they would schedule them while we were at work or rushing from work to pick our kids up,” said Omar Dominguez, parent to a 4th-grade student at Lamar.  “I felt really sad because I have cousins here at (Lamar) in 2nd grade. I don’t know where they will go now that the school is closing. But I know that my tias (aunts) are going to have a really hard time finding another school,” said Montserrat Esparza, a 5th-grade student at Lamar who will be attending Wiggins Middle School the following school year.  “My (parents) chose this school (Lamar) for my little sister to attend because she would be close to me, and now she won’t be. I would have been able to pick her up if she was at this school,” said Valeria Silva, a 5th-grade student at Lamar who will be attending Wiggins Middle School next school year.