Peñitas Common School

Peñitas Common School. . The first records of the Peñitas Common School date to the 1890s, when the facility served about fifteen students. The schoolhouse was a one-room frame building that housed at least one desk and six benches for student instruction. Early educational institutions in west Hidalgo County were also operated in the nearby communities of Tabasco, Havana, Los Ebanos, San Ramon and Guadalupe. The area schools gathered together once a year for a field day., M.C. Trevino, Nellie Lee Schunior, and Nuns from the Sisters of Mercy were early educators at Peñitas Common School. In 1913, a brick school house was erected to hold classes from first grade through eleventh grade. In 1925, the Peñitas Common School was absorbed into Tabasco Consolidated Independent School District with several other common schools in Hidalgo County. Tabasco Consolidated Independent School District was later renamed La Joya Independent School District., Peñitas Common School counts among its alumni the first graduates of Nellie Schunior Memorial High School, approximately 50 veterans of World War II, 40 Korean War veterans, and 80 Vietnam War veterans. After decades of providing education to the children of Peñitas and the surrounding area, the school was closed in 1975 and later demolished. The Peñitas Common School is a testament to the value of education in the community both past and present.