Jerry Mata, whose 10-year-old daughter Tess was killed in a school shooting last year in Uvalde, Texas, still returns to the campus of Robb Elementary to honor her son.

“I am coming at night,” Mata told ABC News. “This was her last place, where she breathed her last. I have to come until it falls.”

Families of mothers and other victims await demolition, while the community is gripped with mixed emotions over plans to demolish a school in Uvalde and replace it with a new one.

Robb Elementary is the site of the second deadliest elementary school shooting in American history, where 19 children and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022.

Ten days after the massacre, the local school district announced plans to demolish the school.

It was not a straightforward decision, given both the events of May 24 and the cultural and historical significance of Robb Elementary in the small community 60 miles from the Mexican border.

Irene Stone, development director of Uvalde’s El Progresso library and whose family helped build the school in 1955, said the school’s past should not be erased.

“I would love to put all of this history that we’ve researched into that monument,” Stone told ABC News, “so that we can honor people like my grandfather and my great uncle and my father who built the school.”

Rob Elementary played a key role in the fight for equal rights for Chicano and Mexican-American students, who at one point were forbidden to speak Spanish within the school walls, according to Stone, in a community where the population is stable at 80. % Hispanic or Latino.

In the spring of 1970, 650 students staged a walkout following the firing of one of the school’s only Latino and bilingual teachers. The protest led to a lawsuit that found the district in violation of the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision 16 years earlier, and resulted in the district being ordered to desegregate in 1976.

That decree was later challenged by the school district in 2007, but a settlement was reached in 2017 with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a civil rights nonprofit.

District leadership appeared to be at odds with victims’ families for months after the Robb massacre, with some parents organizing a two-week sit-in at the district office, culminating in the controversial resignation of longtime school superintendent Hal Harrell.

Gary Patterson, a career administrator named interim superintendent to replace Harrell, said he supports the decision to demolish the school, but acknowledged that questions about how to honor Robb’s legacy are complicated.

“I don’t think the history or significance of Robb Elementary … should go away. Because taking the building down, it’s more than just a building,” Patterson told ABC News. “It’s history and culture. So, we need to find ways as a community to remember the history of that area as well as the students who lost their lives.”

Asked about the proposed memorial on the school grounds, Patterson said nothing has been decided yet.

“We’re not at the stage where those decisions are — the school district is not going to rule that out at all. If the district feels and the community feels it’s the right place, then I think yes,” he said.

“I don’t think Uvalde will ever live down the tragedy, and I’m not sure he should,” Patterson said. “I think it’s become part of our fabric, and we need to see how we can go together without undermining anything that happened there.”

Mercedes Salas, a teacher at Robb Elementary who survived the massacre and whose own children attended the school, said the school evokes complicated emotions for her and her family.

“I had great memories with my colleagues, with my students before that day, you know?” Salas told ABC News. “My personal kids attended… and they have nothing but great memories. So, I just have mixed feelings because my last day was a terrible day, you know, a day full of fear.”

Others, like Matt, whose family has attended the school for generations, are ready to see the building go.

“Rob Elementary should be a thing of the past,” Matta said.

There is currently no scheduled date or budget to demolish the school, but the district and Uwald Mayor Don McLaughlin have assured residents that plans are forthcoming.

Construction of the new school, adjacent to one of the community’s existing elementary schools, is slated to begin in August, with students attending as early as 2025. The district has set a fundraising goal of $50 million, which will be its sole source of funding. school

Uvalde:365 is an ABC News series reporting from Uvalde and focuses on the Texas community and how it moves forward in the shadow of tragedy.