Roy P. Benavidez Elementary School is located in the Gulfton area. It was built to alleviate overcrowding at L.T. Cunningham, and opened its doors on January 21, 1992. The school was designed for seven hundred and fifty students. Our present enrollment is 1,400 students. The school consists of forty-six Bilingual and/or ESL classrooms, six regular classrooms, two Special Education classrooms and a school-wide Title I program. Grades range from pre-kindergarten through fifth. Special Education programs offered at Benavidez include a Resource Program, and Early Childhood Program, Multiple-Impaired Program, and Speech Therapy. There are approximately 200 students enrolled in Gordon Elementary, and approximately 56 students enrolled in other HISD schools, all of whom are zoned to Benavidez. We have had to add one single and seven temporary classroom buildings plus one temporary restroom to our campus to accommodate our growing membership.

Benavidez has a high percentage of minority students, 2% White, 3% Asian, 6% Black, and 89% Hispanic. Our entire student population resides in apartments within a ten-block radius.

Many of our students are recent immigrants or first-generation American citizens from Mexico and Central American countries. Most of our students are from lower-socio-economic households and over 89% participate in the National School Lunch Program.