Interstate 10 travels east and west, roughly paralleling the curves of the river and dividing the city north and south.
Communities seem to spring from the desert, spreading east and north, one after another.
Benito Martinez is one of 15 elementary schools in the Socorro Independent School District, the second largest of the three districts in the city of El Paso. Benito opened in 1991 in a mostly middle class and close knit neighborhood. That same year, the district implemented a year-round schedule in all of its schools. At Benito, students are organized into four tracks, only three of which are in session at one time, allowing the school to accommodate the 950 students and still maintain modest class sizes. These standards apply to all the students and are reported by both ethnic and socioeconomic groups, each of which must meet the standards.