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Ochoa Elementary School's possible closure looms over South Tucson residents like a monsoon cloud on the horizon.

It's bearing down and in sight, but whether you end up getting soaked is more or less out of your hands.

While Ochoa's closure is a decision the Tucson Unified School District's board may make on Tuesday, those closest to Ochoa showed their support for the school Saturday at a rally.

All things considered, it was a festive affair.

Jumping castles swayed. Hip-hop music blared. Children played while hot dogs sizzled on the grill.

"We value the school here," said Gloria Hamelitz, who organized the rally and is director of the neighboring John Valenzuela Youth Center. "We wanted the community to come together to show support for Ochoa."

The Valenzuela Youth Center, at 1550 S. Sixth Ave., is run by the City of South Tucson. It sits next to Ochoa Elementary, and Hamelitz said most of the youths who come to the center after school are either Ochoa students or graduates.

Hamelitz said about 900 people — a mixture of students, parents, faculty and civic leaders — had turned out for the event. But one group that was conspicuously absent: members of TUSD's Governing Board.

"We didn't do it for the board members," Hamelitz said. "We did it for the community."

Indeed, parents at the rally described Ochoa as a nexus to the neighborhood.

The majority of the students are on reduced or free lunches, they said, and the Valenzuela Center provides the kids a place to go while their parents are at work. Some in the crowd wondered how busing would affect schedules or disrupt the neighborhood.

"Between the center and the school, this is the second family for all these children," said Maria Jones, whose son Jerry attends Ochoa. Jones said the possibility of a closure shocked her, and that if the board went through with it, she would withdraw her son from TUSD.

"We are unsure if we can actually trust TUSD," she said.

The neighborhoods around Ochoa are some of the most low income in Tucson, and Brian Flagg, director of Casa Maria, said his soup kitchen serves a number of parents, whose students attend Ochoa.

"We look at this as an assault on our barrio," he said. "If the school board politicians vote to close these schools, it will be their legacy."