The Crusade for Justice slowly fell apart in the late 1980s. El Gallo stopped publication, the Crusade sold the headquarters building, and later that same year, Gonzales suffered permanent brain damage in a car accident in 1987. The accident forced him to step down from organizational leadership.

The Crusade's decline meant changes for Escuela. The school relocated to offer classes in a sister organization, Servicios de la Raza, a health clinic serving the Denver Mexican American community. As enrollment dwindled, they also reduced their classes to high school only.

Without Gonzales’ leadership and the move to Servicios, the late 1980s was chaotic for Escuela. When Corky Gonzales stepped down, his daughter, Nita, rose up to meet the needs of the school.

Nita Gonzales brought major changes for Escuela Tlatelolco. The most important change was relocating the school a second time from Servicios to North Denver in 1994, a longstanding neighborhood of Mexican Americans.

To address funding, she also created a charter with Denver Public Schools, which provided Escuela $800,000 of funding a year with strong performance on standardized tests.

The new building restored Escuela Tlatelolco as a pillar of Denver's Mexican American community. The new building was a starting point for protests, a community gathering site, and a neighborhood landmark. Sitting on one of the biggest street intersections in the city, Escuela remained there for twenty-three years.

Escuela would struggle with standardized testing, which would cause the school to lose its charter (and the funding it provided) in 2014. Simultaneously, the rapid gentrification of North Denver meant smaller student enrollment for the school. Both factors together forced Escuela to close its doors in 2017.