4 Northside Unbiased College District incumbent faculty board members are up for reelection this yr, all of whom face opposition from the district’s instructor union, which backed challengers of their races.
Union leaders say they’re seeking to shake up a board of incumbents who’re primarily retired from their skilled careers and promote a brand new class of youthful neighborhood activists.
“We wish a faculty board that’s going to work collectively with the neighborhood at giant that they characterize. And we don’t really feel that that presently is a illustration of the trustees which can be on the board,” Melina Espiritu-Azocar, president of Northside AFT, stated in an April 15 interview.
However the incumbents — who at the moment are the goal of some late-breaking assaults on their connections to architects and engineers who maintain contracts with the district — say the opposition got here as a shock, and so they didn’t count on to wind up within the crosshairs of union leaders they work carefully with.
In District 2, Homer Guevara was appointed to fill a emptiness in 2024 and now faces three challengers in his bid for a full time period. The union backed Sonia Jasso in that race, who works as a director of highschool packages at Palo Alto School.
“I’ve had constant communication with Melina Espiritu-Azocar and have visited AFT’s headquarters just a few occasions to fulfill along with her. We each have additionally communicated by emails and textual content messages starting from after I was first appointed to my trustee place up till two weeks in the past,” Guevara advised the Report.
Incumbents in NISD faculty board district’s 5, 6 and seven are all searching for reelection towards a single union-backed challenger in every race.
Early voting runs Tuesday, April 22 by April 29 for the Could 3 election, and voters who stay in Bexar County can select from any of those 46 early voting areas.
NISD voters who stay in Medina and Bandera County who’re eligible to vote for District 6 and District 7 should go to Northside Exercise Heart throughout early voting. On election day, these voters can go to the exercise heart, Henderson Elementary College or Aue Elementary College. Hours differ by date and placement.
Examine all the NISD faculty board candidates on our 2025 Training Voter Information.
Northside ISD District 2
In NISD’s most crowded race, District 2, there are 4 contenders. The union stated it picked Jasso due to her expertise in greater schooling.
“She’s labored actually carefully with packages that deliver the flexibility for college kids to realize associates levels by Palo Alto School, and Northside presently doesn’t take part in that, so college students in Northside are usually not capable of depart with associates levels like they’re in different districts,” Espiritu-Azocar stated.
The union needs innovation, she stated.
Richard Delgado Jr., a Northside mother or father and senior neighborhood investor at Boeing, and Mary Olison, a faculty enchancment specialist at Flip It Round, are additionally working for the D2 seat.
Guevara, the appointed incumbent, was a public faculty instructor, previously sat on the board for CPS Power and is presently a professor of presidency and economics at Northwest Vista School.
“With a district as giant and numerous as NISD, it takes skilled, devoted people to make choices which can be in one of the best curiosity of all college students, households, lecturers, and workers members,” Guevara stated. “I perceive the complexities of working such a big system, balancing the wants of various faculties, and making certain fairness throughout the district.”
Northside ISD District 5
District 5 trustee Corinne Saldaña is searching for a second four-year time period and faces one challenger.
The union is supporting Laura Zapata, a second-year assistant principal at Edison Excessive College, who was beforehand a instructor.
“She is aware of precisely what lecturers are coping with and what lecturers want in an effort to achieve success. She is aware of that progressive skilled growth is required,” Espiritu-Azocar stated.
Saldaña, a retired educator with greater than 30 years of expertise, declined to remark for this story.
Northside ISD District 6
District 6 trustee Carol Harle was elected in 2013, and working for a fourth time period on the NISD board.
In District 6, the union endorsed Nicolette Ardiente, a neighborhood organizer with the Bexar County Younger Democrats who’s difficult incumbent Harle, an schooling professor on the College of Texas at San Antonio.
“What we see in District 6 is a neighborhood that doesn’t know who their trustee even is,” Espiritu-Azocar stated about Harle, who served three phrases on NISD’s board.
“[Ardiente] could be very enthusiastic about public schooling. She’s prepared to do the work along with her neighborhood, and that’s actually vital to us,” Espiritu-Azocar stated.
Harle, an schooling professor on the College of Texas at San Antonio, stated her reference to the neighborhood shines by by visiting lecture rooms, celebrating instructor and pupil achievements, attending faculty and district-wide occasions and advocating for public schooling in Austin.
“I’ve by no means pursued this place out of ambition or political acquire; I ran — and proceed to serve — as a result of I deeply love this neighborhood and imagine within the essential position public faculties play in positively shaping lives,” Harle advised the Report.
Northside ISD District 7
District 7 trustee Karen Freeman is a longtime member, elected in 2005, who has held her seat for 20 years.
For this seat, the union endorsed somebody who Espiritu-Azocar referred to as a “bomb.”
Challenger Larissa Martinez co-founded Circle of Arms, a nonprofit for veterans, has served on a number of boards on the district and county stage and is a present NISD mom and grandmother.
Martinez is vying for the seat Freeman has held for 5 consecutive phrases.
4 of Freeman’s children have graduated from the district. She earned the H-E-B Excellence in Training Award for College Boards in 2023, and he or she was endorsed by the NISD Chapter of the Affiliation of Texas Skilled Educators.
“We’d like impartial voices on the board who will work for each pupil and workers member, not simply these aligned with one group. I stay dedicated to being that impartial voice,” Freeman advised the Report.
Why the union has taken a tough line
“Most of the incumbents have been there an exceptionally very long time, and the district has drastically modified over that point interval and dealing individuals have continued to not have a voice all through the management,” Espiritu-Azocar says.
Workers and union members have repeatedly taken the problem of wages for assist workers up with the board, Espiritu-Azocar stated, however the concern stays ignored.
At present, Northside ISD has a $96 million finances deficit and is contemplating cost-saving measures like rising class sizes and probably chopping programming as a result of decrease enrollment, whereas combating particular schooling instructor shortages.
“We wish a faculty board that’s going to work collectively with the neighborhood at giant that they characterize. And we don’t really feel that that presently is a illustration of the trustees which can be on the board,” Espiritu-Azocar stated.
Freeman says the union has tried to oust incumbents for years by calling incumbents on the board “political extremists.”
“I cannot meet with such a confrontational group that spews political propaganda in an try to garner assist,” Freeman advised the Report.
For his half, Guevara stated he’s been capable of make choices that “replicate the distinctive wants of our district, placing apart partisan divides to prioritize instructional excellence, pupil welfare, and neighborhood values.”
“Serving as trustee is about placing college students before everything,” Guevara stated.
Harle stated her work on the board has at all times been deeply private to her.
“It has at all times been and can at all times be targeted on individuals, not political agendas,” Harle stated.
Incumbents discover assist elsewhere
Regardless of dealing with opposition from a gaggle inside their district, the NISD incumbents have exterior supporters from neighborhood and enterprise leaders in San Antonio.
Mario Barrera, a profession lawyer and public schooling champion for San Antonio ISD who used to chair the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, has contributed to 2 of the incumbents’ campaigns.
“They’re our greatest district within the space,” Barrera, who’s run SAISD’s most up-to-date bond election campaigns, stated about NISD. “We’d like that stability, and we want that stability that individuals like Dr. Guevara and Dr. Harle and Karen Freeman and Ms. Saldana delivered to that board. And so I’ve written checks. I’m supporting them,” Barrera stated throughout an April 16 interview.
Marketing campaign finance studies present Barrera donated $250 to Guevara’s marketing campaign and a complete of $500 to Freeman’s marketing campaign.
Finance studies just lately turned some extent of competition when the union accused the incumbents of accepting marketing campaign {dollars} from structure and engineering companies the union stated have lively contracts with NISD, an motion Northside AFT alleges is a “clear battle of curiosity, if not outright corruption.”
The union listed DBR Engineering Consultants, Alamo Architects and Chesney Morales Companions as companies who donated to incumbents’ campaigns.
Particular person staff from these companies did contribute to the incumbents’ campaigns within the type of $500 or much less. NISD incumbents contend they didn’t obtain company donations, quite they obtained particular person contributions, which means no moral traces have been crossed.
“All donations that I’ve obtained got here from people who imagine I can proceed to make a constructive impression for Northside ISD,” Guevara stated.
Harle referred to as the union’s accusations “misinformation,” including that her marketing campaign was financed by particular person contributions from “mates, neighbors, educators, mother and father, and grandparents who genuinely care about our public faculties.”
Northside AFT contributed $878 every to the campaigns of Jasso, Zapata, Ardiente and Martinez.
