Two acquainted faces from South San Antonio Impartial Faculty District, at present below state takeover, are planning their comebacks to the varsity board. Though they’ll haven’t any energy on the dais.
Even with a state-appointed board of managers and superintendent, the district remains to be required to carry common trustee elections.
South San’s elections happen in November of even years, and faculty board phrases are 4 years lengthy. This 12 months, Single Member Districts 1, 3 and 6 had been imagined to go on the poll, however just one individual signed as much as run for every seat.
When the Texas Schooling Company took over South San Antonio ISD in February of 2025, elected trustees had been placed on “suspended” duties, locked out of district emails and stripped of their governance energy. Two of these trustees had been Manuel R. Lopez, board president on the time and then-vice president Cynthia A. Ramirez, two longtime South San trustees who had been final elected in 2022.
Lopez and Ramirez each signed as much as run once more for seats in District 1 and 6.
Lopez, 71, is a retired police officer who was first elected in South San board in 1998.
Ramirez, 62, was first elected in 2000 and lately retired from Harlandale ISD after 26 years of engaged on the executive facet. She additionally runs Cinderella’s Closet, a program that helps Harlandale college students discover formal put on for particular occasions.
Each Lopez and Ramirez have served on the board on and off for years.
Karla Gomez Sanchez, 40, signed up for District 3, and he or she at present serves on South San’s state-appointed board of managers, which she needed to apply to TEA for. Gomez Sanchez has two youngsters enrolled within the district and works from house for a corporation that gives mobility gadgets to veterans via the VA.
As a result of the races are uncontested and it might price cash to take action, South San ISD is not going to put them on the poll. As an alternative, Gomez Sanchez, Lopez and Ramirez will probably be sworn in inside 30 days of the Nov. 3 election, the place South San voters are already being requested to weigh in on a faculty tax election.
However their duties as faculty board members will nonetheless stay suspended, stated a TEA spokesperson, and they won’t take the dais apart from Gomez Sanchez, who will probably be a concurrently elected trustee and state-appointed board supervisor.
Ramirez and Lopez can even not be aware about confidential info or personnel recordsdata. They are going to mainly have as a lot entry as anybody else within the public, stated state appointed superintendent Saul Hinojosa.
Why is South San below state management?
The choice to take over South San ISD got here after TEA discovered the district was in violation of 5 completely different state schooling codes and demonstrated the district “did not oversee the administration of the district when it engaged in actions or inaction that might negatively affect district personnel and the scholars of SSAISD.”
Whereas the takeover was introduced and went instantly into impact on Feb. 19, 2025, South San’s issues had been brewing for years.
South San Antonio ISD is aptly named for its far Southside location, stretching from Palo Alto School to Pearsall Park and as much as the Quintana neighborhood. The district serves round 7,000 college students throughout 14 colleges, and 89.8% of scholars are thought-about economically deprived by the state.
Within the years earlier than the takeover, South San headlines had been largely concerning the district’s mounting finances deficit, board dysfunction and the way the district was attempting to repair the issues as new trustees cycled via.
Board trustees usually bought into public disputes, disagreeing on board resolutions, arguing over every little thing from board gown code as to if to reopen beforehand shuttered colleges in 2019, a difficulty which led to Lopez being escorted out of the board room by faculty police throughout a 2023 assembly.
For a number of years, the district was additionally below supervision from a “conservator,” somebody who might “right” the board and superintendent and report again to TEA.
By 2024, with the election of recent trustees, issues had largely mellowed out and the board handed a balanced finances. Then conservator, and previous South San superintendent, Abe Saavedra even advised the Report in September of that 12 months that issues had “calmed down.”
“We had been all voting unanimously,” recalled Ramirez. “We had been shifting in the precise path when the turnover occurred. Now, did now we have issues? Sure, we nonetheless had issues with the numbers. We nonetheless had issues with our ranking…however the numbers had been exhibiting progress. I imply, we had been shifting up.”
At that time, the board was nonetheless coping with trustee attendance points, and board member coaching had fallen behind, Saavedra stated. He additionally flagged the shortage of participation within the board election course of with no challengers in 4 races in November of 2024 — a difficulty the South San neighborhood has struggled with for years.
Two days after that election, Saavedra wrote a letter to TEA recommending a takeover to “facilitate a clear break from the governance failures which have endured in South San Antonio ISD.”
“We had been attempting to do all the precise stuff… I feel he [Saavedra] even advised us, ‘Hey, y’all are doing a superb job,’” Ramirez stated. “After which the subsequent week… he despatched to TEA that he really useful a board of managers, and we simply couldn’t imagine it.”
How is South San doing below takeover?
There have been a number of adjustments at South San since Hinojosa and the board of managers took the helm.
They’ve been capable of preserve a balanced finances and even boasted a small surplus this 12 months — a uncommon feat throughout public schooling in Texas proper now.
From 2024-25 to 2025-26, South San went up 10 factors within the state’s A-F accountability system, taking them from a D (65) to a C (75).
A number of South San campuses noticed enhancements on the State of Texas Evaluation of Educational Readiness (STAAR), and the complete variety of failing campuses went down. General, eight campuses confirmed enchancment on its letter grade and South San noticed a 5-point bounce in college students who scored on grade-level or larger in studying.
Beneath Hinojosa, the district was additionally an early adopter of the state-written Bluebonnet Studying, whose studying portion is oft-criticized for together with Bible tales as a part of the curriculum. Hinojosa and the board of managers have additionally invested in additional aggressive instructor recruiting efforts and have positioned new management at nearly each campus.
If the district retains bettering on the similar fee this 12 months, the state might doubtlessly reevaluate and resolve to finish the takeover and begin rolling again to native management by August of 2027, stated Diana Sayavedra, South San’s present TEA-appointed conservator.
Sayavedra is a retired superintendent from El Paso ISD, who got here on because the district’s conservator in March after Abe Saavedra stepped down for private causes.
“It’s actually too quickly to inform,” Sayavefra advised the San Antonio Report. “What I’d say is that sure, primarily based on their accountability information… if they continue to be centered they usually’re diligent, there’s a major chance that they might meet their exit standards by the timeline that’s been set.”
To fulfill the exit standards, districts below state intervention can’t have any consecutively failing colleges, have to be an A or B rated district, have funds so as and present good governance.
However the determination in the end lies with Mike Morath, the state’s schooling commissioner.
By regulation, TEA should reevaluate state intervention on the two-year anniversary of the takeover, which falls on February of 2027 for South San, and interventions can not last more than 4 years.
Few board candidates once more
Two years later and below state takeover, South San’s November 2026 elections ring the same bell to the 2024 elections.
“We want there could be extra individuals working,” stated Board President Ray Tijerina, a South San alumnus who co-founded and leads an academic assist firm. “In the event you have a look at the district the way in which it was previously, that’s most likely a part of the issue.”
Gomez Sanchez stated she’s additionally frightened concerning the low participation.
“It’s not apathy. I do know the individuals from South San, and I do know they care,” she stated.
Gomez Sanchez remembers a number of neighborhood members exhibiting as much as workshops and curiosity classes that TEA placed on to search out individuals who would need serve on the board of managers if the state took South San over. In all, 20 individuals utilized.
“I do know [the community] is invested… I simply don’t fairly know what it’s that’s stopping individuals from working, and that’s one thing I actually hope to alter.”
Lopez, one other longtime South San board member, didn’t reply to requests for remark by time of publication.
“Voter participation in these races — it was fairly low typically,” stated Councilman Ed Mungia (D4), who served as a South San trustee in 2018 for a couple of months to fill a vacant place, however there’s a concern when an elected officers is “sidestepped” by a state appointment.
However he says it provides him “peace of thoughts” that of the seven board of managers, 5 are South San alumni and the others reside within the space. They’ve additionally been concerned with teams just like the South San Basis and South San Children First, a bunch of South San alumni and oldsters created a couple of years in the past to recruit board candidates that’s now not energetic.
“I feel it might have been completely different if the state got here in and appointed all these those who I had by no means heard of,” Mungia stated. “Nobody’s actually come as much as me and stated, ‘Hey, my voice doesn’t depend over there anymore.’”
Ramirez, who served on the board a number of instances, stated she signed up once more as a result of she didn’t need her neighborhood to be “dismissed” by not having somebody present as much as symbolize them.
“No matter what occurred to us, I used to be going to throw my title on that poll. And I do know Mr. Lopez feels the identical approach,” she stated. “We had been elected to this board by the individuals, and we weren’t going to allow them to down by letting this place simply go only for no person to run — for it to be open and no person cared. Nicely, we do care. That’s why we put our names on the dotted line.”
Even when the state does launch South San subsequent 12 months, it’s unclear how the district would section again to elected management, which seats they might begin with or if Gomez Sanchez could be the primary seat to roll again since she’s already on the board of managers.
