A politically charged setting, quickly shifting pupil populations and doubtlessly seismic modifications to Texas’ faculty funding mannequin are all driving the upcoming races to supervise Bexar County’s native faculty districts and neighborhood faculties.
The Alamo Faculties District and 4 Bexar County-area faculty districts will elect board members this 12 months in Texas’ Might 2 uniform election.
In some districts, these leaders shall be liable for executing massive bonds and planning for future development. In others, district leaders are determining how one can scale down their operations in methods which are the least disruptive to the neighborhood.
Early voting runs April 20 by means of April 28 for the uniform election, although polls shall be closed on Friday, Feb. 24 for the Battle of Flowers Parade.
Polls shall be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on election day, Saturday, Might 2. (Word, this election is separate from the Might 26 major runoff election).
Listed here are the highest schooling races the reporters and editors of the San Antonio Report are watching this spring.
North East ISD
Of all of the unbiased faculty districts serving Bexar County, none have struggled with the consequences of nationwide and state politics on native lecture rooms — significantly round points like guardian alternative and ebook bans — greater than North East ISD.
After a trustee died in 2023, the remaining six members had been cut up evenly between these backed by the parent-teacher associations plus native Democrats and people backed by conservative teams attempting to copy the success they’ve had throughout North Texas.
The factions locked horns ceaselessly, however with 5 seats on the poll final 12 months, conservatives had been shut out throughout the board, leaving simply two incumbents who had been elected with the assist of the right-leaning Mother and father United for Freedom PAC, Diane Sciba Villarreal (District 3) and Marsha Landry (District 7).
This 12 months Sciba Villarreal is looking for a second four-year time period in District 3, and faces a problem from Michael Adam Wulczyn, who has the assist of the North East Schooling Affiliation and the North East Bexar County Democrats.
In an indication of the instances, Sciba Villarreal has grown extra vocal in her opposition to the Republican state leaders who’ve been placing extra stress on faculty districts.
Landry, in the meantime, isn’t looking for reelection.
Two candidates are working for her District 7 seat, together with Cheryl “Cheri” Ann Eltinger, a realtor who framed the race as “a battle for our youngsters — not simply academically, however spiritually, mentally, emotionally,” in a current social media publish.
Her opponent, Caprice Garcia, is a stay-at-home guardian who spent her profession working for congressional representatives and as a staffer in numerous public places of work. She’s held quite a lot of PTA management roles within the district and accomplished the district’s Management Northeast Program, which the administration places on to coach future leaders.
Like Wulczyn, Garcia has the assist of the parent-teacher teams and the North East Bexar County Democrats.
The Mother and father United for Freedom PAC, in the meantime, was dissolved after the final NEISD election, in keeping with a marketing campaign finance report filed after the final election.
A separate PAC, aligned with the San Antonio Household Affiliation, nonetheless plans to make endorsements this 12 months, in keeping with its co-founder, Patrick Von Dohlen, who can also be the Republican nominee for Bexar County choose in November.
The primary marketing campaign finance experiences for this race, which element cash raised and spent by candidates and out of doors teams, are due April 2.
Alamo Faculties District
Texas has lengthy handled increased schooling as a political soccer, and that’s ramped up significantly since President Donald Trump returned to workplace in January of final 12 months.
The state has put robust restrictions on which varieties of programs public universities can provide, put in conservative former lawmakers as college presidents, rooted out campus range efforts and threatened to withhold funding from faculties that push again.
In opposition to that backdrop, the 9-member Alamo Faculties District Board, which oversees coverage course for 5 independently accredited neighborhood faculties, has already needed to make some robust modifications to adjust to state regulation.
Final 12 months they restructured the college senate, they usually’ll quickly must determine the way forward for programs and majors that will not be in compliance.
They’re additionally beneath stress to accommodate great development in pupil demand, ship a workforce that meets native trade wants, and execute an almost $1 billion bond that voters authorized final 12 months.
The board’s members serve staggered, six-year phrases, and two of these up this 12 months, Lorraine Pulido (District 4), and Clint Kingsbery (District 8), are unopposed.
However a 3rd member, lawyer Leslie Sachanowicz, who represents District 9 on the Northeast aspect, drew three challengers who say he hasn’t been a powerful sufficient voice on the weighty points the board faces.
Final 12 months a Democratic activist made related complaints a couple of longtime board member in a heated District 6 race, however the early-career challenger fell far in need of her seasoned opponent.
Sachanowicz’s challengers are coming from a barely completely different place, together with one former school senate chief at Palo Alto School, Carolyn DeLecour, who was a professor at Palo Alto School for 27 years, chaired the division of communication and served as school senate president.
In an interview, DeLecour stated the board’s skilled backgrounds have left them far faraway from the true points dealing with college students and employees.
Different candidates embody Joe Jesse Sanchez, a retired educator who beforehand held the seat from 2017 to 2020, and Robert Garcia, a licensed public accountant who earned an affiliate diploma from Northwest Vista School and who stated monetary stewardship is on the heart of his marketing campaign.
If no candidate takes a minimum of 50% of the vote on Might 2, the race will advance to a runoff between the highest two vote-takers.
Alamo Heights ISD
Alamo Heights ISD doesn’t ceaselessly have contested races for its faculty board positions, however this 12 months two incumbents on the Board of Trustees drew challengers amid consternation with its dealing with of a brand new “mother and father’ rights” regulation.
AHISD acquired backlash from mother and father just a few months in the past for canceling an creator go to to its elementary faculties after two mother and father complained in regards to the contents of one of many creator’s books mentioning the LGBTQ+ neighborhood.
District leaders stated they had been being cautious within the wake of the brand new state regulation, often called Senate Invoice 12, which, amongst different issues, restricts discussions of sexual orientation and gender within the classroom.
The varsity board hasn’t adopted an official coverage on the portion of the invoice limiting LGBTQ+ expression, citing an absence of steerage from state businesses. However some mother and father took concern with the district’s strict interpretation of the regulation, together with Bianca Cerqueira, who has two youngsters enrolled in AHISD and determined to run after the creator concern.
Cerqueira, a neuroscientist who works on federally sponsored biomedical analysis, is difficult Place 4 trustee Hunter Kingman, a civil engineer and actual property developer who was appointed to switch former board president Stacy Sharp in 2024.
Place 3 trustee Ty Edwards, a monetary adviser who has served on the Alamo Heights ISD board since 2023, additionally faces a problem this 12 months, from Lindsey Saldana, an assistant principal at Loma Park Elementary in Edgewood ISD.
Southwest ISD
At Southwest ISD, two former board members are once more trying comebacks. The district additionally modified a controversial voting coverage this 12 months, permitting folks to solid their ballots for varsity board races at extra areas.
The seven-member board serves staggered, three-year phrases, and consists of many longtime incumbents. 4 of them have served because the early 2000s.
However two incumbents had been voted off in 2023, Pete Bernal and Yolanda Garza-Lopez, and have been railing towards present management within the years since, fueling the expansion of a Fb group referred to as We Are Southwest to amplify the complaints.
Each Bernal and Garza-Lopez ran once more in 2024 however misplaced. Now they’re difficult the members who unseated them three years in the past, James Gonzalez, a Frito-Lay gross sales rep, and Jose Diaz, who owns and operates a trucking enterprise.
Apart from repeatedly lobbing criticism at Gonzales and Diaz, the We Are Southwest group additionally helped draw consideration to the district’s uncommon election system that restricted voters to a small variety of polling areas — which the district has now reversed, permitting voters to make use of any of Bexar County’s vote facilities.
“SWISD voters will be capable of go to any early vote or election day website for this election,” stated Jorge Fernandez, a technical assist supervisor for the Bexar County Elections Division.
The board’s leaders have lengthy stated the restricted method helped filter out voters who aren’t aware of native faculty board points. However it additionally created a better bar for participation, forcing residents to solid their faculty board poll at one location, and go to a different to vote on municipal or countywide points.
Within the district’s 2025 board elections, just one,102 votes had been solid.
Garza-Lopez and Bernal are selling the change in advertisements, encouraging voters to “reap the benefits of the chance we fought for.”
Medina Valley ISD
In contrast to most faculty districts within the Bexar county area, Medina Valley ISD has been rapidly rising in enrollment as growth booms on the far West Facet of San Antonio and Castroville.
The varsity district is at present trying to find a brand new superintendent after Scott Caloss introduced his retirement final month.
The MVISD board consists of seven members, two elected at-large and 5 from single-member districts. This 12 months, the 2 at-large positions and the District 5 seat had been up for grabs, however all 4 candidates signed up for the at-large seats.
The 2 incumbents up for reelection are Nathan Fillinger, an architect at USAA who’s the present board president, and Blane Nash, a former firefighter and paramedic who was first elected to the Medina Valley faculty board in 2023.
Their challengers embody Andrew Carawan, who taught social research at Medina Valley ISD and was a VFW Nationwide Citizenship Schooling Trainer Award winner, and Toby Castillo Walters, a tutorial dean at Northside ISD who ran unsuccessfully for a place on the board in 2025.
Showing all on the identical poll, the 2 prime vote-takers will win the seats outright.
