The San Antonio Report’s much-lauded Voter Guide is a favorite among readers, a staple of our civic engagement efforts and a labor of love for our staff.
Over the years, it’s grown and changed in many ways to better help San Antonians navigate confusing elections.
Today, we couldn’t be prouder of this latest evolution: We’ve extended the 2025 Voter Guide farther than ever down the ballot to profile 38 school board candidates and three major bond elections voters will weigh in on May 3.
School board and bond elections
We learned early on when creating guides like this that the profiles of lesser-known candidates can be just as popular as those running in high-profile races, simply because there aren’t very many places voters looking for information can go to read about them.
Last year we also discovered how much our readers care about what some might traditionally consider lower-interest elections like the Bexar Appraisal District board seats, and in particular, the off-year North East ISD school board races.
Knowing what a service the Voter Guide is to readers, and how much they care about public education, this year our newsroom wanted to extend our typical voter guide to include candidates running for school board in seven Bexar County-area independent school districts — a major investment of time and resources for our small staff.
The guide feature profiles of races in San Antonio ISD, Northside ISD, Alamo Heights ISD, Comal ISD, Judson ISD, Medina Valley ISD and Southwest ISD.
We also put together informational guides for the bond elections happening in the Alamo Colleges District, Floresville ISD and East Central ISD. This was particularly important work for our nonpartisan newsroom, considering how political school bonds have become in recent years.
Education reporter Xochilt Garcia tracked down contact information for the many candidates and hard-to-find details about polling locations in school districts that cross county lines, which was a rite of passage for one of the newest members of our passionate newsroom.
Andrea Drusch, who authored the majority of our 2025 Voter Guide, helped steer the project and get it over the finish line, with some minor planning and questionnaire help from our editing team.
We know that in an election season, figuring out what to expect when you get to the ballot box can be a difficult task.
In 2025, we’ve done our best to give readers a clear picture of what information they will and won’t have, and encourage everyone to plan ahead when they go to vote. Paper notes are allowed in the voting booth, while phones and tablets are not.
If you’re a Bexar County voter, I encourage you to spend some time with the education pages of our guide as you prepare your vote. Early voting begins April 22.
For many of these school board races, the winner on election day will take the race — unlike in the mayoral and City Council races, which could feature runoffs. All that to say, your vote this May 3 election will be extra important!
