East Central Independent School District is opening a brand new middle school and an elementary school for the 2026-27 school year.
Valor Middle School and Victory Elementary School are part of the district’s 2022 bond package voters passed with more than 60% approval.
Overall, the $240 million package included funds for three new schools, renovations for existing schools, a career and technical education building, a new warehouse and police headquarters, a new bus barn and land acquisition for future campuses.
Valor and Victory are meant to alleviate the district’s fast growing student enrollment as population and housing developments increase in the north, central and south regions of ECISD.
The district covers 296 square miles from the lower southeast side of San Antonio inside Loop 410 going down to rural Elmendorf and up to border the city of Converse and the town of New Berlin.
Currently serving around 12,000 students across 16 campuses, demographers expect enrollment at ECISD to skyrocket to more than 23,000 by 2033.
Several schools are bursting at the seams, forcing the district in recent years to use portable buildings and hold instructional time in libraries, cafeterias and other areas that aren’t classrooms.
Fast development and new schools also means constantly changing school attendance zones, something Superintendent Roland Toscano hopes to avoid with the latest boundary changes to feed students into Valor and Victory.
Changing school zones
Victory’s boundaries will affect Oakcrest and Harmony elementary schools, with Harmony getting the most relief since it’s currently overenrolled and growing the fastest.
Harmony currently has 810 students, but the opening of Victory would bring that number down to about 540. Oakcrest’s enrollment would drop from 788 to 707.
Located in the Elmendorf Hickory Ridge subdivision, Victory would open with about 415 pupils, or more if preschool seats are refilled going into the new school year and has a max capacity of 950 students.
Toscano said the new boundaries were created with future growth patterns in mind, which is why the district isn’t “balancing” enrollment at each campus.
ECISD plans to build another two elementary schools as part of its 2025 bond package, approved by 66% of voters in May. The goal is for Harmony, Oakcrest and Victory not to need portables or exceed capacity before the new schools open.
“This boundary adjustment would stand some time, and we wouldn’t be coming back a year or two from now and having to make boundary changes again,” he said.
Opening Valor Middle School with affect attendance zones for Legacy and Heritage middle schools.
Valor is meant to relieve Heritage, which has 1,251 students and the fastest growing pattern located off New Sulphur Spring and Gardner roads. Legacy, located inside Loop 1604, has 1,163 students.
Middle schools usually have a capacity of 1,250, said Toscano, but enrollment at Heritage has gone up to 1,400 at some points.
Valor is set to fully open with about 760 students this fall, leaving Heritage with 678 students and Legacy’s enrollment would stay about the same.
“Then, in a couple of short years — within the next three to four — all three of those junior highs are going to exceed their capacity,” Toscano said.
Valor had a “soft” opening for the 2025-26 school year, starting with only a sixth grade class of about 85 students. The school is temporarily housed at Tradition Elementary, as Valor undergoes final touches to the building.
Victory Elementary will not have a soft opening, said district spokesperson Brandon Oliver.
Bond 2022 updates
Opening Valor and Victory are only the latest updates in ECISD’s completion of 2022 bond projects.
Overall, the bond package secured $240 million for capital projects, including $200 million for three schools: Valor, Victory and Honor.
ECISD opened Honor Elementary School last year for the 2025-26 cycle. Honor is reliving over enrollment from a couple campuses including Tradition Elementary in St. Hedwig.
The district is close to finishing construction on a new career and technical education building set to open for the 2026-27 school year. Costing $6.36 million in bond dollars, the new multipurpose facility is located across the street from East Central High School and will home most of the school’s CTE programs.
Projects that are less student-facing are taking longer.
A site has been cleared for a new transportation facility, which will replace the district’s current bus barn. ECISD planned to move into the new facility by March, but there were permitting issues which have delayed the project and the district chose to focus on getting student buildings done first, said Oliver.
Once the new bus barn is built, the old facility will be retrofitted and converted into ECISD police headquarters, currently located in a small building across East Central HS.
Bond 2025 updates
To keep up with fast growth, ECISD went out for new bond packages in November of 2024 and May of 2025.
Voters rejected the 2024 bond proposal but passed the 2025 bond package with more than 60% approval.
The 2025 bond list includes $309 million for a new high school and two new elementary schools to make room for more students.
ECISD expects several of its campuses — including East Central High School and Honor, Tradition, Harmony and Oak Crest elementary schools — will be at 120% capacity by 2028.
A site for elementary school #10, located on the north side of district off FM 1346 and west of Loop 1604, is being excavated and site work on the high school, has already begun.
Oliver said the district is making good time on the 2025 bond projects because ECISD kept working with architects even after the 2024 bond failed, saving the district time in the design phase.
What happens next?
ECISD is notifying families affected by the boundary changes for Valor Middle School and Victory Elementary this week. A communications campaign sending letters home, posting online and putting up posters inside school campuses will follow, said Toscano.
Families can ask to stay at their campus, or request an intradistrict transfer, but each case will be considered individually. Students who don’t enroll in their attendance zones may not have access to district transportation.
Campuses can also vary in the kinds of programs and services they offer. Valor, for example, is a college and career preparatory academy, meaning it’s a magnet campus where all students would be taking “honors-level” courses and college prep electives.
Toscano said ECISD is going through a data-driven “exercise” to re-assign staff, and district leadership will also consider employees’ “individual contexts” in terms of where they live and what position they have.
“We want to make sure we don’t rob Peter to pay Paul,” he said. “Ensuring that there’s mentorship and leadership at the teacher level in both campuses and be considerate of the life and personal context of each employee.
“We’ve gone through this exercise before… we’ve gotten pretty good at the process.”
