Heated races are shaping up for two positions on the North East ISD school board this May, where partisan interests are again spending money to help their chosen candidates.
Unlike past years, where conservative groups dominated the conversation, this time candidates backed by labor unions and local Democrats are the ones bringing in big money.
Campaign finance reports covering Jan. 1 through March 23 were due last Thursday, offering the only look at money raised and spent before early voting starts on April 20.
They indicated that a PAC aligned with teachers’ unions, called the Bexar County Federation of Teachers Committee on Political Education, spent about $2,300 helping forensic accountant Michael Adam Wulczyn and former congressional staffer Caprice Garcia.
Some of that money went directly to the candidates, while some went to the North East Bexar County Democrats, which has also endorsed Wulczyn and Garcia, and kicked off its own campaign to influence local school board races this past weekend.
Wulczyn is challenging District 3 trustee Diane Sciba Villarreal — one of two members who got help from the now-dissolved Parents United for Freedom PAC when she first ran in 2022.
Sciba Villarreal reported no money raised and spent as of March 23, while Wulczyn brought in a total of about $2,400.
Meanwhile, Garcia is one of two candidates running to replace District 7 incumbent Marsha Landry, who also got money from conservative groups in 2022, but isn’t seeking reelection.
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Last week’s campaign finance reports indicated that Garcia got about $1,800 worth of help from the Bexar County Champions for Public Education PAC, which formed two years ago to oppose conservative influences in NEISD school board races. She brought in a total of $6,000, including $2,500 from a plumbers’ union.
Her opponent, real estate agent Cheryl “Cheri” Ann Eltinger, reported raising about $1,400 in the same span, and listed Landry as her campaign treasurer.
Of the many Bexar County-area school districts, none has experienced more tension over its approach to parental rights, library materials, health education and other hot-button issues than NEISD.
The seven-member board was once divided evenly between those backed by conservative groups and those supported by the teachers’ union and other left-leaning groups, but the latter won races for all five seats on the ballot in 2024.
Their candidate Tracie Shelton won in a District 2 special election that year, and did not draw an opponent in her bid for a full term this year.
“Adding those two that we’ve endorsed, I think, will be a big plus for the district,” said Tom Cummins, president of the Bexar County Federation of Teachers and executive director of the North East AFT.
The union is now having “reasonable conversations” with Sciba Villarreal, he said, but still disagrees with her on some big-ticket items, like book bans, sex education and fighting the state’s cell phone ban, which the union thinks is a waste of money.
Eltinger, meanwhile, declined to meet with the union, Cummins said.
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It remains to be seen whether conservative groups will reemerge before the May 2 election.
They shuttered the Parents United for Freedom PAC after the 2024 losses, but another conservative PAC, aligned with the San Antonio Family Association, still plans to make endorsements this year.
Campaign finance reports covering money raised and spent just before the election are due April 24.
Early voting runs April 20 through April 28, and polls will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on election day, Saturday, May 2.
Correction: This story has been updated to correctly state that the Bexar County Federation of Teachers Committee on Political Education contributed money to the North East Bexar County Democrats, not the other way around.
