The San Antonio Independent School District is bracing for a multitude of challenges in the coming years, with the end of federal COVID-19 funding, learning shortfalls and drops in attendance following the pandemic.
The current board just approved the largest raise for teachers in 25 years, but how to address the various issues moving forward will be up to the winners of the May election, where six candidates are vying for three spots.
In District 2, incumbent Alicia M. Sebastian, the board’s vice president and the director of marketing and communications for Essence Preparatory Public, will face Mateen A. Diop, an Air Force veteran and former teacher, principal and school district executive leader with 25 years in the education field.
Patti Radle, who served on the board for more than a decade, including a stint as board president, is not running for reelection in District 5. Vying for her spot is Norberto “Geremy” Landin, a storytelling manager who ran for City Council in 2021, and Stephanie Torres, a caregiver.
Incumbent board President Christina Martinez, who represents District 6 and is the executive director of the Dee Howard Foundation, is being challenged by Valerie Marie Avila, a quality engineer.
Candidates interviewed by the San Antonio Report agreed that work needed to be done to achieve higher educational attainment in the third largest district in the city and that school safety and prioritizing public education were key to the future success of the district. But how to realize that success varied from candidate to candidate.
Big shoes to fill
Both candidates running for the District 5 trustee seat agreed that they have big shoes to fill after Radle’s tenure. Radle, a former board president and City Council member, is known for her advocacy for West Side students and helped guide the board through tumultuous times to a more recent stability.
Radle said the cohesiveness of the current board is one of the things she is most proud of as she departs her role, in addition to selecting quality superintendents and raising academic accountability ratings.
Radle said she has made it a point to not endorse anyone in the race for her seat but told the Report in an interview Friday that she would be voting for Landin.
“I’ve had sort of a strong voice on the board and I think the person who comes in has to win on their own merit and get out there and get to know the community,” she said. “I want people to get to know the candidates and vote for him because they know him.”
A Fox Tech graduate, Landin hopes to bring a fresh perspective on what is happening at the campus level.
Landin said he regularly calls Radle to get her thoughts on the issues in the district, which he monitors by attending board meetings regularly.
He is on the Bexar County Historical Commission and has a degree in history. He told the Report his experience on various boards taught him how to read agendas and conduct himself.
“Understanding how these agendas are made and how they how meetings are run, understanding Robert’s Rules of Order,” he said. “How you get stuff into these meetings is really important.”
Landin was also previously on the library board, something he hopes to leverage into possible partnerships between city libraries and school libraries to more efficiently use resources.
His opponent, Torres, who is a caregiver for her family and has a child in the district, said her perspective as a parent would bring valuable insight to the board.
Past actions taken by the board, including the closure of Rodriguez Elementary School in 2018 after years of failing accountability scores, have rubbed Torres the wrong way and caused her to “bump heads” with Radle, she said. Her son was one of the students at the school and is still feeling the impact of the closure.
“He was in third grade, now he’s in seventh grade, and these kids have anxiety with people leaving (and) separation issues,” she said.
That insight could become key, with declining enrollment and underutilized campuses leading to likely conversations of more consolidation or closures in the future. While Rodriguez Elementary was closed due to failing accountability scores and not low enrollment, she said she would not support such moves.
Torres said she was approached by other community members and teachers and asked to run when Radle said she was stepping down.
A stable board
Martinez, the current board president who is running for reelection in District 6, said she wanted to continue the progress in academics made by a cohesive board during her tenure.
“When I started on the school board in 2017, we did not have any high-performing schools in our neighborhood,” she said. “And today, we have seven schools rated A or B by the Texas Education Agency.”
Martinez said that stability is important for the students, especially during these tumultuous times in education.
However, Martinez said there are still challenges ahead, including declining enrollment and the potential for a voucher-like bill that would allow public dollars to be spent on private schools.
“School vouchers are coming, I don’t want to pretend that there’s not going to be some form of legislation that’s passed. I do believe something is coming,” she said. “And the way that we prepare for that at SAISD, is to make sure that every single family is having a quality experience, so that way, they don’t want to leave.”
Martinez’s challenger is a quality engineer at the Southwest Research Institute. She agrees that school vouchers are a bad idea, and that public schools are the superior choice since they accept everyone.
“That’s what public schools do. We accept everyone, all walks of life, wherever they’re at,” she said. “And that’s not what private schools do.
However, she believes that the current leadership has not been transparent enough.
“I want transparency and accountability,” she said. “A big example right now is that there is a … deficit that the board has not been talking about. What happened? Where did that money go? What lessons did they learn from it?”
Avila has not attended recent board meetings, or budget workshops, but did attend a rally calling on the board to provide raises to teachers.
“Ultimately, I was in the Air Force for 10 years and served my country,” she said. “And now I want to serve my local community.”
A disconnect
Sebastian, the District 2 incumbent who has had four children graduate from the district, emphasized the importance of improving academic outcomes and school safety, which she believes are essential to the success of the district’s students.
Her focus on the board has been about increasing attention on academic outcomes and closing gaps in educational attainment, particularly for Black students.
Elected in 2019, Sebastian emphasized the board’s commitment to allocating resources to increase math and reading skills in Black students, and a focus on social-emotional learning and mental health support for students.
School safety, which is a priority for all candidates running for the board, is something the district should focus on in a multi-faceted way, Sebastian said.
While the district has invested in physical measures such as double barrier doors and bullet-resistant glass, Sebastian said that the root of many school safety issues is related to mental health.
“We have to get to the root of how we can support our kids on the inside,” she said.
Echoing Martinez, Sebastian expressed pride in the relationships and dynamics of the current board.
“We disagree often and have very lengthy discussions that can get heated at times,” she said. “But we all have the same thing in common and that is what is best for our students.”
Diop, Sebastian’s opponent, an author and long-time educator, said there has historically been a disconnect between the board and what is actually happening in the classroom.
“When it comes to moving the needle on academic performance, you have to have an intentional focus on academics,” said Diop. “That’s where my knowledge comes in. Most trustees won’t have that working knowledge.”
Diop is an experienced educator, having taught and served as a principal at all levels of education. He believes that his experience and expertise will enable him to make a significant impact on academic performance in the district.
While Diop agreed with other candidates that voucher-like programs would spell trouble for SAISD, he said the competition could push the district to do better.
“Blockbuster had to fight Netflix, and lost, Blockbuster was out of business,” he said. “Same things gonna happen to public schools, if we don’t change that narrative, change our marketing strategy, that what we’re doing in our schools works.”
The election is May 6, with early voting beginning Monday and ending on May 2.
This story has been updated to correct the district number of Alicia M. Sebastian.
