South San Antonio Independent School District Trustee Stacey Alderete, who represents District 7, has submitted a letter of resignation to the board due to medical reasons as she recovers from a severe bout of viral meningitis.
The resignation, which was tendered April 7, will be discussed by trustees at a regular board meeting later this month. It comes more than a week after a special meeting held to vote on the closure of West Campus High School ended abruptly when one member was escorted out for being disruptive and two others left, breaking quorum.
Alderete told the San Antonio Report that the conflict was not the main reason she made the decision to step down.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with the board,” she said. “I got viral meningitis and I was in the hospital … almost a month.”
Doctors have recommended that she avoid stress, something that the last meeting made clear she couldn’t do in the fraught position of a South San trustee.
The board has spent the last four months debating how to cut costs in order to make up for a $12 million deficit.
“The recommendation of my doctor and everybody else who treated me is just, I can’t have the stress,” she said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meningitis is an inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. Viral meningitis is the most common type.
While she is no longer contagious, Alderete said she is in frequent and intense pain, limiting her ability to drive and do other activities.
“I don’t think that it’s fair that I tried to drag it out for a year of me getting better, you know, so that’s that’s basically what it is,” she said. “I am sad. I cried a lot. I’m heartbroken. But at the end of the day, my community deserves to have somebody who’s going to be able to fully (be there).”
The board will be considering the closure of West Campus High School for the third time this year at the April board meeting. Alderete didn’t say how she would be voting, adding that the district is not in an easy situation.
“Nobody wants to close schools … it’s a heartache,” she said. “You don’t know what it’s like until you’re tasked with that.”
Alderete called the behavior of the board last month “sad.”
“The same negative energy that’s being put out by two trustees, if they put that energy into making it a success, imagine what could be done,” she said. “I don’t know what’s in the future of South San. … I just pray for a miracle — that the adults can get it together.”
Alderete, who has been on and off the school board over the years, ran unopposed in the 2020 election.
