This story has been updated.
After years of multiple special investigations into the dysfunction of the governing body of the South San Antonio Independent School District, trustees have agreed to accept a settlement with the Texas Education Agency that would increase intervention by the state into the district and delay by a year a recommendation to oust the board.
During the executive session of a board meeting Wednesday night, trustees learned of the settlement offer that would delay the action by a year on the condition that the board waive its right to an appeal and accept the appointment of a conservator. Five board members voted to direct legal counsel to accept the offer late Wednesday night. Homer Flores and Abel “Chili Dog” Martinez both left the meeting during executive session and were not present for the vote.
According to a copy of the offer, obtained by the San Antonio Report through an open records request, a final report will be released as part of the settlement.
The agency is recommending a Board of Managers to “exercise the powers and duties of the board of trustees … arising from the egregious nature of the board’s conduct.”
Over the course of the investigations, the TEA interviewed multiple trustees and the superintendent, according to the offer, who all “acknowledged board governance deficiencies and shortcomings and the benefits of an escalated TEA intervention.”
The two-part settlement offer will allow the agency to intervene more quickly than if it moved to directly appoint a board of managers, which often involves drawn-out court battles before intervention can occur.
An agency spokesperson did not respond to questions about what the next step will be, or when a conservator could be appointed.
The role of a conservator, appointed by the TEA’s commissioner, is to oversee the district’s operations. They are assigned to correct specific issues and have the power to direct the action of a campus principal, superintendent, or board of trustees, according to the Texas Education Agency’s website.
Before learning of the TEA’s settlement proposal, board members locked horns over how trustees should dress and what criteria should be used for a veterans memorial that has been 13 years in the making.
Warning signs over the summer
Abelardo “Abe” Saavedra, a monitor appointed by the agency in 2021, promised to ask for more significant sanctions by the TEA following more than a year of board meetings marked by infighting, insults and unceremonious endings — all while trustees failed to achieve any of the goals set out when he was appointed.
“At this point, it is clear that the appointment of a monitor has not been sufficient to improve the governance of South San ISD or improve individual board member behavior,” he said during a May board meeting. “Squabbling and bickering among board members had been demonstrated at nearly every board meeting and in email communications between board members.”
Those actions are chronicled in increasingly hostile emails between board members, attorneys and both Superintendent Henry Yzaguirre and his predecessor, Marc Puig. Those documents were obtained through an open records request.
In one email from October 2021, former Trustee Stacey Alderete complained to then-board President Ernesto Arellano Jr. after she said she was cursed out on multiple occasions, including once, when Trustee Homer Flores told others to “just F***** throw them out,” referring to her and another former trustee, Gilbert Rodriguez.
The urgency of the dysfunction, which Saavedra told The Report has plagued the district on and off for three decades, is highlighted in increasingly dire narratives written in the monthly reports he submitted to the agency.
In the last two years, multiple meetings have been canceled or ended early due to board members breaking quorum by choice or being booted from virtual meetings.
Others have ended with board members being escorted out by district police officers.
Saavedra said Wednesday that the most recent report has been the most positive, building on the praise he gave the board at the start of the school year. But he also reminded trustees of the budget deficit, which has grown to $13 million, urging board members to act to curb the trend.
History of intervention
The agency action is the latest episode in a decades-long pattern of politics, dysfunction and intervention in the South San Antonio school district, with similar attempts to correct board behavior occurring in just the last several years.
Another conservator was assigned to the district in 2016 following investigations into the district’s finances and governance and failure to adhere to corrective actions. That conservator, Judy Castleberry, cleared the district in 2018 and was removed after the district made significant progress.
At the time, conservators were not required to set exit criteria when assuming the role of overseeing district operations, according to Castleberry.
“It was more based on my perception of where the board had gotten to in terms of progress,” she told the Report in June. “Governance was a big issue in South San, so when I judged and in my conversations with TEA staff, they agreed, that the board made significant progress, we set an exit date.“
But after a change in leadership, the same problems resurfaced once she left, Castleberry said.
Among other decisions, that new leadership voted to reopen several previously closed schools despite low enrollment and the high cost of opening the schools and over the advice of the superintendent at the time.
Concerns about the decision prompted state senators to write to the TEA, urging them to sanction the district and install a conservator. An investigation was opened, and two years later the agency appointed Saavedra, a former superintendent of the district, as monitor. The board was given several goals to achieve before he could leave, including completion of governance training and regular adherence to the law.
Those goals were largely ignored until some training was done in recent months.
But the reopening of the schools, along with a decline in enrollment, left the district facing a budget deficit and the recommendation by district staff to close the under-enrolled schools again. A four months-long showdown between board factions ensued, with multiple meetings ending in deadlock over whether to close the schools.
A compromise of closing three schools was met, but West Campus High School, the most expensive, remained open. However, Yzaguirre said the issue would be reexamined before the next school year.
Amid the chaos, Alderete came down with viral meningitis, impacting her ability to participate in meetings and which she said led her to step down from her role as trustee for District 7.
After announcing her resignation, she penned a fiery letter to the TEA, sharing her frustrations with the board and asking them to intervene. In an interview with the San Antonio Report in July, Alderete said a Board of Managers is the only way she sees the district moving forward from the legacy of dysfunction.
“It’s unfortunate, but if you take the board out of it, and you look at the district, we have beautiful things here,” she said. “Kids want to succeed. And I think the only way that can happen is [a] board of managers.”
Trustee Ernesto Arrellano has also remarked during meetings that he “hopes TEA is watching,” as the discussion devolved into shouting, and a quorum was broken.
Yzaguirre declined to comment on the offer Wednesday night, since it is an ongoing legal matter. A representative from the TEA referred back to the settlement offer and declined to comment further.
After the meeting Wednesday, Martinez told The Report he disagreed with the idea of the year-long reprieve, and predicted a conservator would not have success.
“You don’t cut a deal with somebody that’s taking on water,” he said. “I’ll sign [the board] over right now.”
“Board of managers does not mean fear, it does not mean we are doomed,” he added. “It means success.”
Other districts face TEA intervention
The action by the district comes as the agency faces intense scrutiny for the way the takeover of the Houston Independent School District has been handled in the first months of the school year.
Libraries have been converted into so-called “team centers,” and a controversial set of sweeping reforms has been implemented at schools across the district by TEA-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles.
La Hoya Independent School District in South Texas is currently appealing an attempt by the TEA to install a board of managers, while the Marlin Independent School District outside of Waco and the Shepherd Independent School District in Southeast Texas are both currently under a Board of Managers.
Out of the last seven Board of Manager placements, all but one had academic improvement, according to data from the agency. The exception, the Beaumont Independent School District, was sanctioned for financial mismanagement.
Bexar County districts are no strangers to the threat and process of being taken over by the TEA.
The Southside Independent School District was taken over by a board of managers in 2017 following a TEA inquiry into the board’s adherence to procurement rules, with the transition to elected leadership taking place in 2022.
Edgewood ISD, which has a troubled history marred by funding woes and a voucher experiment in the 1990s, was taken over after a fractious board failed to find consensus, prompting the TEA to break months of deadlock. The elected board and superintendent have tried to rebrand and differentiate themselves from that episode.
Harlandale ISD was nearly taken over by the TEA in 2019 after an investigation into the district’s relationship with an engineering firm, but avoided the move after its superintendent was fired.
