When voters in the San Antonio Independent School District approved a $1.3 billion bond in 2020, they greenlit several construction and renovation projects at Edison High School, including the construction of new baseball and softball fields along with renovated classrooms and a new HVAC system.
Superintendent Jaime Aquino said the renovations at Edison, a school which has been standing for nearly 70 years, are thanks to the district’s taxpayers.
District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur, whose district includes Edison, attended a ribbon cutting ceremony last weekend for the school’s new sports fields and stressed the need to reinvest in public education.
Many school districts are facing large budget deficits — SAISD has a $51 million structural deficit and has recently made decisions to lay off central office staff, close low-enrollment schools and cut programming as cost-saving measures.
Though the district’s bond proposals passed with overwhelming voter support in 2020 — 68.5% support for $1.2 billion in renovations at 36 campuses and 70% support for $90 million in technology upgrades across the district — voters across the state in recent elections have rejected a number of school district bond proposals, including at East Central Independent School District, which hoped to use bonds to update its aging facilities and give staff raises.
Facing a budget deficit of roughly $9 million, East Central ISD is returning with a smaller ask for the May 3 municipal elections. Its bond proposal of $308 million would result in an 8-cent property tax increase for homeowners in the district, but would also pay for the construction of three new schools.
Alamo Colleges District and Floresville Independent School District will also have bond proposals in the upcoming May elections.
For more information on education races on the May 3 ballot, check out our 2025 Voter Guide.
“[Investing in public education] is the only way we’re going to actually make a San Antonio where everyone, regardless of what ZIP code you live in, has access to a great job and a great standard of living,” Kaur said.
Liberty Swift is an alumnus of Edison and attended the ribbon-cutting. Graduating from the school in 1996, she’s now the senior director of corporate communications for the San Antonio Spurs and said she hopes the community continues to support the city’s public schools.
“We can’t overlook city schools just because we’re a new city,” Swift said, referring to San Antonio’s recent business developments and population growth. “I can’t believe what these teachers and the advisors here did for me to set me up for success, and they’re still doing that today with minimal resources.”
From the 2020 bond, $32.2 million went toward projects at Edison, a school which is part of the first of three phases of renovation across the district.
District officials said taxpayers in SAISD did not see a property tax increase as a result of the 2020 bond. Officials said this is because improvement and development of property were meant to increase the district’s taxable value, the district issued the bond at a time when interest rates were low, and the districts’s debt payments were already declining.
Yvonne Little, senior executive director of capital development and construction at SAISD, said construction hit delays because of COVID and rising costs due to inflation.
Edison is one of 17 different major renovation projects associated with the 2020 bond, some which have completed but most remain under construction.
“Because of the market escalation that happened, we had to phase our projects so that we wouldn’t flood the market,” Little said.
Edison’s improvements include a new library with student media labs and updated security measures at Edison.
The classrooms and library have brand new furniture, floors and glass walls with safety curtains; part of the construction included a handful of new small group rooms for students to study in or work on projects.
Even though the sports fields seemed to be the main attraction of the renovations tour at Edison, district architects and contractors were especially proud of the new central HVAC plant on the school’s grounds.
In the past few years, SAISD schools have struggled to remain cool during summer months and warm during freezing temperatures, having to sometimes send students home early due to malfunctioning HVAC systems.
Currently, the district only has one boiler-certified technician who can work on HVAC systems, Aquino said during a tour of Edison’s revamped boiler room. Currently, the district has eight HVAC technician vacancies that are difficult to fill because the private sector offers potential candidates more money, Aquino said.
During a recent school board meeting, a sixth grade teacher from Woodlawn Academy, Miranda Yzaguirre, shared her school’s HVAC woes with the board of trustees.
“There are days where our classrooms are so cold that our fingers, cheeks and noses turn red,” Yzaguirre said. “There are days so hot that our clothing sticks to us, and by the end of the day, we all have headaches and sweat stains.”
Edison was no exception to the district’s HVAC struggles. As part of the school’s renovations, Edison got four new coolers. Before that, the school only had two coolers that Little said were being overworked and struggled to maintain temperatures.
“This bond is producing and delivering real results,” Aquino said. “Projects like Edison show what is possible when we state support and put students first.”
