Hirsch Elementary School students on the East Side started the school year weeks before the rest of San Antonio Independent School District. They’ll also end the academic year a few days after most of their peer schools.
Those changes are meant to accelerate learning in a school that’s struggled academically for years.
Hirsch got a fourth consecutive failed rating from the state’s A-F accountability system this year — just as SAISD officials had predicted before the 2025-26 school year ended.
As a result, SAISD’s school board entered into a a three-year contract with Third Future Schools, a Colorado-based education network known for quickly turning around failing campuses by zeroing in on math and literacy scores.
Now, Third Future is running three SAISD campuses including Hirsch, Ogden Elementary and Tafolla Middle School. Edgewood ISD also partnered with the network to take over Brentwood Middle School on the West Side.
Handing over control of these campuses to Third Future was met with sharp criticism in both districts from families and community members who wanted to keep local control and worried the network’s model was too rigid.
“There are many misconceptions about what we do,” said LaToya Miley, deputy superintendent of the network. “We just have a very specific, intentional model… We prioritize instructional time.”
Third Future officials say the model helps close learning gaps, especially prevalent amongst Black and brown students and economically disadvantaged students, which make up the majority of the network’s total student base.
At Hirsch, which serves around 500 students, 96% of students are economically disadvantaged, 60% are Hispanic, and 38.5% are Black. Across all of SAISD, however, only 5.4% of students are Black.
A day inside Hirsch Elementary
Classes at Hirsch Elementary School start at 7:30 a.m., but the building opens every day at 6:30 a.m. to allow students to get there earlier.
Students aren’t required to have backpacks. If a student does bring a backpack, they leave it at the front entrance.
“We provide everything,” and don’t assign homework, said Miley. “Many of the times, the support is not at home.”
The Third Future model is most visible in second through fifth grade, where students receive four 90-minute learning blocks for core subjects like math, reading, science and the “Art of Thinking” or social studies.
Those blocks are broken up into 40-minute lessons where students follow along with a work packet. Every four minutes, teachers engage students by doing quick checks for understanding, cold-calling on students or doing the “whip around,” when students stand up for a few seconds before diving back into the lesson.
During a recent morning at Hirsch, fifth-graders learned about energy transformation during their science block.
“Track me,” called out Nathalie Mclean, a fifth-grade science teacher at Hirsch.
“Track me!” the class responded quickly. It’s a common callback used on the campus.
After Mclean’s lesson on energy transformation, students have to answer at least four of five questions correctly. It’s what Third Future calls a “demonstration of learning,” or exit ticket.
Those who answer four of five questions correctly exit the classroom and move to a “team center,” usually located in the library, to work independently.
Students who don’t master the exit ticket stay in the classroom for small group instruction.
This how teachers gather data every day, said Miley.
At the team center, students work quietly in rows of desks on a different worksheet as a teacher supervises. The students’ goal is to “level up,” or show higher levels of mastery than they did in the classroom.
Students who “level up” 10 times in two weeks earn a bag of Takis and a Capri-Sun — the reward the students asked for, assistant principal Smith said.
This is what grades 2-5 look like, which is also similar to how Third Future works in middle schools. The only difference in second grade is that students don’t push out to the team centers — that starts in third grade.
Kindergarten and first grade incorporate some of the model with demonstrations of learning, but those are “chunked” using shorter lessons.
The preschool classes are “traditional” pre-K, said Miley, with play-based learning and skills-based lessons, but Third Future does require some of its strategies to be used, like “turn and talk” or quick-response cards.
While color is somewhat limited across the campus and at the principal’s discretion, the preschool classrooms walls are bright and cheery.
The school also offers physical education, art and musical theater as electives rotated every nine weeks. Student also have a recess period.
“They’re kids, and we let them be kids,” said Miley.
Part of the Third Future model is also about quashing disciplinary issues. Campus administrators mostly work from standing desks in the hallways and students use a visual system to use the restroom, placing cones outside to indicate it’s in use.
While Third Future usually enforces stricter dress codes with uniforms at the campuses they operate, Smith said Hirsch families pushed back on that rule before the school year started, so the school uses the standard SAISD dress code guidelines.
Growing two years in 184 days
Third Future Schools, which has a presence in Colorado, Texas and Louisiana, has an overall goal of growing students two school years’ worth of learning within 184 instructional days. That’s the only way to close learning gaps, said network superintendent Zach Craddock.
Right now, Third Future is growing students at an average of 1.88 years during one school cycle, according to its own measurements. By 2030, the network hopes to have 100 “proof points” to back up the effectiveness of its education model.
This school year, Third Future more than doubled its reach, by adding 16 campuses to its network. It’s now operating 26 schools overall, 19 of which are in Texas.
In Texas, Senate Bill 1882 incentivizes districts to partner with outside groups in order to get thousands of additional state dollars for schools.
While dollar amounts vary by campus and outside operator, Third Future Schools receives about $1,200 per student on top of the funding the district normally gets from the state, Craddock said in May.
The network invests most of that money in recruitment, he said. Third Future has full hiring and firing power over the teachers at its campuses under the 1882 contract set-up.
There are also no substitute teachers. Third Future employs “teacher apprentices” who serve in teacher’s assistant capacities, learning the network’s method and stepping in to fill in when needed.
All of the teachers at Hirsch are from San Antonio and new to Third Future, according to Smith, and six teachers who worked at the school before the network took over are still there.
Entering into an 1882 deal also buys school districts a few more years to turn a failing campus around and avoid state intervention, since the state pauses A-F ratings for two years on that campus.
It’s a solution more districts are turning to.
The Hirsch, Ogden and Tafolla campuses in SAISD and Brentwood in EISD all got their fourth consecutive failing rating this year. A fifth year means steep penalties for the districts — either school closure or state intervention in the form of a state-appointed board and superintendent.
Third Future does have a track record of turning schools around within a couple years, taking schools from an “F” or “D” rating to a “B.” After the network leaves a school, however, ratings tend to dip again, because even if students are scoring at the same level on state assessments, actual growth has slowed down, and Texas weighs both.
It’s an issue Third Future leaders acknowledge.
“Being able to maintain that achievement — you may not see that very next year because you’re still seeing growth, but you’re not seeing growth at the same rate,” said Miley. “Growth over time improves scores, but it has to lead to sustained achievement. If it doesn’t, that school may rescind because the achievement is not sustained.”
And fewer than two months into the school year at Hirsch, students have a long way to go. During the 2026 State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test, only 14% of fifth-graders scored on grade level on the math portion and 29% were on level in reading.
The good news, Hirsch principal Sean Langner said, is that Third Future is already seeing progress, especially in reading and writing.
“With the writing pieces, we had trouble with them even attempting to write,” he said. “So now they’re getting gaining more confidence … and we’re kind of fine-tuning the quality of writing.”
