San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) is facing scrutiny as it moves forward with plans to close 19 schools, despite having allocated millions in bond funds for renovations that will no longer take place. According to an investigation by KSAT, more than $9 million of the $1.3 billion bond approved by voters in 2020 for school improvements, has been spent on campuses that are now on the chopping block.
These funds were intended for infrastructure renovations, security upgrades, and HVAC replacements. Yet, with a "Rightsizing" plan to tackle declining enrollment, the district has decided to shutter schools to improve efficiency. "When the bond was passed back in 2020, November 2020, the district administration at the time 'Rightsizing' wasn't an initiative for them," said Yvonne Little, SAISD's executive senior director of planning and construction, in a statement obtained by KSAT.
School closures are imminent, with Highland Park Elementary among those set to close despite over a million dollars sunk into surveys and design development. Highland Park, along with Storm Elementary School, Steele Montessori Academy, and Huppertz Elementary, spent large amounts on designs that will never be realized. Furthermore, six-figure expenditures on HVAC systems and security improvements, such as camera installations, were made at other sites doomed to close.
Amid this fiscal labyrinth, the district has pledged to keep and possibly repurpose these properties. "Cameras can be moved and repurposed, chillers can be moved and repurposed," Little told KSAT. The district insists it will not sell off any of the properties where closing schools exist, aiming to maintain them at an "unoccupied temperature to mitigate any bacteria growth or anything happening in the campus."
Parents and staff, however, are not satisfied with the reassurances. At a series of heated community meetings, they voiced their frustrations over the planned closures and the opaque future of the bond funds. "You didn't come to us asking for solutions, you're amputating a leg when a Band-Aid would have worked," a Lamar Elementary parent expressed in a community meeting covered by KSAT. Questions loom about where the remaining bond money will go, with SAISD officials tagging about $3.5 million as already spent on the schools facing potential closure for condition assessments and surveys.
