Three years ago, Pershing Elementary School sat on a list of San Antonio campuses headed for closure. Today, the Government Hill school has posted the largest one-year academic turnaround in Bexar County, jumping from an F rating to a B in the Texas Education Agency's 2026 accountability results — a 31-point leap that landed the campus just one point shy of an A.
The transformation traces back to November 2023, when the San Antonio Independent School District Board of Trustees voted to execute a sweeping “rightsizing” plan that closed 15 campuses across the district, according to Spectrum News 1. Pershing had originally been among 19 campuses set for closure before the district removed it from the final list following intense neighborhood pushback, as Texas Public Radio reported at the time. Shelene Livas, who became Pershing's principal, told Spectrum News 1 that “rightsizing was a serious possibility for all of us who were on that list.”
How the Score Jumped From 58 to 89
Pershing's accountability score rose from 58, an F rating, in 2025 to 89, a B rating, in August 2026 — a 31-point gain that marked the largest one-year campus score improvement in Bexar County. The jump was driven largely by growth: the campus earned a 91 out of 100 in the state's School Progress domain after nearly three-quarters of students demonstrated a full year of academic growth, even as Student Achievement scores landed at 62 out of 100, with STAAR pass rates reaching 35% in reading and 37% in math.
Mary Lynn Pruneda, an education policy expert with the nonprofit Texas 2036, which provided TEA data to Spectrum News 1, said academic growth is central to school improvement and turnaround. Statewide, that data showed 4,594 campuses kept the same TEA rating this year, 1,999 improved, and 1,828 saw their ratings drop. Pruneda added that academic turnaround is the only way to address a campus's failing rating history, since a new TEA rule bars districts from erasing that history simply by closing a campus — it can only be cleared when students transfer to an A- or B-rated campus.
A Campus Under Decades of Pressure
Pershing has operated at its Sandmeyer Street site in Government Hill since 1959, and it was one of the lowest-performing Texas public school campuses in 2025, according to San Antonio Express-News reporting drawn from SchoolDigger data. The roughly 300-student campus serves a high-poverty population, with 99% of enrolled students coming from economically disadvantaged households and 80.9% identifying as Hispanic, per the same reporting cited alongside Texas Tribune school data.
Brooke Wetherill, an English as a Second Language teacher at Pershing, said the goal is to improve a little bit every year. She credited Livas with setting a precedent of positive energy and celebrating small wins at the campus. Livas herself credited students, staff, and parents for the 31-point improvement, encouraging families to get children to school, become involved, ask questions, and volunteer, and calling the turnaround a community effort.
The State Takeover Threat Looming Over SAISD
The stakes behind Pershing's turnaround are severe. Under Texas Education Code § 39A.111, any campus that racks up five consecutive unacceptable academic ratings triggers mandatory state intervention, forcing the Texas commissioner of education to either order the campus closed or replace the district's elected school board with an appointed board of managers. The Texas Education Agency has used that authority before, taking over Houston ISD in 2023, as CBS Texas has reported.
San Antonio ISD has closed 17 schools since 2023 because of low enrollment and low performance, and Texas school districts more broadly have shuttered failing campuses specifically to avoid state takeover. SAISD itself voted to permanently close Carvajal Elementary and Rhodes Middle School at the end of the 2025–2026 school year after both campuses logged four consecutive unacceptable ratings, according to Texas Public Radio, which noted four SAISD campuses recorded a fourth consecutive failing rating in 2026.
A District-Wide Picture of Mixed Progress
SAISD as a whole earned an overall district rating of C with a score of 75 in the 2026 TEA results, part of a broader regional shift in which the number of failing school districts in Bexar County dropped from four down to one. Neighboring districts including Harlandale, Judson, and North East ISD were also part of the regional picture, per San Antonio Report.
Still, the regional picture remains uneven. Thirty-three public school campuses across Bexar County received an F rating in the TEA's August 2026 accountability report, according to KABB FOX 29 San Antonio, underscoring that dozens of area schools remain stuck in failing status even as individual campuses like Pershing post breakthrough results.
Voters Face a $600 Million Decision in November
Pershing's turnaround also arrives as SAISD navigates persistent budget pressure. The district is asking voters to approve a $600 million bond package and a 3.17-cent property tax rate increase on the November 3 ballot to fund campus modernization, security upgrades, and teacher compensation, a measure trustees placed on the ballot on August 18. Texas Education Agency rules also give the agency authority to remove a superintendent and school board members during a state takeover and replace them with state-appointed leaders — the backdrop against which SAISD's academic and financial decisions are now being made.
