Two months after the majority of trustees in the South San Antonio Independent School District adamantly rejected a proposal to close four schools, trustees voted 5-2 to close three of those schools Wednesday evening.
Athens Elementary, Kindred Elementary and Kazen Middle School will close at the end of the school year, and their staff will be reassigned to other schools.
The superintendent’s original proposal to re-close West Campus High School —and stop paying to renovate it — was not included in Wednesday’s vote.
Before the vote, the district’s state-appointed monitor, Abelardo Saavedra, told the board it was past time to act in order to avoid a budget crisis.
“When will a South San board start to do the right thing?” Saavedra said. “I know the vote is hard. I'm not going to lie to you: the last time a board voted to close schools, it was during my time and several of those board members got voted out the very next election. I'm not telling you that that won't happen. But I am telling you, you need to do what's right for kids in order for this district to get better.”
Athens Elementary and Kazen Middle School were closed because of declining enrollment in 2017, when Saavedra was superintendent of South San. West Campus High School closed in 2007 after flooding damaged the building.
In 2019, four South San board trustees voted to reopen Athens, Kazen, and West Campus High School against the recommendation of then-superintendent Alexandro Flores. A Texas Education Agency investigation into the way the school openings unfolded is part of the reason Saavedra has returned to the district as a state-appointed monitor.
Saavedra also admonished trustees Wednesday for saying that they were unaware South San had a $10 million budget deficit that needs to be addressed in order to avert a financial crisis.
Saavedra said they were first told about a deficit in August of last year, and they knew the deficit had reached $10 million by October. He also expressed concern for the $11 million in maintenance notes the district has issued to renovate the previously closed schools, especially West Campus.
“There's been a history of making decisions that, quite frankly, are not the right decisions for the kids,” Saavedra said. “Because let me tell you, that $11 million does not put one more teacher in the classroom, does not put another counselor into a school, does not put another nurse, does not hire another police officer. Those $11 million buys bricks and mortars, is what it buys.”
In January, Superintendent Henry Yzaguirre said South San would run out of money and default on its debts in two years if significant budget cuts weren’t made soon. At the time, he said closing Athens, Kindred, Kazen, and West Campus would save the district $9 million a year.
A vote to close West Campus was not included in Wednesday’s board agenda.
The vote to close the three remaining schools took place without a presentation from the superintendent, and with no comment from board members that changed their vote.
Trustees Ernesto Arrellano Jr. and Manuel Lopez, who supported the superintendent’s recommendation to close four schools in January, accused the board majority of keeping the closure of West Campus off the board agenda.
“If it's not on the agenda, we don't have to vote for it. So, we won't look bad for our constituents. It's just that simple, ladies and gentlemen,” Lopez said. “I will follow the superintendent's recommendation for whatever it is. Three or four. I will follow that because it's the right thing to do to save the district as a whole.”
Homer Flores, Stacey Alderete, and Cynthia Ramirez joined Arrellano and Lopez in voting to close Athens, Kindred and Kazen Wednesday. Shirley Ibarra and Abel Martinez Jr. maintained their no votes from January.
According to Yzaguirre’s presentation in January, closing the three schools will save South San about $5 million a year. That leaves about half of the deficit unaccounted for.
