On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.

San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody.

Thank you for joining us for On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we start with schools here in San Antonio.

You probably heard news recently about schools having to close, schools having problems.

We're going to get to that in just a minute here.

But first we wanted to start with some good news about a program where teachers in San Antonio are going to get more money.

Some teachers for how that works.

Here to explain is Doctor Sean Byrne, who is the deputy superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks for having me.

Tell me about this Ace program, how it works that some teachers could earn more than $100,000, which is pretty much unheard of in Texas, at least in this area.

Yeah.

So this is a grant program from the state of Texas.

It's called the Ace, which stands for Accelerating Campus Excellence.

And we have about three of our schools Crockett Academy Poll Middle School and High Walls Middle School.

And yes, it's true, teachers can earn over $100,000.

And if they're a master teacher, which is a designation that excellent teachers have on their certificate, they can earn up to $124,000 in certain subject areas.

So it's really designed to put the best teachers in front of our kids that need the most.

And these schools have historically struggled in the past.

So we are doing this program to encourage the best and brightest teachers to come and teach these kids.

Is this about retention of teachers?

Because that's been a huge problem in recent years, or even recruitment of teachers.

It's both.

And we have we're fortunate in San Antonio ISD.

We have a lot of master teachers, but this is to encourage even more to come to serve in the inner city of our of our city.

And it's really about both recruitment and retention, because we want to pay teachers what they're worth.

And that's that's hard to do.

But these programs like these make it possible.

How big a problem is turnover these days?

I mean, it's slowed down a little bit.

But it's still pretty high.

And we still, hire about 300 teachers a year, in our district, for which we have 84 schools.

So, but that's a pretty high number.

And that is not good.

We want to keep consistency for our kids.

Are you losing those teachers to other districts or just getting out of the teaching altogether?

Yeah, that's.

A combination of things I think.

You know, since Covid, we have lost a lot of people just from the profession.

And I think that, you know, there's lots of reasons people are leaving the political polarization of education.

That certainly has something to do with that.

And just people are just not going into the field as much as they used to.

So colleges of education or not, seeing the number of teachers going into the field.

Where are you getting the money for this program?

This from the state?

The DEA, it's a grant from to that.

It's a three year grant.

And, but the great thing about this program is, if you have 50% of the teachers in a school are designated as master teachers, you get extra money from the state for as long as you have that number of teachers.

So it really pays for itself.

Over time.

How do you choose?

I guess not just the teachers, but the subject matter and where they teach.

Yes, plays a part.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So it's the these schools were chosen because they've been historically underperforming.

And so we have, redesigned the whole the entire program.

But it's really the core teachers, the math and language arts teachers.

Those are the ones that we really want to make sure our master teachers.

But every, we want the best teachers for every subject that they teach.

So, so if 2%.

Are mostly elementary, middle high school.

They are, these schools are two middle schools and an academy, which is K through eight.

Speaking of middle schools, this week, some of the tough news we've seen, not just in San Antonio Independent School District, but in others having to close a school.

Tell us about what that was like with that meeting.

Yeah.

So, sure, we, did make a decision to close roads middle school and, combine it with Tafoya, which is a close by on the west side.

And, that school will be partnering that new school, combination school will be partnering with, third future schools.

Again, those are students who have struggled, in the past that we need to really, fix the, the, underachievement and, get those schools back on track.

Those schools have been failing for some time, and, it's really incumbent upon us to, work with a partner, to turn that school around.

And third teacher has a has a track record.

Very emotional for a lot of parents, a lot of students to close a school.

But also in this case, partnering with Third Future Schools, which is a charter school.

How will that work?

And people wonder what's how's that going to change my school?

Yeah.

So we have, we have a number of 1882 partnerships already, which is, basically a charter industry charter.

We have over 20 of those currently.

So we work with several partners already.

That's not new for San Antonio.

This is a new partner.

And, again, they have a track record of, of improving student achievement very rapidly.

And so the school will change in that, it's going to be operated by a third, by a third party party.

But, you know, we are still those are still our students.

And this is a partnership.

It's a it's, you know, supposed to last for three years, and we're going to learn, what they do that we can learn from so that we can, when we transition the school back to, to the district, that we have learned the lessons to keep the.

Improvement and for the fall in a couple of years, what has going to happen to the property, the land where those schools are?

Yeah.

So actually, we have bond dollars from our 2020 bond, in that, in that land for Carvajal and roads.

So we had been planning to, we've been talking with the community.

We've been planning to build a new state of the art facility there.

So Rose was always going to have to close at some point and move those students somewhere else so that we can build.

So now what will happen is we'll have, community meetings and, decide what, you know, what's the best facility to put there.

And, that's happening right now.

There's bond meetings that are happening, and we'll construct a new school on that site.

Another problem, for public schools, like yours, is, the drain of students to charter schools as the school voucher system kicks in.

It hasn't hit, as I understand, San Antonio independent and other, lower economic schools in San Antonio, poorer school districts as it has on the north side.

How many kids are you seeing leave?

I mean, the charter, the charter school, schools do take schools.

We have a lot of charters in our in our area, I believe we have, very high number of charters near every one of our schools within two miles.

We have charters pretty much at near every one of our schools.

So that has been, something that we have to compete with.

And, and this is one of the reasons we want to make these schools the best they can be.

So kids will come back, in terms of vouchers, we have not, you know, that program is just starting, but we do not anticipate, a high number of students leaving.

So far, the data shows, from the applications for the vouchers, that it doesn't look like, you know, it says as high numbers we first thought it might.

Be is partnering with a charter school like the Third Future.

Is that almost preemptive in a way to deal with that?

No.

I think, you know, this district has had a history of having several in district charter schools.

We want to provide the best opportunities for our students, and that means that looks different for every family.

So we have lots of choices in our district, and we actually bring in, almost 7000 kids from outside of our boundaries.

So even though we're declining enrollment, it's kind of a strange phenomenon because we actually bring in 7000 kids from surrounding districts.

So people do come here for choice, and we want to continue to provide the most choices for our students.

Back to the Ace program in terms of recruiting teachers.

If somebody sees this, this, you know, they're paying more money for teachers.

There are teachers in another district.

Do they have to be in C-I-S-D for a number of years to get this, or how does it work?

You know, they can on our website now and we have actually a job fair on April 11th from 9 to 11:00.

And, we look forward to, talking with anybody who's interested in serving our kids.

And, we want the best and brightest teachers that we can.

We can find.

Well, thank you very much for your time and good luck.

I know it's a tough time, especially for everyone in public education right now, but we appreciate it.

Doctor Sean Byrd, deputy superintendent for C-I-S-D.

Thank you.

If you haven't been downtown in a while, there are so many developments, some construction also.

But if you know how to get around, you will see so many different things taking place.

To tell us all about it is Andy Rodriguez, who is a vice president of cultural placemaking for Centro San Antonio.

Thank you very much for coming in.

We're talking about not just all this development and, you know, all these big projects coming in, but how it's going to affect, see, the culture of downtown, the walkability, keeping it San Antonio and not being a generic downtown.

What's in the works for that?

What's the vision, for that and what's taking place right now?

Well, there's so much going on, as you mentioned, Randy.

Obviously, you know, we've got Spurs.

We're excited about the Alamo and just so much culture sake him but, you know.

Take him.

As San Antonio African-American Community Museum and Archives.

But so much and the Alameda.

I mean, so you think about all this vibrancy that we're having, but we have to continue to kind of tether it together.

So one of the things that we're doing at Centro San Antonio with the Art everywhere project is trying to kind of, put these little breadcrumbs in between.

So we've installed, over 200 pieces of work by local artists since we established it in 2020.

And we're continuing because we really want to give artists and creatives opportunity.

It's really important you think about vibrancy.

Where do you go when you're in other cities?

You go to places where it's creative, it's cool, it's fun, and that's what we want to have downtown.

And we're doing it.

So we're really proud of that.

You know, you talk about bread crumbs in between.

Also businesses in between.

Recent headline Spurs Holt family just bought, some property near where the Spurs arena would be, the old fire station there a restaurant.

And talking about building a quarter between the Spurs Arena and Mission Stadium.

Is that also.

Yeah.

The vision.

Well, you know, is that and you have a lot of different folks that are invested in downtown.

So people private, obviously private, businesses, you've got the public entities, you've got San Pedro Creek, you've got UTSA, obviously Western urban, and you know, the whole family and you know, everything, everybody.

And so it is super exciting time to be downtown.

And I think the thing that we need to continue to do is to focus on local, what we're giving to our local community.

It's great to have tourists.

We love visitors.

But the other thing is, we've got to make it a place that you and I want to go and our kids want to go.

And you also want to get them down there through this transition because people think, oh, there's never ending construction down here.

But yeah, there's a lot to see that you're developing while it's going on.

Absolutely.

You know, and I think that's one of the things that's the most exciting, what I always share with my friends.

Don't worry.

You know, there's plenty of parking.

A parking study just came out that we released.

But the other thing is I think that there's so much to see, and there are new things.

Things that are fresh, new restaurants, new parks, new places to kind of, you know, connect and relax.

But then also, I obviously focus on the art, but it's one of those things when you see art, it creates vibrancy and color, obviously valuable to local businesses, but also to us because these are our stories.

And so that's something I think that we can continue to share.

You mentioned San Pedro Creek.

There's a lot of art there, but there's also development from West and Urban that people don't realize that they are just now outlining that that goes east from west and urban toward the rest of downtown.

Yes.

And when are we going to see with all of that?

I think that it's really about developing a place that our kids want to grow, that our kids want to come back to.

So obviously that that, you know, vibrancy, but really beautiful investment, you know, with new multi-family housing, with restaurants, and just really kind of filling in all the blank spots.

And blank spots being filled in.

And Travis Park, tell us about that, because that's kind of a real Texas thing.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

Well we have actually bluebonnets in Travis Park and it's something we had, one of our members came to us and said, hey, we want to, you know, plant bluebonnets downtown.

Why should you have to go to the Hill Country to, you know, to kind of, you know, feel the Texas roots?

So, gathered a bunch of, resources together and we'll have a kickoff.

And another kickoff they had was the new education center at the Alamo, the Cavaliers.

There's just so much the Alamo and their team, they're doing a extraordinary job.

But again, you kind of got that kind of northeast sector.

You've got HemisFair, you've got Western urban UTSA.

Spurs market Square.

There's just so much happening right now.

So there's a lot of reason to come downtown.

And, I know they had was it the mini petting zoo?

Some kind of Uber ish thing the Centro was dealing with getting people around.

How is.

That?

That's actually great, because micromobility is really one of the solutions.

We think, you know, it's something where parking isn't an actual issue, but it's a perceived issue.

So micromobility is a great way.

Yeah.

And I didn't describe that well.

But what are these what are those little things that can get you around.

Those little things?

They're actually, they're electric cars.

And so they fit about six people in the car.

So you can call them kind of like an Uber, but they're able to get you from here to there without, you know, without a lot of fuss.

And I think that's important because if you feel that you can get around, then you want to come.

And even with the construction, we took a Waymo to do a story on that, we got from one part of downtown to another quickly.

I was surprised they knew exactly how to get around.

They all the construction that there is downtown, they got around.

I haven't written in one of those yet, but yeah, it is a little bit interesting.

And I think for even for me and I'm very familiar with downtown, it can, you know, kind of confuse you at times.

But really when you know you're going to get from here to there, I think again that, you know, you're like, what you're going to is worth the trip.

What what do they say the the juice is worth the squeeze.

So that's how I see it.

I had not heard that before.

How about on the west side there?

By mile.

Park in Market Square has been construction there, but that's going to be a whole kind of renovated area.

Absolutely.

And that's part of Zona Cultural, which is a it's an arts district, a designated arts district by the state.

And it's actually extraordinary.

And so not only will it be easier for everyone to get, you know, from Market Square to downtown or even to the Alamo, it's going to be just more culturally vibrant.

So there's a lot of, urban planning that have gone into that.

So better streets, more landscaping, just, you know, again, beautiful, but more connected.

And then with what's going on in Mylan Park, and also Christy Santa Rosa and we just put up a mural, on the on Christmas Santa Rosa children's.

And it's quite beautiful.

But again, all of this coming together.

Another art project, the lamp post, a sculpture.

Again, I can't say enough about, the Zachary family about, you know, being so thoughtful.

So not only building something amazing, but incorporating art, kind of from the get go.

So it's not an afterthought.

And that's something that we want to do with everything we want to we want to bring it all in.

One final quick question.

The toughest thing, what are you looking forward to the most in the next few weeks people should get down for?

Well, you know, it's interesting.

I obviously Fiesta is going to be quite special, but but you know, there's always something going on.

So try a new restaurant, you know, make your way down there, look at some art, come and, you know, dance a little bit, come to a concert or a show.

But there's so much to offer.

Wander around like a tourist.

To wander around like a tourist.

Downtown is for everyone.

So we welcome everyone.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Andy Rodriguez, vice president, cultural Placemaking, Central San Antonio.

Appreciate your.

Time.

Thank you so much, Randy.

On reporters roundtable this week, what to do about the renaming of Cesar Chavez Boulevard here in San Antonio, as well as Cesar Chavez Day, in light of all the allegations against the former civil rights leader.

Here to talk about that is Andrea Rush.

Government and politics reporter for the San Antonio Report.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks for having me.

The city is asking for input.

And they have certain qualifications they want filled or fulfilled.

They will rename it I, as I understand, either Durango again or after someone.

So San Antonio was one of the first cities to cancel its Cesar Chavez parade when they had heard about this report coming out.

And then when the the final details came out about about the namesake of this event, they canceled the parade this year.

Quickly, they two council members talked about wanting to change the name of the street that was named after him in 2011.

Now we've opened up an online survey.

The city is asking residents for feedback.

They're going to do some public input meetings.

They're looking for names that have historical characters honoring legacies and match the city's core values is what they said.

And you can fill that out until April 2nd online.

And one would think that it would be for if it is renamed for a labor leader, maybe Dolores Huerta, I understand herself, would be considered, but also in San Antonio, Emma Turner, Uka, Willie Velasquez, those kinds of people.

It's hard to get a street renaming, attendee.

You could got what a street designation?

On Savio Street a few years ago.

And so I think that's become more common is instead of renaming a street after somebody, you just put some historical placards up near where.

They say something.

Memorial highway.

I haven't done as many street renaming.

That's a big deal.

How about Durango?

Is that's a possibility as well?

Some people are pushing for that.

It's what it came from.

But I think we'll learn more when the survey closes.

Yes.

And what is the timeline for that?

When do you think they're going to know.

Somebody is open till April 2nd.

So it seems like they're, you know, moving quickly on this.

And others like the Alamo colleges district had wanted to change the day or, or how is that coming?

Approaching this a little differently, San Antonio said that they were going to take a different day off instead of, March 31st, Cesar Chavez Day.

They're going to consider renaming that day.

But so wanted to give employees a different holiday off.

Alamo colleges initially said that they would be continue to be closed that day.

But then Governor Abbott came out and said that that was not the state was no longer recognizing this holiday.

And so Alamo colleges that it will remain open.

And council members really haven't gotten behind any one name yet.

Council members are mostly in DC this week for their Santa DC trip, so we haven't had a chance to catch up with them yet about how all this is shaking out.

And speaking of council members, they're also looking at the city is also looking at changing some of the campaign finance limits for council members and mayoral candidates.

Right.

And you might remember this came up in 2025.

That was one of the most expensive mayoral campaigns we've ever had in San Antonio.

And then after that, they moved to four year terms.

And that was sort of the initial impetus for this is that you can raise $500 if you're from an individual donor per election cycle, if you're a council candidate or $1,000 for an ad from an individual donor, if you're running for mayor.

And that resets, based on pre-election post election and runoff.

And so that means some people would already be maxed out until this.

Our next election will now be in November of 2029 after the longer term.

So also moved to November elections.

So that meant a lot of donors are already maxed out.

That means people are sitting on, you know, campaign accounts with $50,000 and $2,000.

Individual donors are maxed out.

But because of the PAC money, as you said, it was the most expensive race.

Right.

And so San Antonio has these low contribution limits that were well intentioned to try to even the playing field for candidates.

But, as we've seen in the last few elections, it's in some ways giving more power to PACs that don't have to follow that rule or so funders who you're not limited in how much you give your own campaign.

So tons of money still flowed into this race, but from PACs and self funders.

And there was a lot of, hay made about a lot of that money was coming from out of state, especially for Mayor Jones.

And when people file that money, file that fundraising in their campaign finance reports, we can see where it's all coming from.

If it's funneled through PACs, it's really harder to trace.

And do you think that'll change, as anybody said?

Okay.

It should go from 500 to 50, 902,000.

They haven't come up with numbers yet.

Well, so the Ethics Review Board met on Monday for the first time for a regular meeting in over a year.

And they said they've been so swamped with, ethics complaints about candidates in 2025, they never got to sit down for a regular meeting.

And they did do a whole, overhaul of their municipal finance code just a few years ago.

But when they moved to these longer terms, they said, okay, maybe this is something that needs revisiting.

They didn't.

No one was specifically calling for it at that meeting.

But they did say, we are open to forming committees and revisiting that reopening the campaign finance code.

So it'll be up to those board members, which a lot of them are new.

A lot of them were not there the last time.

And I think that they're probably hearing they are appointed by council members of the probably hearing from their council members.

Because when you look at the 2029 landscape, that is when mayor Jean Ortiz Jones will be up for reelection for the first time.

It's also in three council members the course Mark White and Reynolds Reddick veto will be, not term limited, but they can only run for two years because of the longer terms.

They'll hit their eight year limit in the middle of a term, so they'll be running for like an abbreviated term, or they go back to the mayor's race.

Yeah.

And we expect a number of those to be in the mayor's race, at least at this point.

Also, you've been covering some of the school board races that are coming up that's kind of gone under the radar and a lot of the media.

But there's some interesting races, including Alamo Colleges district.

Yeah, these are some of our favorite races.

And shameless plug.

We just put out a voter guide, the on Wednesday morning with all of the 20 candidates running for the, five county area districts, but we have one seat on the Alamo College Board that has three challengers.

One incumbent, northeast ISD.

You probably remember this is the district that has had conservative PACs and Democratic PACs trying to influence it for several cycles.

Now, conservative groups that have that have elected tons of school board members across North Texas have had way more of a challenge doing that here.

But they've tried in northeast ISD and got two members on the board in 2022.

Then, in 2024, five spots were up because a trustee had died and the Democrats swept all of those seats.

Now you've got the two incumbents who were elected with the help of conservative groups are up again this year.

One is running for reelection.

One is not.

But a lot of politics in those two races.

And a lot of people don't know any of that.

But and they probably don't even know Election Day for some of those races.

Right.

That's going to be May 2nd and not to be confused with May 26th, which is our primary runoff, the Paxton Cornyn race.

And so it's election after election after election in the spring here.

And it will be confused with but neither of them are in fiesta time.

Yes.

I think more races are in that Fiesta window.

Early voting for those runs.

000, that's right.

Early voting would be in Fiesta.

I don't know, put it up right.

Okay.

But the other races that are, southwest ISD, Medina Valley ISD, Alamo Heights ISD, and then Cibolo has a Bond.

And Alamo Colleges.

Is that one as controversial or.

Well, you had three incumbents who were up this time and two of them are unopposed.

It's only this district nine incumbent who faces three challengers, but higher education has been rocked by so many politics.

You know, whether it's, you know, the state has installed conservative leaders in charge of some of the public universities or how they're allowed to run their faculty senate.

And some of that is hitting Alamo colleges, too.

And so we've got a candidate coming from a faculty background in that race, as well as two others who don't like the way the board has handled it.

So far.

So woke Anti-Woke some of the same things we've heard in school boards.

Yeah, even all the way down to the Alamo Heights ISD that, you know, the school district and the municipal government there rarely ever have contested races.

They even installed a new mayor without an election a couple of years ago.

But, they have two contested school board races this year.

One of them features a candidate who's running because she doesn't like the way the board is interpreting this new SB 12.

That's a Dei ban on public schools, and thought that the district was taking too strict of an interpretation of that.

And being and.

They had a speaker or an author that was going to come in and LGBTQ wasn't going to talk about a book, but then disinvited that author and that was a big deal, I guess.

Yes.

And in response to this, SB 12 and so all of the districts are contending with that, and some of them are growing, some of them are shrinking, all of them are looking at potentially seismic changes in the way public education is funded in the coming years.

Some of them are making tough decisions about which campuses to close, and some of them have had bonds fail in recent years.

The Cibolo is coming back with a different revenue measure this year.

It's there's tons of politics going on in these races.

And so we've tried to sort of sort them out and explain them the best we can on our on our education voter guide.

And again, for talk about another deadline again to go back to it.

But the Cesar Chavez input if people want to do that that is April 2nd and it's easy to go online.

That is at San antonio.gov.

I say speak up.

Yeah speak up.

That's what I meant.

Thanks very much Andrea Rush.

Who knows everything there is to know about governing and politics in San Antonio for the San Antonio report.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

Also, stay tuned right after this show if you're watching on Thursday night.

Texas Dance Hall, Still in is a local production by the Fine People here at Clarion.

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Watch tonight or you can watch it as well at class in North Texas.

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I'm Randy Beamer and we'll see you next time.

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