SAISD will pay to maintain campuses closed due to rightsizing until leased out, district says

SAN ANTONIO — It’s the last day of school for students in San Antonio ISD, a district that will close 15 of its campuses due to its rightsizing plan.

This means many students, teachers and staff will have to relocate this coming fall. The decision was finalized last November in an effort to consolidate resources amid falling enrollment.

As of May 30th, 76 percent of students impacted by rightsizing have enrolled at their new campus. More than 1,100 students still need to register, according to the district. 

All 252 impacted teachers know where they will be teaching this fall, while most school administrators know which school they will report to. The remaining three are expected to be placed by Friday.

Nelson Early Childhood Education Center is one of the campuses closing. Last Friday, the prekindergarten focused school said good bye to families during an event where the public was allowed to walk the halls for a final time. It was a bittersweet moment for mother Melissa Carrillo Cox whose son is part of the Head Start program.

“It’s definitely emotional. Pauline Nelson was a great experience for my family and son,” she said.

While her son’s campus and others will close, all 15 school buildings will stay owned by district.

“We do not intend to sell any of our buildings. We intend to maintain our portfolio of real estate. We did communicate this to our families during our community engagement,” said Deputy Superintendent Patti Salzmann.

Salzmann said the district has a couple of properties that have no buildings on them. Recently, city officials expressed interest in one of them. 

Since the buildings will remain, SAISD established a Facility Repurposing Panel that is staffed by community members. They will work alongside real estate specialists to determine the final disposition of the buildings. Money made from lease agreements will go into the district’s general fund which will be redistributed back to open campuses based on per pupil funding.

“Ideally, what we would like to do is, allow these buildings to be leased by entities that would provide some needed service to the particular community, and we would determine what that need would be by going out for more community engagement meetings and really asking the community what they would want in their communities,” said Salzmann.

Until they are leased, the district will pay to maintain the buildings using its existing maintenance budget. We asked how much it costs to maintain each building, and will update when we get a response.