Voters waited in line at the Converse Senior Center, Monday October 24 to cast their ballots in the midterm election. Four San Antonio independent School districts will appear on the upcoming May 2 General Election ballot.
Jessica Phelps
Voters across four San Antonio independent school districts will soon elect new or returning trustees to school boards. Alamo Heights, Medina Valley, North East and Southwest ISDs each have two open seats on the May 2 ballot. Early voting runs April 20-28.
Four candidates will compete for two at-large seats in the Medina Valley and Southwest ISD races, while two incumbents face challengers on the Alamo Heights ISD ballot. Meanwhile, the two winners in a North East ISD race will serve four-year terms as the district grapples with enrollment loss, looming campus closures and state intervention over its controversial student cellphone ban.
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Voters can check their registration, view sample ballots and find early voting locations and hours on the Bexar County Elections Department website.
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Alamo Heights ISD
In the nearly 5,000-student enclave district of Alamo Heights ISD, two incumbents representing at-large districts face challengers. The winners will serve a three-year term.
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In Place 4, challenger Bianca Cerqueira, 40, a biomedical engineer, filed against incumbent Hunter Kingman, 42, a real estate developer who has served as a trustee since 2024.
Ty Edwards is running to keep his Place 3 seat on the Alamo Heights Independent School District’s board of trustees.
Provided by Ty Edwards
Edwards served as treasurer of the Alamo Heights School Foundation prior to joining the board in 2023.
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He said he has three core priorities for his re-election bid: sustaining the district’s academic excellence, protecting AHISD’s financial strength and supporting its educators.
If re-elected, Edwards said he hopes to work on managing district funds to preserve the quality of programming in the face of financial pressure created by inadequate state funding. He said he is skilled in disciplined decision-making, community accountability and the responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources, all areas he believes are necessary to be a good financial steward of the district.
Edwards’ challenger, Saldana, became active in the AHISD community as a parent when she moved into the district with her family in 2018. The assistant principal is finishing her doctoral degree in educational leadership at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The program has strengthened her understanding of school governance, policy and organization, she said.
Lindsey Saldana is running to represent Place 3 on the Alamo Heights Independent School District’s board of trustees.
Provided by Lindsey Saldana
Over her 20 years in education, Saldana said she has managed campus budgets, analyzed student data, led school initiatives and ensured compliance with district and state laws. Saldana said she is passionate about giving students equal access to educational opportunities and supporting educators. If elected, she hopes to prioritize budget transparency, teacher retention and communication with the community.
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She aims to accomplish these priorities by pushing for competitive compensation and professional development opportunities for educators and budget decisions that are best for students while being accountable to the AHISD community.
“My goal is to be a trustee who listens, asks informed questions, and works collaboratively to support long term student success while preserving the unique strengths of Alamo Heights ISD,” she said.
In Place 4, challenger Cerqueira hopes to bring transparency to the district, while Kingman seeks to steward district funds responsibly.
A graduate of Alamo Heights ISD, Kingman now has four kids attending district schools. As other area districts have faced takeovers by the Texas Education Agency, he said he feels committed to preserving local district control.
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Hunter Kingman is running to keep his Place 4 seat on the Alamo Heights Independent School District’s board of trustees.
Provided by Hunter Kingman
Trustees voted unanimously to appoint Kingman to the board in 2024 after a former board president resigned. Now running to retain his seat, Kingman’s main focus is equipping all students for success beyond their time at Alamo Heights.
The district faces a range of evolving challenges that require steady, thoughtful leadership, he said. These include navigating state funding constraints, addressing politicized pressures on public education and managing leadership transitions. Kingman said his work in real estate allows him to focus on long-term planning, financial stewardship and delivering complex projects. He said these skills have translated to responsible governance as the district invests funds from its $371 million bond program that voters approved in 2023.
Bianca Cerqueira is running to represent Place 4 on the Alamo Heights Independent School District’s board of trustees.
Provided by Bianca Cerqueira
Cerqueira, who earned her doctorate in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas Health Science Center, first moved to the district in 2005 when she was a student. She has served with Cambridge Elementary’s parent-teacher organization since she moved back to the district with her husband and kids in 2020. She has also worked as a homeroom mom at Cambridge Elementary for the past five years.
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She decided to run for the Place 4 seat because she felt disappointed with Alamo Heights ISD’s decision to uninvite an author, Chris Barton, who was supposed to give a talk to students. The district cited Senate Bill 12, which took effect Sept. 1, banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from K-12 public schools. AHISD officials said parents complained about the LGBTQ+ themes in some of Barton’s books.
Cerqueira now hopes to modify district policies she believes to be “overly restrictive” around SB12.
“If a parent has issues with visiting author content, they can request that their child not participate,” Cerqueira said. “The views of a single parent should not dictate what material the entire district can access.”
She also proposed increasing the visibility of the board’s activities by publishing more details from board meetings and posting presentations alongside meeting minutes. If elected, Cerqueira said she would vote against book censorship and educate the AHISD community about proposed State Board of Education policies that could affect students, including a proposed required reading list that includes Bible passages and changes to social studies curriculum.
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READ MORE: What’s in the $295M SCUCISD school bond on the May ballot?
Medina Valley ISD
Voters in the rapidly growing Medina Valley ISD will elect two members to the school board this May. Four candidates are vying for two at-large seats in this election.
The district covers the far southwestern edge of Bexar County. Once largely rural, the area is becoming suburban, with new housing developments emerging along U.S. 90. While nearby districts are closing schools, Medina Valley is opening new campuses. The district opened Silos Elementary School in 2024 and plans to open Creek View High School in the coming school year.
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The district serves about 10,500 students, nearly double its 2018 total of about 5,400. Earlier this month, the board chose a new superintendent: Emily Lorenz, who was leading a school system in the Corpus Christi area.
The two positions up for election are not tied to geographic boundaries, and the two candidates who earn the most votes will win a spot on the board. On the May ballot, two incumbents are seeking a second term in a race against two challengers.
Incumbent Blane Nash, 43, said his experience over the past three years is why he should return to the board. During his tenure as a trustee, he thinks the board has changed from one of “a small district to a rapidly growing district,” in the way it governs and makes decisions.
“I think we’ve had some good success. I think the district overall is in a better place three years later,” Nash said.
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Nash, a former firefighter and paramedic who now owns a custom homebuilding company, was elected in 2023 with 1,280 votes, the most of any candidate that year. Managing what he calls “positive growth” in student enrollment and listening to parents and community members will guide his decisions, he said.
“I’m not a politician. I don’t claim to be a politician. Being on a school board is a political role, obviously, but I really just stand for common sense,” Nash said. “Every time we make a decision, the question is, just, ‘is this good for kids? ’”
Board President Nathan Fillinger, who is also up for reelection, did not respond to requests for comment. Fillinger works as an information technology architect at USAA and has served on the board since 2023.
Andrew Carawan, 45, wants to maintain Medina Valley ISD’s small-town values, if he is elected.
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“Some of the things that made our district really great were some of the kind of small-town values,” Carawan said. “I think that’s one of the biggest issues, is how do you keep those values in a growing district, you know, as San Antonio starts to spread out west.”
A retired teacher, Carawan, previously taught special education, science and social studies classes at Medina Valley High School for 16 years. He wants the district to take a stricter approach to discipline, address overcrowding and limit student distractions from devices during instruction. He also wants Medina Valley ISD to further invest in career and technical education courses. Those courses usually entail classes like welding, auto mechanics, culinary arts or agriculture.
“With politicians always pushing this ‘college above all else,’ you see this school start to reflect that,” Carawan said. “I went to college, and I got my master’s — but I don’t think that’s for everybody.”
Toby Castillo Walters, an academic dean at Northside ISD’s Jordan Middle School on San Antonio’s Far West Side, is also running for the board. He previously ran for a single member trustee seat on the board in 2025 and is a graduate of Medina Valley High School. He did not return requests for comment.
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On his campaign website, Walters wrote he is running for school board to “stop the academic decline in our district by demanding equitable, transparent, and defensible spending while accelerating academic growth.”
North East ISD
San Antonio’s second largest school district, enrolling nearly 55,000 students, North East ISD has two contested races on the May ballot.
In District 3, which runs north of Basse Road to Wurzbach Parkway and encompasses Castle Hills, incumbent Diane Sciba Villarreal, 62, who owns a foundation repair business, faces challenger Mike Wulczyn, a 66-year-old insurance investigator.
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The race to represent District 7, which spans the region between Thousand Oaks Drive and Loop 1604, is open after incumbent Trustee Marsha Landry did not file for re-election. The two candidates running to replace her are realtor Cheryl Ettinger and stay-at-home parent Caprice Garcia, 55.
District 3 incumbent Trustee Villarreal, who did not respond to requests for comment, was elected to the North East ISD board in May 2022.
In that election, she promised to reclaim parents’ rights. Through her term on the board, the San Antonio resident of over 40 years has been especially vocal in NEISD’s fight with the Texas Education Agency over its student cellphone ban.
“If they can push us on this, they can push us on anything,” Villarreal said at a January board meeting. “If we give even an inch on this they are going to start trying to control everything… effectively rendering us completely neutered.”
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Villarreal’s 2022 campaign was funded by the now-dissolved Parents United for Freedom, a San Antonio-based right-leaning political action committee.
Mike Wulczyn is running for a District 3 seat on the North East Independent School District’s board of trustees.
Provided by Mike Wulczyn
Wulczyn, a 34-year resident of District 3 and NEISD parent, said his commitment to the district is rooted in the belief that neighborhood schools are the heart of the community. As the district has faced threats of a state takeover for refusing to comply with a universal cellphone ban, Wulczyn said he would push the district to comply with state laws to maintain local control and avert a TEA takeover.
Running to be a “voice of reason” on the NEISD board, Wulczyn said his main focus is restoring fiscal balance through line-item forensic auditing to eliminate waste and reduce what he characterizes as administrative bloat. He also has advocated for competitive compensation for educators and geofencing, a location-based digital boundary, to keep students off their phones while at school.
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“Unlike the current representation, I prioritize transparency and accessibility through a multi-tiered approach,” Wulczyn said, adding that he wants to hold quarterly town halls at local libraries, form a district advisory council of parents and business owners and conduct regular campus visits to hear directly from staff.
Caprice Garcia is running to represent District 7 of North East Independent School District.
Saile Aranda/Provided by Caprice Garcia
In District 7, Garcia said three of her kids have graduated from the district while one of her children remains enrolled in Madison High School. She has lived in NEISD District 7 for the past 21 years. A former parent-teacher association president at Steubing Ranch Elementary and Madison High School, Garcia still serves on the PTA boards at Madison and Bradley Middle School.
Student and staff safety is her top priority, she said. Working as a substitute teacher, she watches as parents fear dropping their students off at school in the mornings.
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“Schools should feel safe, and everyone should be able to walk through the halls without fear,” she said. “Staff shortages, budget cuts and inadequate state funding remain urgent priorities because they have a direct impact on our classrooms, educators and students’ overall success.”
Garcia also hopes to expand access to specialized programming, especially dual language courses, fine arts opportunities, athletics, magnet schools and college prep resources.
Ettinger also filed for the open seat, but did not respond to requests for comment. On her campaign website, Ettinger said she wants NEISD schools to be places where children can think, grow and feel safe and not worry about violence, bullying or “confusing ideological agendas.”
She said Republican Texas House Rep. Marc LaHood suggested she run for the school board. She noted on the site that while she doesn’t currently have personal stake in the district, she wants to run to stand up for her friends and neighbors who want a trustee to “stand up and ask questions.”
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Originally from Michigan, she moved to San Antonio in 1981, according to a recorded interview with Talk Law Radio.
Southwest ISD
Two seats are up for election in Southwest ISD, which educates just over 13,000 students in the largely rural southwest corner of Bexar County.
The May race will feature a rematch in a four-way election for at-large seats. The top two vote getters will win three-year terms.
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Jose “Joe” Diaz and James Gonzalez are the incumbents, while challengers Pete “Pedro” Bernal and Yolanda Garza-Lopez, who were unseated by Diaz and Gonzalez in 2023, hope to reclaim their seats on the board.
A Frito-Lay sales representative, Gonzalez, 56, took office in 2023. He did not respond to requests for comment.
The 1988 Southwest High School graduate has called the Southwest ISD community home for nearly 50 years, according to his trustee biography. He became the district announcer over 10 years ago and is now known as the “voice of Southwest ISD,” according to the SWISD website. Gonzalez serves on the board of the Atascosa Rural Water Supply Corporation.
Jose “Joe” Diaz is running to keep his seat on the Southwest Independent School District Board of Trustees.
Provided by Joe Diaz
Diaz, 51, is the owner and operator of a trucking business. He first moved into the district in 2000 and has since spent years volunteering for SWISD, where he sent his three children. He first took office in 2023, just a few months after Superintendent Jeanette Ball began leading the district.
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Now, Diaz said he feels obliged to continue working with other trustees and district leaders to represent this new era and direction in governance. If re-elected, he hopes to help promote district opportunities to friends, neighbors and fellow community members. He would also continue working to advocate for better district funding.
In his first term, Diaz said he celebrated the opening of a new district central office and teacher raises granted under boosted state funding.
Pedro “Pete” Bernal is running to reclaim his seat on the Southwest Independent School District’s board of trustees.
Provided by Pedro “Pete” Bernal
Bernal, one of two challengers, said he would use the trustee office to represent all families — including rural families who often feel left out from important district decisions, if re-elected. Southwest ISD has a history of low voter turnout in trustee elections. In 2025, only 1.5% of district voters turned out for the election. Now retired, Bernal, 50, served as a school board trustee from 2020 to 2023.
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“Whether families live in growing neighborhoods, rural communities or long-established areas, every voice matters,” Bernal said. “My commitment has always been to represent all families and ensure decisions reflect the needs of the entire district.”
He hopes to protect the district’s funding as charter schools expand their reach and divert funds from traditional public school districts like Southwest ISD. He believes it is the role of trustees to advocate for fair state funding to ensure their students are not placed at a disadvantage. For Bernal, this means going to the Texas Capitol to meet with lawmakers and advocate for Southwest ISD.
Bernal said he believes leadership requires a willingness to do more than just show up for board meetings to vote “yes” or “no.” While he doesn’t think the current board does this, he said he feels concerned about trustees’ transparency and follow-through in Austin.
“I am not afraid to ask tough questions or say no when a no is needed,” he said. “A strong school board should be made up of different perspectives, and those differences create stronger decisions and a voice for all families.”
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The other challenger who filed for election, Garza-Lopez, a 59-year-old management assistant, is a Southwest ISD graduate. She was first elected as a Southwest ISD trustee in 2008 and served until she was unseated in 2023.
Like Bernal, she believes the district has failed to include all its families, especially those from rural communities, when making decisions.
The district recently decided to participate in a countywide ballot, allowing Southwest ISD voters to cast a ballot for the trustee races at any Bexar County polling site. Previously, Southwest ISD held separate elections, often forcing voters to travel to multiple polling sites to vote in a general election and the school district races.
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The lack of district voter engagement reflects deeper structural issues, Garza-Lopez said. She claims limited access to polling locations has impacted voter turnout. With the slogan “nothing about us without us,” she hopes to increase access and inclusion in the school district.
“Our school board should be shaped by the full community, not a small fraction of it. I will advocate for equitable access, greater transparency, and intentional engagement so that every family has a real opportunity to participate in decisions that affect their children,” she said. “If less than 3% of the community is shaping decisions, then the system is not working.”