SAN ANTONIO – A Colorado-based charter group is staking its claim in the San Antonio education scene.

Third Future Schools (TFS) will take control of four local schools in the fall. Parents are concerned about how it’ll all work.

WOAI

Just this week, two school districts gave TFS control of campuses with failing academic ratings. While officials are confident they can turn things around, parents say they’re not convinced it was the best move.

“They didn’t just screw us over, they screwed the whole teachers, staff members,” said Crystal Villareal

Third Future Schools is a non-profit charter group and self-proclaimed “turnaround expert”. It already runs 12 campuses across Texas, Louisiana and Colorado; next school year, it’ll run Tefolla Middle School and both Ogden and Hirsch elementaries from SAISD.

It also gained Brentwood Middle school from Edgewood ISD.

“It’s a joke. It’s practically a joke,” Villareal, a Rhodes Middle School Parent, said.

On Monday, SAISD voted to close the Rhodes campus, transferring its students over to Tefolla — which will now be a charter campus.

“We feel lost and we’re just trying to come together as a community and try to figure this out together,” Villareal said.

While teachers are welcome to throw their hat in the ring, they’re not guaranteed their jobs.

“Now I have to reapply,” one teacher said while leaving the SAISD meeting. “You think about that.”

It’s one of many concerns parents say they have, sharing they’re feelings of being left in the dark over all of this. They believe it’s a bigger issue than failing campuses.

“How are you gonna turn our schools, a Texas school, to a different state,” Villareal said. “Like from Colorado. They don’t know our roots, they don’t know our — you know, culture and stuff.”

“There are harder professions than education,” said TFS Superintendent Zach Craddock. “But there is no harder job in education than turning around a school.. I’m going to ask them to work harder than they perhaps ever would before.”

Each contract will last for three years.

We reached out to the TFS team to ask how schools are chosen for the partnership as well as how funding from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and taxpayer dollars will be distributed during that time.

We’re still waiting to hear back.