district spent more than $36,000<\/a> on Superintendent Jaime Aquino\u2019s travel since he began leading the district. <\/p>\nKSAT Investigates<\/p>\n
Hard-hitting journalism from the KSAT Investigates team delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n
KSAT Investigates found other district leaders were also traveling on the district\u2019s dime. <\/p>\n
Trips to Hawaii, parking at San Antonio International Airport<\/p>\n
San Antonio ISD\u2019s spent more than $46,000 to pay for travel for seven members of its executive cabinet since mid-2024, records show. <\/p>\n
The cabinet\u2019s top traveler is Dr. Shawn Bird, the district\u2019s deputy superintendent. Records show Bird has gone on at least 17 trips on SAISD\u2019s behalf. <\/p>\n
Bird\u2019s travel to a June 2025 conference raised questions. Records show the district paid for Bird to attend a conference at the University of Virginia to learn about leadership in education. <\/p>\n
Receipts show the district originally bought Bird a round-trip flight from San Antonio, which cost $1,045.62. However, another receipt showed Bird changed his flight to leave from Houston, then return to Kahului, Hawaii, totaling $1,070.57.<\/p>\n
KSAT Investigates reached out to the district\u2019s chief communications officer, Laura Short, to request an interview with Bird about the discrepancy. Short did not make him available to speak until KSAT stopped by the district\u2019s offices last week. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not have the district pay for a one-way flight to Virginia and you pay for the one- way flight to Hawaii?\u201d KSAT asked. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, you bring up a good point, and I would not,\u201d Bird said. \u201cThat\u2019s how I would do it in the future if I was ever going to travel personally after district businesses. That\u2019s exactly what I would do.\u201d <\/p>\n
In an effort to take district\u2019s $46 million shortfall head-on, some music programs \u2014 including mariachi \u2014 have been cut. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you and other district leaders traveling at all?\u201d KSAT asked. <\/p>\n
\u201cWell, you know, that\u2019s true,\u201d Bird said. \u201cYou\u2019re right. We do have a budget shortfall, but we also need to make sure that the district is operating in a healthy manner. And my travel has really been related to improving outcomes for students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Records reveled Bird also took a flight from Houston to another conference in San Diego, which cost the district $1,023.96. <\/p>\n
Unlike other district leaders, records show Bird had the district pay for his parking at San Antonio International Airport three different times \u2014 totaling approximately $150. <\/p>\n
Bird told KSAT he was part of a program that required travel, which is now over. He said that the district will \u201csee the benefits of that for many years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be no further travel,\u201d Bird said.<\/p>\n
The cost of business?<\/p>\n
Records show the district spent more than $36,000 to send six SAISD school board members to conferences across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs sitting trustees, we take seriously our responsibility to remain informed on school governance, finance, legislative developments, accountability requirements, and best practices that impact public education,\u201d SAISD Board President Alicia Sebastian in an email to KSAT Investigates. \u201cThe travel undertaken by Board members has been directly tied to those responsibilities and to continuous learning opportunities that support effective governance on behalf of SAISD students, families, and taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n
In total, the cost of travel for Aquino, the executive cabinet and the board has cost the district more than $120,000 \u2014 an amount equivalent to two first-year teachers\u2019 salaries. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat could have been to support staff helping, you know, tutor or doing other things that that the schools actually desperately need,\u201d said SAISD teacher Cynthia Beaver. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page<\/a>.<\/p>\nCopyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Top leaders at San Antonio ISD have spent more than $120,000 on travel to conferences…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[163,43946,4976,82,84,13503,83,51314],"class_list":["post-330110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-education","tag-jaime-aquino","tag-ksat-investigates","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-isd","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-we-follow-through"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}