San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Southwest ISD election renews voting debate
The May 4 election for three seats on the Southwest Independent School District board has renewed a debate over voter representation, with three incumbents seeking to retain their seats against a slate of challengers who say the district needs polling places where most of its people already vote.
The board’s seven trustees serve three-year terms. They are elected at-large, rather than from single-member districts, so the top three vote-getters will win.
Longtime trustees Florinda Bernal and Eugene James Sullivan Jr. and the more recently elected Daniel Ray Carrillo are being challenged by Carla Reyes Medina, Pete Bernal and Yolanda Garza-Lopez, who are running on a joint platform to make voting more accessible and improve board transparency.
Most local school districts, cities and special taxing districts conduct elections jointly with the Bexar County elections office, but Southwest ISD partners instead with the small city of Lytle, in Atascosa County. The mostly rural district has rapidly growing suburban communities and some neighborhoods in San Antonio, and many voters must visit two polling locations if they also want to cast ballots in municipal or other races.
Some who show up to vote in a city council race might not even realize the school district is having an election; if they do, they still have to drive somewhere else, the challengers say.
Garza-Lopez, 57, who was first elected to the board in 2008 but lost a reelection bid last year, called the longstanding practice a “very purposeful anti-democratic strategy” that stifles turnout and representation for many parents of the district’s 13,000 students.
Last year, just over 1,300 people voted in an election that decided two board seats and approved a pair of bond propositions authorizing $250 million in longterm debt. But when the school district’s 2020 election was postponed by the pandemic, Bexar County hosted it that November and more than 17,000 voted, drawn to the polls by a presidential election.
The contrast in turnout was sharpest in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods bordering San Antonio’s urban core, but when she raised the issue with fellow trustees, they refused to explore alternatives, Garza-Lopez said.
“I cannot in good conscience walk away from this until something changes,” she said. “Something has got to give.”
Incumbents mum
Garza-Lopez met her husband at Southwest High School and has three children who graduated from Southwest ISD and a grandchild who is a sixth-generation student there.
Changing the election process is her main priority, but the retired businesswoman said she also is focused on boosting teacher retention and recruitment efforts, calling on the state to “step up and fund us so we can pay teachers adequately.”
Garza-Lopez said “political conversations” were not as divisive when she was first elected but “cracks started to widen” on the board in the past few years. Now, she said, trustees steer clear of publicly discussing anything controversial.
“All our board has to do is vote to hold its elections with San Antonio and Bexar County, which it should because the majority of our population is in those geographic areas,” she said. “Most voters don’t even know about this because it has been systemic for so long. It blows my mind how this has been able to happen for so many years and how hard it has been to fight.”
Reached by phone, Sullivan, who was first elected to the board in 2005, declined an interview request. He is an oil salesman and president of the Atascosa Rural Water Supply Corp. board, according to the Southwest ISD website.
Florinda Bernal was first appointed to the board in 2006 and has won reelection repeatedly since then. She is on various district committees including growth and planning, school health advisory, school safety and security, and facilities.
She and the other incumbent, Carrillo, a former Air Force cyber-security analyst elected in 2021, did not respond to several interview requests.
Instead of representing all Southwest ISD families, GarzaLopez said, the board’s makeup has long been determined by rural voters. Pete Bernal, also a former trustee, said he, Medina and Garza-Lopez also are pushing for the creation of single-member districts that would guarantee more representation to neighborhoods in the more populated areas of the district.
Bernal, 48, was first elected in 2020 but was ousted last year. (He is not related to Florinda Bernal).
“Everyone needs a voice at the table, and the only way we are going to get that is by going to single member and letting the people decide who they want to help facilitate their voice,” he said.
‘Times have changed’
Pete Bernal is studying business at Texas A&M UniversitySan Antonio and has put his three children through Southwest ISD schools. He said he is committed to addressing budget constraints and finding ways to manage the district’s limited financial resources while still meeting the diverse needs of students and staff.
He said board members need to “put ourselves in the trenches” to fight for more state funding. He supports basing the state’s perstudent funding allotment on enrollment rather than average daily attendance.
Having suffered a traumatic brain injury in the army that led to post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and other disabilities, Bernal said he is committed to prioritizing mental health and wellbeing and addressing bullying. He applauded restorative justice approaches in dealing with student discipline and said the district needs to “empower students and foster a culture of accountability” at the earliest sign of conflict.
Bernal has filed numerous grievances against the district for the way its elections are run and for discrimination and harassment after a trustee was heard calling him a dope during a training session in October. He said he partnered with Garza-Lopez and Medina because he thinks “we need more women on our board” and believes their slate can create positive change to better serve the district’s diverse community.
“It’s not just about one part of our district, it is about all parts of our district,” Bernal said. “We have to be passionate together, we have to be innovative together, we have to believe in transparency and accountability together and we have to make sure there’s inclusivity.”
Imposing term limits on trustees is another way to ensure board members do not become complacent, said Medina, 62. The district is not the same rural community it was decades ago, and the rapid growth means it’s time for fresh perspectives, she said.
“I think sometimes people get into the mentality of, ‘Well, we’ve been doing great so far,’ but times have changed, and I feel like we need to change with it,” she said.
Medina is a former account manager who has lived in the district for 35 years. She has been an active PTA member and has one son who graduated from Southwest ISD and stayed in the district as a communications specialist.
Teacher fatigue in the post-COVID world is a critical issue, Medina said, and the district needs to fight burnout by fostering a positive environment that values and appreciates teachers “not just in words but in actions.”
The board should find ways to cut back on administrative tasks teachers are assigned, reduce class size and provide them with more de-escalation training to handle student violence or misbehavior, she said. Peer support groups should be established to help reduce the stigma associated with mental health, Medina said.
“I love my community and I think we have a really amazing district,” she said. “I just think we need to be prepared for the growth and for the future that’s coming.”