By Edmond Ortiz
Eight candidates are pursuing four school board seats in two local independent school districts in the May 2 elections, while four more contestants are vying for two board posts in a third school district.
The Alamo Colleges District, meanwhile, has one contested race involving four contenders.
Alamo Heights Independent School District
Place 3 board member Ty Edwards drew a challenge from Lindsey Saldana, an assistant principal in the Edgewood ISD. Place 4 trustee Hunter Kingman is being opposed by data scientist Bianca Cerqueira. AHISD’s board seats have three-year terms.
Seeking a second term, Edwards has served on the Alamo Heights School Foundation board, Alamo Heights District Education Advisory Committee, and on boards of other local organizations, such as St. Luke’s Episcopal School and the San Antonio Public Library Foundation.
A financial planner, Edwards’ campaign is focused on supporting academic excellence, fiscal responsibility, hiring and retaining quality teachers, maintaining strong school facilities, and ensuring bond-funded projects are completed on time and within budget.
Saldana is a mother of three children, two of which are current AHISD students, and an infant whom she says will follow in his sibling’s footsteps. She has spent 20-plus years in public education as a teacher, instructional coach and an administrator. She also holds degrees in interdisciplinary studies and educational leadership, and is working on earning a doctorate in educational leadership.
The main themes in Saldana’s school board campaign are maintaining academic excellence and opportunity, recruiting and retaining quality teachers, transparent and responsible budgeting, and partnerships with parents and community members.
Cerqueira is a biomedical engineer/neuroscientist whose work focuses on federally sponsored biomedical research. She has degrees in neurobiology/physiology and in biomedical engineering. Her two children are current AHISD students.
Cerqueira’s campaign advocates adequate school funding, and ensuring that every AHISD student has an opportunity to grow and thrive. Also, she emphasizes parental and local control – and opposition to state-sponsored efforts – when state lawmakers push or bar a certain curriculum, dictate specific library materials, or seek to shrink instructional flexibility.
Seeking a second term, Kingman is an Alamo Heights High School graduate who previously served on the district education advisory committee, and sits with the boards of several local organizations, including chair of the Urban Land Institute San Antonio. He is an executive with local real estate firm Hixon Properties
Kingman said his priorities include ensuring students grow as learners and model citizens, supporting schools as the center of one’s community, and fiscal responsibility.
District 3 board member Diane Sciba Villarreal, a San Antonian and a small business owner, is seeking a second term. The conservative trustee is being challenged by insurance investigator and Castle Hills resident Michael Wulczyn.
A U.S. Naval veteran, Wulczyn has worked in education, law enforcement and information technology. He holds master’s degrees in computer management information systems, social justice and public health, and is a doctoral candidate in public administration.
Wulczyn’s campaign priorities include fiscal responsibility, with an eye on NEISD’s current budget deficit, as well as protecting local district control, doing more to recruit and retain quality teachers, and exploring solutions, such as geofencing for cell phone management, to enhance the learning environment.
District 7’s Marsha Landry, another conservative board member, will not pursue a second term. Two San Antonians – realtor Cheryl Ettinger and stay-at-home parent Caprice Garcia – filed for the District 7 post.
Garcia has been a substitute teacher and a PTA member who previously worked for the city of San Antonio and the federal government. She has volunteered with events, groups and initiatives at the NEISD campuses attended by her children. Additionally, she has served on the NEISD’s School Health Advisory Council, and completed the district’s Leadership North East program.
Garcia in her campaign is emphasizing fiscal responsibility, and ensuring teachers and students work and learn in a safe, supportive environment. She also voiced support for greater engagement among the school district, families, and other NEISD employees, from administrators to custodians and bus drivers.
Ettinger said she backs maintaining academic excellence, improving school safety, supporting teachers, government transparency, common-sense solutions, and more collaboration between the district and parents.
District 2 incumbent Tracie Shelton, a San Antonian representing the Roosevelt High School cluster, is running unopposed for a full four-year term. Shelton won a special 2024 election to fill the final two years that were left on the term held by her predecessor, the late Terri Williams.
District 3 covers Castle Hills and the southwestern corner of NEISD. District 7 contains a wide swath of northeast San Antonio. NEISD board seats have four-year terms.
Southwest Independent School District
Voters living inside Southwest ISD and San Antonio will experience something different this election.
Previously, SWISD held its May board and special elections in conjunction with those offered in the town of Lytle and Atascosa County, meaning San Antonio residents residing in SWISD had to cast ballots in different polling locations in order to have their voice heard on SWISD and San Antonio matters.
But because San Antonio City Council has chosen to move the city’s elections from May to November, Southwest ISD opted to participate in Bexar County’s May election.
Four residents filed for two at-large school board seats:
*Former board member Pete Bernal, a retired U.S. Army sergeant who has been a SWISD school booster and PTA president. He has also volunteered with numerous school district and community panels, events, organizations and initiatives.
Bernal is campaigning for improving academic outcomes, fiscal responsibility, supporting teachers and staff, expanding opportunities for students, posing tough questions, and making school district governance more accessible to community members;
*incumbent Jose Diaz, a trucking owner-operator who is seeking a second term in office. He and his wife raised three children in SWISD schools, and has been active across the community, serving with organizations such as the Southwest Education Foundation;
*Yolanda Garza-Lopez, a management assistant at the Center for Health Empowerment and a Southwest High graduate, has worked as a SWISD teacher and tutor, and served as a PTA president. Her campaign priorities include increasing transparency, expanding community engagement, and making district leadership more accessible and accountable. Bernal and Garza-Lopez are campaigning together under the “We Are Southwest” initiative.
*James Gonzalez, a Frito-Lay sales representative and a Southwest High School graduate, is seeking a second term. His children went through SWISD schools.
Gonzalez and Diaz ran together in the 2023 board election, and are doing so again this year. Southwest ISD board seats have three-year terms.
District 9 trustee Leslie Sachanowicz is being opposed by former educator and past board member Joe Jesse Sanchez, business owner Robert Garcia, and Carolyn DeLecour, a past ACD professor and a current certified grief educator.
DeLecour spent nearly 50 years as an educator, 27 of which were at Palo Alto College. She said she understands how decisions made by a school board can affect students, faculty and staff. Her campaign priorities are enhancing student success and opportunities, supporting faculty and staff through trust, shared governance and open communication, and encouraging more engagement with community members and businesses, especially those who employ ACD students.
The owner of a local accounting firm, Garcia earned an associate’s degree at Northwest Vista College before transferring to the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he earned degrees in accounting and taxation.
Garcia has expressed pride in creating an internship program at his practice to help local students develop skills in accounting and marketing.
Key themes in Garcia’s campaign include fiscal responsibility, expanding workforce opportunities for students, increasing partnerships with local employers, and improving communications among district leadership, faculty, staff and community members.
Originally elected to the board in 2020, Sachanowicz is an attorney who has taught government and law as an adjunct professor at San Antonio College and St. Mary’s University, and who has volunteered with several area business-oriented organizations. Sachanowicz said he is using his professional and ACD board experience to continue to help the district and widen educational opportunities, support student success, and ensure ACD is a pathway to economic mobility.
Prior to his election to the ACD board, Sanchez was an assistant superintendent in the Harlandale Independent School District, and a program manager in the Bexar County Juvenile Probation Department. He said his board experience gives him insight to address current district issues, such as bolstering student workforce programs and opportunities.
District 9 covers a sliver of northeast San Antonio and neighboring suburbs such as Live Oak, Universal City, Selma and Windcrest.
District 4 trustee Lorena “Lorraine” Pulido and District 8 board member Clint Kingsbery each drew no challenger. ACD board seats carry six-year terms.
Additionally, a school board election is taking place in Boerne Independent School District, and a $295 million bond issue is being floated in the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District.
Get involved
Early voting will take place 8 a.m.-6 p.m. April 20-23 and 25, and noon-6 p.m. April 26, and 7 a.m.-7 p.m. April 27 and 28 at 19 sites, including Castle Hills City Hall, 209 Lemonwood Drive; Encino Library, 2515 E. Evans Road; Lions Field Adult and Senior Center, 2809 Broadway St.; Olmos Park City Hall, 120 W. El Prado Drive; Southwest ISD Administrative Building No. 400, 11914 Dragon Lane; and Thousand Oaks Library, 4618 Thousand Oaks Drive.
Election Day voters can cast a ballot at any of the following locations between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. May 2.
