SAISD board picks next superintendent as two trustees raise concerns
The San Antonio Independent School District board picked its next superintendent on Wednesday in a 5-2 vote. Adrian Bustillos, a chief transformation officer in a Houston-area district, is slated to take the top job in San Antonio's oldest school system, replacing outgoing Superintendent Jaime Aquino.
Bustillos' career in public education began two decades ago in El Paso ISD, where he taught science. He rose through the district's ranks, becoming an assistant principal in 2009 and serving in two central office roles from 2018 to 2019. After 13 years in El Paso, Bustillos became the chief transformation officer at Aldine ISD, a largely suburban district just north of Houston that serves about 52,000 students across nearly 70 campuses.
The two dissenting trustees - on an often unified board - who voted against the selection were Jacob Ramos and Stephanie Torres.
"We had better candidates to pick from, but with this vote, I mean, we're going to have to get behind him," Torres said.
Ramos also took issue with the pick, noting Bustillos doesn't manage any staffers in his current role. He also mentioned Bustillos' alleged role in an El Paso ISD cheating scandal that made test scores seem higher than they were, leading the Texas Education Agency to take over the district. TEA sanctioned Bustillos' teaching license in 2017 for his alleged role in the districtwide scandal, according to the El Paso Times.
"I have concerns," Ramos said. He declined to comment further following the meeting.
Following the scandal, TEA called the shots in El Paso ISD through an appointed board of managers from 2012 to 2015. In 2018, the district hired Bustillos to oversee its Office of Transformation.
"No candidate is perfect," trustee Mike Villarreal said. "The concerns that were raised by trustee Ramos were taken seriously and were looked into, and I can share for myself and others that I have 100% confidence in Adrian Bustillos."
Wednesday's vote ends a roughly three-month search that began after Superintendent Aquino announced plans to retire. Aquino is set to leave SAISD in January 2027.
Although Aquino said he intended to serve until early next year, trustees moved to replace him by July and give a successor control of the district in the meantime. Aquino will serve as a consultant and remain on the district's payroll until January 2027.
At a meeting last week, trustees were slated to name a lone finalist but deferred the decision. Instead, they appointed Toni Thompson, the district's longtime former associate superintendent for human resources, as interim leader until Bustillos steps in.
Thompson begins her temporary leadership role on July 1. Texas law requires a 21-day waiting period before trustees can officially hire Bustillos.
The selection of a new superintendent is the second leadership shakeup in the district this week. On Monday, Gwinnett County Public Schools near Atlanta announced Shawn Bird, who has served as SAISD's deputy superintendent since 2023, as a new district leader.
Bustillos' background
At Aldine ISD, Bustillos helped guide a rightsizing plan that closed 11 schools in the last two years as enrollment rapidly declined.
Bustillos oversees Aldine's choice initiative, which includes 25 schools with learning options such as dual-language, college-prep, single-gender and fine arts programming.
The choice initiative mirrors efforts in other Texas districts, including SAISD, to help traditional public school systems compete for students by offering families more educational options beyond their neighborhood campus. SAISD has more in-district charter schools than any other district in the state.
Future challenges
At SAISD, Bustillos will take on the difficult task of reducing the number of campuses struggling academically and raising student test scores to stave off state intervention.
"This was a comprehensive national search, of course, a lot of it was kept private," Board President Alicia Sebastian said. "But I'm very proud to serve a board that we understand the challenges that we have in front of us."
In April, SAISD leaders projected that one-third of the district's 86 campuses will receive academically unacceptable state ratings in 2026. The ratings are heavily influenced by scores on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, exams.
Five consecutive years of unacceptable scores at one campus can lead to its closure or the takeover of an entire school system. A takeover results in a district's elected board being replaced with appointed managers and often means the superintendent loses their job. San Antonio ISD has nine campuses that have scored three failing grades in a row. TEA is expected to release new letter grades in mid-August.
Trustees voted to close two of the nine campuses at risk of triggering state intervention and give control of another three to an out-of-state charter operator with a record of raising test scores.
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At the other four schools, recently released STAAR scores show that students at two middle schools showed major gains in math scores and modest improvements in reading. At one elementary campus, reading scores stayed flat, and math scores declined. At another, proficiency in both subjects fell.
Should any of these campuses score a fourth failing grade in 2026, SAISD will have one academic year to quickly boost student performance or face state intervention.
In addition to academic challenges, SAISD faces a $46 million budget shortfall and mounting pressure to close schools because of declining enrollment. Both problems are tied to the state's funding system, which allocates money to districts based on the number of students in school each day.
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