PHARR — Change is in the air at PSJA ISD.
Tuesday’s election results likely signal a significant power shift on the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school board after two newcomers defeated incumbents and won seats as trustees.
If the current factional makeup of the incoming board stays the same, a vocal two-trustee minority that has spent the past year unsuccessfully criticizing aspects of district leadership could find themselves in the majority, with enough votes to actually do something about their policy opinions.
The two losing incumbents — retiree Jorge “George” Palacios and licensed engineer Ricardo “Rick” Pedraza — will relinquish their seats to challengers Yolanda Castillo and Diana Serna, respectively. Castillo is an educational consultant while Serna is retired. The two newcomers won by healthy margins.
In the race for Place 3, Castillo won about 60% of the vote to roughly 40% for Palacios.
Serna took about 56% of the vote to Pedraza’s 29%, with the third candidate Lupe Chavez Jr. taking the remainder of the ballots for Place 2.
Castillo and Serna ran with the “Fairness For All” group, which included Place 1 incumbent Carlos Villegas. Priorities for that camp featured safety and — particularly — staff morale.
Palacios and Pedraza ran on the “We Are PSJA!” platform with Joshua Benavides, who challenged Villegas for his seat.
That platform stuck to recent successes at the district: growth, academic performance and benefits for teachers.
Villegas won with about 62% of the vote.
Trustees at PSJA have been bitterly divided for the past year. Villegas, along with Trustee Cynthia Gutierrez, has been critical over spending, hiring practices and the way district employees are treated.
Those critiques usually resulted in nothing more than very public board infighting, with the other trustees of the board more or less voting together. Villegas and Gutierrez often butted heads with Pedraza — the current board president — and the Zambrano brothers.
At one point in August, Pedraza and Villegas got into a shouting match during the board’s executive session, hurling allegations at one another.
For over a year, Villegas and Gutierrez have been physically standing through all of the board’s meetings, a sort of protest over a comment made toward Gutierrez by Trustee Jorge Zambrano that she characterized as sexist.
Villegas and Gutierrez said Thursday that they’re done standing: they made their point at the polls with the election of two women trustees. “The ladies were known throughout the community, they have a lot to offer,” Villegas said. “But this one seemed to me like we’re going to go a new direction, because we’re going to bring the change that people want.”
That change could be significant. Villegas, the most experienced politician of that potential four-person voting bloc, says he hopes to pursue it aggressively, but not radically.
“We’re not gonna go in there with any four-person majority machismo,” he said. “We’ll say, ‘Guys, this is what we’ve got, this is where we’re wanting to go. You’re welcome to join us, get on the bandwagon, let’s get it done.’ The door is always open.”
Villegas singled out shielding employees from potential political repercussions and a hiring practice review as areas he hopes to see change. Spending, he said, may also come under closer scrutiny.
The board’s current majority has pursued a variety of building projects, many related to athletics.
Faced with declining enrollment, this summer the board began discussing potentially tough financial times in 2023, when federal ESSER funds related to the pandemic will dry up.
“That money’s gonna run out,” Villegas said. “So we’ve got to be a little more frugal and responsible with how to spend the money that’s ours. Do we need this building? Do we need that project?”
Villegas said he, Castillo and Serna have generally seen eye to eye on issues so far. Voting slate alliances do not, however, always translate into actual board alliances.
Gutierrez notably won her seat running on a slate with the Zambrano brothers before falling out with them fairly early in her career as a trustee.
Trustee Jesus “Jesse” Vela, who also ran on that slate in 2020, has largely avoided political infighting over the past year and voted with the majority. Barring Gutierrez or someone from the “Fairness For All” camp switching sides, the Zambrano brothers are looking short on allies.
Palacios, who was the board’s president during the beginning of the pandemic, said he wasn’t sure why voters didn’t turn up for the “We are PSJA!” slate. He stood by the direction the district took during his four years on the board, pointing to physical expansion and academic performance.
At times during the election, Palacios and his election allies faced significant criticism on social media that leveled allegations of fiscal impropriety against the current board majority. He said corruption allegations are unfounded and that he didn’t know whether those claims may have hurt him and the other two men on his slate.
“I don’t know where they come up with this stuff, but they just try to make it a negative campaign I guess,” he said.
Palacios wished the incoming leadership the best. It is, he said, a tough job to be a school board trustee.
“I pray that the district keeps moving forward, and the kids keep doing the best that they can,” he said. “Stay focused on the kids, and the rest will fall into place.”
