On Sunday, trustees of Northside Independent School Districts picked longtime employee Jessica Palomares as its interim superintendent.
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She’ll be stepping in to lead NISD, San Antonio’s largest school district, while current Superintendent John Craft takes on an emeritus role and the board looks for a more permanent leader.
Craft announced his departure in June, and the board accepted his voluntary retirement, directing staff to look for an interim leader internally. After meeting with two unnamed candidates on Sunday, the board voted 4-2 in favor of Palomares.
Palomares has 30 years of experience in education and is the assistant superintendent of elementary education. A graduate of Holmes High School, she started working for NISD in 1996 as a special education teacher, moving up as vice principal and principal of several elementary schools before working at the district’s central office.
“Northside is truly blessed to have such an outstanding pool of talent within our district,” said Board President Sonia Jasso, in a statement. “We are grateful to have Jessica Palomares leading us through this transition. Her experience and dedication to Northside will provide the steady leadership our students, staff and community deserve.”
The board also said it would hire a search firm to look for a permanent superintendent, with the goal of finding a candidate by January or February.
Craft is the third school district leader to plan their exits from K-12 education within the past year.
In November, North East ISD’s then-superintendent Sean Maika said he planned to leave by January of this year, and the board picked employee Anthony Jarrett as interim before officially hiring him as superintendent in June.
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In March, San Antonio ISD’s Superintendent Jaime Aquino said he would retire by 2027. Now, the district’s board is getting ready to hire Adrian Bustillos, a longtime school district exec named SAISD’s sole finalist for superintendent in June.
NEISD is the second-largest district in San Antonio, and SAISD is the third-largest, while NISD, the largest area-school district, serves around 99,000 students across more than 100 schools.
The district is currently facing a $38 million budget deficit, and is going through an “optimization process”, taking stock of buildings, infrastructure, utilization and campus culture surveys to determine if and how NISD should consolidate to save money.
The district is also considering asking voters for a tax rate change in November, through a school bond election, which pays for large infrastructure projects, and a voter approval tax rate election, which pays for day-to-day costs like pay raises and student programs.
Trustees still have to give final approval and call for those elections, but they’re expected to finalize those plans in August.
Palomares’ first day as interim superintendent is Aug. 1 and NISD’s first day of school is Aug. 10.
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