Stacy Sharp, president of the Alamo Heights Independent School District Board of Trustees has resigned from the board to focus on serving as a judge in the new Texas Business Court after being appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this summer.
The departure adds to a growing list of shake-ups to the governing bodies overseeing hundreds of thousands of children across San Antonio over the last year.
Trustees accepted the resignation during a special meeting Wednesday morning, where they also agreed to open up applications for residents wishing to serve in the position until the next election in May 2025.
Apply for Alamo Heights Board
Anyone interested in applying to be considered can pick up an application with Cristina DeLaCerda, secretary to the superintendent, at AHISD Central Office, 7101 Broadway, between 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Application deadline is 4:30 p.m. Oct. 9.
According to a biography on the district’s website, Sharp is a certified teacher who taught in rural Honduras, New York City and Austin ISD before starting her legal career.
She is currently a civil appellate attorney with her firm, Sharp Appellate PLCC, and serves as an adjunct professor of litigation writing for The University of Texas School of Law, according to the district bio.
Sharp was first elected in 2020 and ran unopposed in 2023, holding onto her seat.
South San Antonio ISD
The makeup and leadership of the South San Antonio Independent School District board of trustees has changed several times in the last year, as trustees worked to steady a dysfunctional board under the direction of a state-appointed conservator.
Last April, Trustee Stacey Alderete resigned due to illness, with the district appointing Joe Araiza to the vacancy.
Shortly after that, an accident that grew into a medical emergency kept another trustee, Homer Flores Jr., out of meetings for months. And the absence of Trustee Shirley Ibarra over most of the meetings this last year resulted in other trustees and the district taking steps to remove her — with the help of local and state authorities.
At an August board meeting, the board censured the trustee, demanded her resignation, and directed an attorney to ask the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office for help removing the trustee, as the San Antonio Express-News first reported.
In an interview with the paper, Ibarra said she had no plans to resign.
Harlandale ISD
The Harlandale Independent School District, which a government-appointed conservator is also overseeing, had to replace a trustee at the beginning of 2024 after one of its trustees, Christine Carrillo, submitted her resignation days after news broke of her arrest for allegedly physically assaulting her husband during an incident on Christmas Eve.
Trustees were directed by the conservator, Judy Castleberry, to appoint a specific candidate during a tense February board meeting that included disagreements over who to appoint.
Before the directive, board members deliberated over the course of two meetings and failed to come to a consensus, instead deadlocking 3-3 two times over whether to appoint Erica Salazar, the eventual appointment.
Northside ISD
South San isn’t the only districts to be grappling with a departure and attempts to remove a sitting trustee.
A resident of the Northside Independent School District filed a lawsuit earlier this year seeking to remove trustee Karla Duran following her arrest last year on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. The charges were later dropped, but the law still allows for a trial by jury to remove elected officials under certain circumstances, including intoxication.
The legal battle included an attempt to temporarily remove the trustee as the case plays out in court, but a judge denied that motion after a short hearing.
The Texas Association of School Boards told the San Antonio Report that attempts to remove trustees are relatively rare.
Earlier in the summer, the NISD board voted to appoint a college professor to fill the vacancy left by Gerald Lopez, after he won a seat on the Alamo Colleges District board after running unopposed.
The process to fill the vacancy was criticized by the Northside American Federation of Teachers, a union that represents employees of the district, which advocated for the vacancy to be filled with an election, instead of an appointment.
North East ISD
Similar disagreements over how to fill a vacancy gripped the North East Independent School District for months last year after the death of a trustee left a board evenly split on multiple issues.
Trustees eventually agreed to turn the decision over to voters during the May election, where the board was transformed with a new slate of candidates that won in the face of a coordinated effort to push the board in a more conservative direction.
Judson ISD
Jennifer Rodríguez, who served on the Judson ISD school board since 2017, announced in June that she would be resigning from the board and relocating outside of San Antonio for a job opportunity.
After opening applications, the board appointed retired educator Arnoldo Salinas to fill the role.