SAN ANTONIO – The Southside Independent School District started its school year on Thursday, and there is a lot going on with the district.
KSAT 12 spoke to the district’s superintendent about a variety of topics, ranging from security to growth and goals for the upcoming school year.
Rolando Ramirez, superintendent for Southside ISD, said with more students comes the need for more security.
Schools presently have a security guard and a guard shack at every campus, along with other security measures.
“Southside is a place that we welcome input from our parents, from our students. And all of these programs that we have in place are to give our students an opportunity once they leave Southside, for them to be successful,” he said.
The superintendent said the district took the summer to make sure the schools were set before students arrived on Thursday.
“So we conducted a partial summer audit of all of our campuses, to make sure that all of our exterior doors and interior doors can lock,” Ramirez said. “And we looked at the measures that each campus has in place, we checked to make sure the intercom system is working and the security guard doing rotations and cameras are all functional.”
In terms of academics, Southside ISD says they are set to be ranked among San Antonio’s top-performing school districts when the TEA releases its grades on Aug. 15. They have gone from one of, if not, the lowest-performing districts to one of the highest, in just two years.
Ramirez said this year they also raised staff pay and in terms of growth, the district has already registered 400 more students than they had last year.
He said the district is excited about the work being done over the past few years and that he and his staff are proud of everything the students, faculty, staff and community have currently been doing to get the year going.