Alfred Jimenez, known as “Known as Mr. Fred,” sustained a severe injury while in a classroom at NISD’s Brandeis High School. Credit: Screenshot / Google Maps

An instructional assistant at San Antonio’s Brandeis High School who died last weekend sustained his life-ending injury during an interaction with a student in the school’s gymnasium, a Northside Independent School District spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.

NISD spokesman Barry Perez revealed the new detail about the injury to Alfred “Mr. Fred” Jimenez after a photo reportedly showing the 73-year-old educator lying on the floor of a campus gymnasium circulated on the r/SanAntonio Reddit page. The Current won’t publish the photo out of respect for Jimenez’s family. Jimenez, who worked with NISD special-needs students since 2014, died in the hospital on Saturday from head injuries sustained during an incident on the Brandeis campus around 10:30 a.m. Feb. 7.

Although Perez declined to confirm specifics about the incident, he did say online rumors that a student hurled a ball at Jimenez, causing him to fall are “not consistent with reports from campus.”

Instead, NISD officials maintain Jimenez “fell to the floor and sustained a head injury” while trying to “redirect” a special-needs student. The Bexar County Medical Examiner on Wednesday ruled the death a homicide caused by blunt-force head injury.

The Northside American Federation of Teachers — NISD’s teacher union — issued a statement Tuesday blaming Jimenez’s death on the state’s lack of public education funding.

“The fault for the senseless tragedy does not lie with Fred, who did exactly what he was supposed to, or the student, whose needs have not been met,” Northside AFT President Melina Espiritu-Azocar said in a statement. “The villains in this story sit in the governor’s mansion and the state Capitol, far away from the consequences of their continual undermining and endangerment of our schools.”

Northside AFT’s statement said every teacher has the right to feel safe while carrying out their duties. That can’t happen until Texas schools are adequately funded, the group added.

Texas consistently ranks among the bottom of U.S. states in per-student funding for public education. Experts also warn that Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher plan could further defund public schools in the state.

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This article appears in Feb 21 – Mar 5, 2024.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...