San Antonio ISD students may study the Book of Genesis, learn that Jesus rose from the dead and read a passage from the Gospel of Matthew this school year.
The district’s board of trustees voted 6-1 on Monday to adopt the State of Texas’ controversial Bluebonnet Learning curriculum, which has drawn criticism for injecting Christian teachings into the public school curriculum and presenting religious claims as historical fact.
SAISD currently faces a $45.9 million budget deficit and the possibility of a district takeover by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), but it will receive $60 per student annually for adopting the state-endorsed curriculum.
That fact wasn’t lost on board member Christina Martinez, who voted to approve SAISD’s acceptance of the Bluebonnet curriculum, which would be used in kindergarten through 5th grade.
“I think it’s great to have a conversation about what we would like our curriculum to look like, but this year is a very tenuous year,” Martinez said. “We’ve got to get out of the state that we are in right now, which is our ability to maintain local control.”
Trustee Stephanie Torres, the sole board member to vote against the measure, said she has concerns over its biblical content and also worries teachers barely had time to adjust to the current curriculum.
She wasn’t alone in those concerns.
Despite voting to adopt the Bluebonnet curriculum, Trustee Mike Villarreal said he’s concerned it doesn’t do enough to educate schoolchildren about faiths other than Christianity.
“What can we do to make sure that our children understand that there are multiple religions of the world and they all have their principles and values?” Villarreal said. “And there are atheists that have their own ethical and moral code.”
To Villarreal’s point, The Bluebonnet curriculum — approved by the TEA in November 2024 — only makes brief mentions of religions other than Christianity, according to a report from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
“I do believe that the job of public education is to strengthen our democracy,” Villarreal continued. “We live in a county with people from all corners of the world who practice multiple religions, and that what makes this country strong. And since our mission is to strengthen our democracy, I wonder what can we do to make sure our kids are critical thinkers that are exposed to all that the world has to offer.”
To quell Villarreal’s fears, SAISD’s new superintendent Adrian Bustillos and board member Alicia Sebastian said SAISD will consider modifying parts of the curriculum to be more inclusive. However, they didn’t elaborate on which aspects they want to change.
Bustillos also maintained that adopting the Bluebonnet curriculum will save teachers time when creating lesson plans.
“It gives us an opportunity for teachers to craft their lessons within their professional learning communities, so they have time to do their craft within that lesson … . So with that, you’re not spending any time creating lesson plans because there’s already the items for you to teach,” Bustillos said.
The district’s board confirmed Bustillos as superintendent last month. However, Bustillos’ appointment received pushback from some trustees over his involvement in a test-cheating scandal in the early 2000s at El Paso ISD, where he served as assistant superintendent.
The Bluebonnet curriculum has also faced scrutiny for more than its inclusion of Bible stories. Critics have blasted it as an attempt to whitewash U.S. history.
One lesson, for example, mentions that founding fathers including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson “realized slavery was wrong and founded the country so that Americans could be free,” the Texas Tribune reports. However, that lesson fails to mention that both men owned slaves.
In February, the Texas Education Agency received final approval for roughly 4,200 corrections and changes to its elementary and secondary school curriculum, addressing copyright concerns, formatting errors and typos. Those errors cost Texas taxpayers $8.4 million, according to multiple media reports.
SAISD’s transition plan shows that the district will begin implementing the Bluebonnet curriculum at select campuses on Aug. 12.
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