Two top San Antonio ISD administrators resign amid heating and plumbing debacle

In an internal staff memo, Superintendent Jaime Aquino said campuses will only reopen once staff 'know that classrooms are ready for learning.'

click to enlarge Second-year SAISD Superintendent Jaime Aquino speaks during a district board meeting last year. - Michael Karlis
Michael Karlis
Second-year SAISD Superintendent Jaime Aquino speaks during a district board meeting last year.
Two high-ranking administrators within San Antonio Independent School District have resigned following the district’s decision to cancel class this week over heating and plumbing issues at its campuses.

In an internal memo sent to staff Thursday and obtained by the Current, SAISD Superintendent Jaime Aquino said he accepted the resignations of Deputy Superintendent of Operations Ken Thompson and Chief of Operations Mike Eaton.

Senior Executive Director of Child Nutrition Services Jenny Arredondo will take charge of the district’s Operations Division in the interim, according to the document.

“We must admit that this was an error on the part of leaders in the district,” Aquino wrote. “We had a week to prepare. Our families count on us to be open, and we are obligated to be there for them.”

The resignations come after Aquino closed all SAISD schools Wednesday through at least the end of the week. The sudden closure was due to heating problems at 30 campuses, where classroom temperatures hovered between 40 and 50 degrees, according to media reports.

There’s still no guarantee all SAISD students will return to class Monday. "[W]e will open schools only where the staff on campus know that classrooms are ready for learning," Aquino said in the memo.

Aquino also said that once SAISD resolves its operations problems, the district will publish a full report examining and summarizing the reasons for the failure.

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Michael Karlis

Michael Karlis is a Staff Writer at the San Antonio Current. He is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., whose work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Orlando Weekly, NewsBreak, 420 Magazine and Mexico Travel Today. He reports primarily on breaking news, politics...

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