LIVE OAK, Texas – Four schools in the Judson Independent School District will close at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. The closures include three elementary schools and one middle school.
The district had four separate superintendents in the span of about four weeks after the school board voted to begin the termination process for Milton “Rob” Fields. The school board then had a revolving door of interim superintendents before landing on the current Interim Superintendent, Robert Jaklich.
Judson ISD is currently in a $37 million deficit, one that District 4 Trustee Jose Macias Jr. said began years ago.
Macias was the school board president when things began to look uncertain for the district after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Shortages were everywhere,” Macias said. “We couldn’t find enough teachers. Back then, I was board president, we collectively talked about making major investments in our professionals and or teachers.”
Macias said the board decided to give teachers up to a 6% raise in the first year after the pandemic and a 4.5% raise in the second year.
“Which put us on a trajectory to be the highest paid district in Bexar County,” Macias said.
The plan was working. According to Macias, teachers were being hired at Judson ISD, and they were staying, retaining teachers being one of the toughest battles at the time.
“It came at a cost because our superintendent did not recommend a 6% raise,” Macias said. “He recommended 1%.”
However, Macias and the rest of the board took the risk to “retain talent.” Macias said the district had a reserve fund at the time that was nearly 200% more than what was needed.
“Well, we also anticipated that Austin, our legislature, would do the right thing and fund education because it had not raised basic allotment since 2019,” Macias said.
The basic allotment is the amount of money school districts receive per student from the state.
According to the Texas Education Agency, the basic allotment per student was $5,140 in the 2018-2019 school year. In the 2019-2020 school year, the amount increased to $6,160.
Judson ISD anticipated another increase, but according to the TEA website, that increase never arrived.
TEA reports the basic allotment remaining at $6,160 from the 2019-2020 school year through the 2024-2025 school year. The current school year’s basic allotment is not posted online.
Then, the VATRE failed. A VATRE is a Voter-Approval Tax Rate Election put forward by local school districts to fund that district.
Judson ISD put a VATRE on the Nov. 4, 2025, ballot, which would have increased the tax rate by $0.045 from the year prior, according to Judson ISD. If this VATRE had passed, the district would have received around $21 million, a major portion of the current $37 million deficit.
“While we are disappointed that the VATRE did not pass, we respect the decision of our voters and appreciate everyone who participated in this important process,” then-acting Superintendent Fields said in a press release at the time.
Fields has since been ousted from the district after the school board voted to propose his termination. However, Fields is not yet terminated, as there is a legal process he is entitled to and that has not yet been completed.
In addition to the teacher raises, the basic allotment per student remains the same, and, with VATRE failing, Macias said the district also saw an increase in medical expenses.
“I think the latest number I’ve seen was $14 million. Now that $14 million in extra medical costs increased our deficit,” Macias said. ”… So, Dr. Fields and his administration had recommended to sell excess property or excess administrative buildings that students were not being served in. That appraisal was $18.2 million. It would essentially erase that one-time deficit that we’re having to contend with.”
Judson ISD also does not currently have a Chief Financial Officer.
"If we don’t have a dedicated professional that lives and breathes all of the data, all of the numbers, we’re putting that burden on staff that have to do the work," Macias said. “We’re still utilizing consultants, and we’re doing our best to move together. It would be a lot different, I think, if we had someone in that space to help us with our decisions.”
Macias briefly discussed the proposed termination of Fields, not going into much detail, as it is an open investigation. However, Macias did say he feels the ousting of Fields was politically motivated.
“It is seriously political maneuvering that has brought us to this point. Dr. Fields’ administration was working since July to formulate ideas and thoughts on what could be proposed for reducing our deficit,” Macias said. ”… It was on the agenda to discuss. I think it was our Dec. 18 meeting, and during that meeting, Ms. Ryan, our board president, pulled it. She didn’t want to discuss it.”
Macias provided KSAT with a public document outlining Fields’ plan to close two to three schools after the 2025-2026 school year and potentially an additional two schools after the 2026-2027 school year. According to the document, Fields also wanted to decrease staff to address the deficit.
“Ninety-one percent of our budget is tied in personnel,” Macias said when asked about eliminating staff. “There was a recommendation there, as I mentioned. There were 84 positions that this document identifies that were already unfilled positions that would have saved $4.6 million if we left them unfilled.”
According to the document, the following people were members of the team working on the Corrective and Preventative Action Plan for Judson ISD at that time: the Board of Trustees, Fields, Cecilia Davis, Lacey Gosch, Mary Toppen, Kristen Saunders, Daniel Brooks and Nicole Taguinod.
The overall reduction targets with this plan were to immediately reduce the deficit by $5 million through a hiring pause, consolidating classes, and eliminating $15 million in “positions, reductions or policy-based changes.” The first-year goal would have factored in the $15 million reduction in the deficit by eliminating positions and policy-based changes. This would leave the district with an estimated remaining deficit of $15 million.
The plan includes wiping out the remaining $15 million and achieving a balanced budget by the end of the 2027-2028 school year.
The plan, although not currently followed, outlined the need to “identify positions and programs for elimination or reduction based on positions that are overstaffed.”
The following positions were considered overstaffed:
- Custodial staff
- Transportation
- Child nutrition
- Total teaching staff
- Social worker
- Support services LSSP
- Athletics other than director
- Other non-exempt auxiliary
- LEA campus info tech professor
- School counselor
- Other LEA exempt professor
- Truant officer
It is unclear if any of these recommendations will return to the school board’s agenda as they continue to manage the deficit in the coming months and years.
KSAT reached out to Judson ISD school board President Monica Ryan for an interview on this story, but she was not available.
The district remains in a $37 million deficit, with the school board hoping to make up about $7 million through the closure of four schools at the end of the 2025-2026 school year.
“Most of the deficit was tied to personnel, and most of why we’re here is because we’ve been underfunded in public education, and we are not alone,” Macias said.
Judson ISD is just one of many districts across Texas facing school closures. In fact, in the last decade, multiple other South Texas school districts have had their own closures.
Between the 2015-2016 school year and the present day, Edgewood ISD has closed two schools; Judson ISD has closed five; Northeast ISD has closed three; and San Antonio ISD has closed 25.
Edgewood ISD closed the following schools:
- Winston Intermediate School of Excellence
- ET Wrenn Middle School
Judson ISD closed the following schools:
- Coronado Elementary
- Judson Middle School
- Rolling Meadows Elementary
- Franz Leadership Academy
- Park Village Blended learning Academy
Northeast ISD closed the following schools:
- Clear Spring Elementary
- Wiltshire Elementary
- Driscoll Middle School
San Antonio ISD closed the following schools:
- Navarro Academy
- Connell Middle School
- Austin Academy
- Wheatley Middle School
- Twain Middle School
- Irving Middle School
- Page Middle School
- Rodriguez Elementary
- Brewer Academy
- Lowell Middle School
- Douglass Elementary
- Forbes Elementary
- Foster Elementary
- Gates Elementary
- Highland Park Elementary
- Huppertz Elementary
- Lamar Elementary
- Miller Elementary
- Riverside Park Elementary
- Storm Elementary
- Knox Early Childhood Center
- Tynan Early Childhood Center
- Nelson Early Childhood Center
- Gonzales Early Childhood Center
- Carvajal Elementary
Some of the buildings on these campuses have since been repurposed and opened for other activities.
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