East Central ISD — TX

1. Snapshot

Rural-Fringe district on the southeast edge of San Antonio (Bexar County), 11,497 students across 16 schools. SAIPE poverty 15.0% — moderate by Texas standards but materially higher than the urban-suburban DFW failures. Demographics 73% Hispanic / 12% White / 11% Black. Per-pupil expenditure $10,294 (FY2020) — the lowest per-pupil in the entire failed-bonds cohort. East Central is a fast-growth district by share (Bexar County’s residential pipeline runs through Cibolo Creek and FM 1604), and the bond ballot reflected that: 3 new schools + facility expansion as the capacity play.

2. Why this was a hard sell — community context (ACS)

This is the demographic profile that should pass bonds — high owner-occupied share (78%, voters paying property tax directly), moderate income, moderate inequality. What it also tells you: with 20% bachelor’s+ and a 73% Hispanic community where one in three households speaks a non-English language at home, the campaign-communication channel was always narrow. ECISD ran the standard English-language facility-tour playbook; coverage in the Spanish-language San Antonio press was thin. The opposition message (“our schools are getting worse academically”) spread on Facebook in both languages; the district’s “we need new buildings” message did not. Add the post-pandemic property-tax appraisal jumps (Bexar Co. appraisals rose 28% from 2021-2024) and a 5¢ TRE on top of bond debt service became a no-go.

3. Peer comparison

Top-10 peers via MCP (default weights + 0.20 plantOps emphasis). FMX-customer status now resolved against opted-in local benchmarking server.

Confirmed FMX customers in top 15 (1): Pender County Schools (NC).

4. The gap story (what the data would have shown voters)

ECISD’s data tells two stories — one bond-strong, one bond-fatal:

Bond-strong: - Plant operations: $1,018.22 / pupil vs national median $1,324 — 23% below median, but actually near peer median ($1,043 across the comparison set). The 5 peers all spend more than the national median but less than what’s optimal. This is the textbook “we’re not under-investing alone — every peer like us is under-investing too” pattern. - Capital construction outlay (FY2020): $749K total across 16 schools. That’s $47K/school — among the lowest in the comparison cohort. The “we’ve stopped building” story is true and quantifiable. - Chronic absenteeism 29.3% district-wide, 42% at East Central HS, 45% at Pecan Valley EL, 43% at Tradition EL. Building-condition correlation: the highest absenteeism schools have the highest FRL (66-81%) and the oldest physical plants. - East Central HS: 22 expulsions and 21% suspension rate at the flagship. Pairs poorly with the “we’re growing — give us new schools” pitch unless reframed.

Bond-fatal: - Per-pupil instruction $5,811.98 — lowest in the peer set after Vail Unified. When community Facebook commenters said “our kids deserve better, but will ECISD provide that?”, they were articulating something the spending data confirms: ECISD spends less per student on actual instruction than peer districts, and student outcomes (absenteeism, suspension) are worse. Voters were being asked to fund buildings by a district that, in their perception, isn’t funding learning. - Athletic stadium + athletic facilities as one of the 3 bond props. In a district with 29% chronic absenteeism, a stadium ask is the easiest “no” voters can cast. Voters can vote for ECISD’s new schools and against the stadium — and unbundled, they probably would.

FMX peer operational benchmarks (live)

Pulled live from fmxFacilities for each confirmed FMX-customer peer above. These are the actual operational profiles East Central ISD is being measured against — and what the next campaign can cite directly.

Most peers above have partial snapshots — they’re FMX customers but several operational fields (sqft, cost-per-sqft, portfolio age) haven’t been backfilled yet. The presence of FMX-customer peers at high similarity is still the load-bearing outreach signal: comparable districts are on the platform; the FMX team should validate whether their data layer is mature enough to cite.

5. Bond history (Ballotpedia + news)

• 2017: Bond passed (district records)
• Nov 2024: $360M (3 bond props + TRE), all 4 failed by 12-point margin
• May 2025: $309M trimmed re-run (Prop A only — 2 new elementaries + new HS, stadium dropped) — district trying again per TPR coverage

The May 2025 re-run is the most useful data point in this brief. ECISD listened to two of the signals: (1) trim ~$50M off, (2) drop the stadium. That’s a textbook post-failure response. The bigger structural problem — that voters don’t trust the academic-outcomes side enough to fund the buildings — isn’t addressed.

6. What voters / opposition actually said

The San Antonio Report carried Superintendent Toscano’s statement and a Facebook comment that together capture the dynamic:

• Roland Toscano, Superintendent: “We didn’t get the result we hoped for, but we look forward to reengaging with our Facilities Committee and gathering additional feedback from the broader community.” And: “Addressing overcrowding, safety concerns and teacher retention requires urgent action.”
• Anonymous voter (Facebook, San Antonio Report): “Our kids deserve better, but will ECISD provide that? [ECISD] was one of the top schools. Now it’s considered garbage.”
• Texas Tribune statewide framing: voters cited “increased taxes and subpar academic outcomes” — the combined trust-and-tax narrative.

The Tribune’s broader analysis is the most important context for ECISD specifically: state-level recapture (Texas’s Robin Hood mechanism) and the Abbott voucher/property-tax push made the 2024 cycle structurally unfriendly to bond asks across Texas — 20 of 35 Texas bond propositions failed statewide, a historic rejection rate.

7. What we could have told them

1. “East Central spends $5,812/student on instruction — less than every peer district except Vail Unified in Arizona. We’re not asking for new buildings to replace good ones; we’re asking for them because the entire district has been operating on a shoestring for a decade, and the demographics are about to swamp us. Here’s the per-school capacity math.” Reframes the “garbage school” criticism as a funding story rather than a leadership story.
2. “Plant operations: $1,018/student. National median $1,324. Peer district median $1,043. We’re spending less than peers, and our 16 buildings show it — here’s the FCI by campus.” Comparative, peer-named, specific.
3. “Last year we spent $749K total across 16 schools on capital construction. Medina Valley right next door spent $5M+ on similar enrollment. We’re literally not maintaining at the rate of a peer 30 miles west.” Single most concrete number for the case.
4. Drop the stadium and athletic-facilities prop in the next ask — which they did for May 2025. The “buildings before stadium” sequencing was the right call; the next ask after that can revisit athletics from a stronger position.
5. Bilingual campaign with Spanish-language facility tours and per-school capacity dashboards. 33% non-English households is too high to run an English-only campaign on a 73% Hispanic district. This is operational, not strategic — but the district hasn’t done it yet.

8. FMX outreach hook

East Central ISD now has 1 confirmed FMX-customer peers in the top 15 peer set. The outreach team has live proof points — these are not “likely customers, validate later,” they are named, opted-in, and their operational data is queryable today:

• Pender County Schools (NC, 1247 mi, enrollment 11,073, 88% similarity) (penderk12.gofmx.com): work-order resolution 40.0%; HVAC is 20.0% of work orders; 29 buildings tracked.

Opener for the call: “Your top-similarity peers include Pender County Schools (NC) — both already running FMX. They publish work-order resolution rates, HVAC burden, and per-building cost data your bond campaign couldn’t cite. We can have your portfolio benchmarked against them inside 60 days, in time for your next ballot ask.”

Lead the call against the contact named in the spreadsheet (Director of Operations / CFO / Superintendent as applicable). Validate the named FMX peers above against the internal customer list before outbound — these were resolved via the MCP unredacted endpoint on the local server.