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San Antonio ISD officials during a Tuesday night meeting struggled to answer basic questions from concerned parents about curricula, sports and transportation options for students at three campuses the district recently handed over to an out-of-state charter operator.

Hosted by the watchdog group COPS/Metro, the forum was arranged so SAISD could address parents’ concerns that the district is privatizing public campuses. However, some attending the gathering said they left with more questions than answers…

As the San Antonio ISD (SAISD) and Edgewood ISD Boards consider relinquishing four neighborhood campuses to Colorado-based charter operator Third Future Schools, COPS/Metro leaders and members showed up in force to testify at SAISD—uncovering the power dynamics at play, raising urgent concerns, and putting forward clear demands to protect families.

SAISD voted unanimously to close Carvajal Elementary, a 76-year old West Side school serving families in one of San Antonio’s poorest zip codes. While the closure disrupts hundreds of families, COPS/Metro leveraged SAISD’s commitment of $28.6 million in bond funds to build a new, modern K–8 school on the West Side.

For generations, residents on San Antonio’s Southeast Side have grappled with robberies, shootings, and acts of violence in their neighborhoods and in front of institutions like St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church. After years of organizing, COPS/Metro celebrates a major victory - the groundbreaking of the new South Flores Police Substation to serve the Southeast Side community. This new facility will be the first police substation built in San Antonio in 30 years.

After 15 schools closed at the end of the 2023-2024 school year, COPS/Metro leaders participated in a heated public meeting on the potential closure of Carvajal Elementary School. Parents voiced concerns about losing their community and native tongue fostered through the school’s dual language program.

Credited by the San Antonio Express-News as "the loudest and most organized opposition" to a publicly-funded luxury arena on the ballot, COPS/Metro boosted voter turnout to historic levels and built leverage to negotiate project accountability and labor protections by holding the measure to a slim electoral margin.

In a recent Texas Public Radio discussion featuring prominent local reporters, journalists credited COPS/Metro with earning public trust and making a huge impact on the arena campaign—despite operating with a fraction of the resources available to pro-Prop B forces.

Texas Public Radio host and senior reporter David Martin Davies highlighted the scale of the financial mismatch:

“With very little money, they took on the Spurs… The Spurs spent well over $7 million for their star-studded saturation campaign, and they went toe-to-toe with them.”

Despite San Antonio facing a staggering $5 billion infrastructure shortfall, many elected leaders are poised to spend $800 million in public funds to finance another Spurs basketball arena.

COPS/Metro, seeing through the project’s complicated funding structure, continues to be a leading voice for using this public money for the public’s benefit. At an August 5th commissioners court meeting, COPS/Metro Leader Rena Oden testified:

“It is unconscionable that you want to give this money for an arena when we have people dying from infrastructure or lack thereof. … Don’t tell us this money is only for arenas. Where is your imagination for our families? In the early 2000s, we voted on the venue tax where there was community benefit for all of us. This deal has no community benefit.” 

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The black, white and yellow yard signs blaring “No! Project Marvel” first appeared outside two houses in King William.

Then more cropped up in other neighborhoods farther from downtown…

The signs are part of a grassroots effort to derail the development of the city of San Antonio’s proposed downtown sports and entertainment district at Hemisfair, a multibillion-dollar undertaking that staff initially code-named Project Marvel…..

For more than a year, city staff discussed plans to transform downtown behind closed doors. They talked about building a new Spurs arena with franchise executives and required developers, consultants and Bexar County employees to sign nondisclosure agreements to talk about elements of Project Marvel....

No! Project Marvel is joining a much bigger and older organization in opposing Project Marvel.

COPS/Metro Alliance, a prominent interfaith community group, first came out against the district in December. It’s currently collecting signatures from voters who commit to rejecting any ballot measures that seek to use city or county dollars for the project. The organization’s leaders are knocking on doors and talking to parishioners at their 32 member churches and nonprofits.

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From KSAT:

“Many of our families are experiencing layoffs from their jobs. And families are being squeezed with cuts to SNAP and Medicaid. And here you are proposing a venue tax for yet another arena?" said Debra Garrett, a COPS/Metro leader with Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, who urged the county to spend money on raising county wages, affordable housing and infrastructure.

Last Sunday, COPS/Metro packed St. Margaret Mary’s Catholic Church for its Accountability Session with 350 leaders and candidates for mayor and city council. The crowd represented over 28 institutions across San Antonio, including schools, interfaith congregations, non-profits, and community/neighborhood associations. 

COPS/Metro launched its Sign-Up, Take Charge campaign, pledging to sign up 50,000 registered voters in opposition of using tax dollars to finance Project Marvel, a multi-billion-dollar sports and entertainment district which has been planned almost entirely behind closed doors. Leaders committed to signing up 50,000 people in support of investing in people and local neighborhood infrastructure, and to delivering this constituency to the polls.