Northside Independent School District is a school district headquartered in Leon Valley, Texas. It is the largest school district in the San Antonio area and the fourth-largest in the State of Texas. Northside serves 355 square miles (920km2) of urban landscape, suburban growth, and rural territory in the San Antonio suburbs and the Hill Country. Northside is roughly 50% built out with the center of the district's boundaries near Helotes, just north of the Bandera Road and Loop 1604 intersection. Because of fast-paced growth, the district envisions possibly another four high schools over the next few decades, including far west areas off Potranco Road and Hwy 211 (near the Medina County line), Culebra Road (FM 471) past Talley Road, I-10 near Boerne Stage Road (north of the Dominion) and far north Bandera Road (Hwy 16) near the Pipe Creek/Bandera County/Medina County areas.
The superintendent of Northside ISD was Dr. Brian Woods. Prior to his appointment in 2012, he was a social studies teacher, administrator, the assistant superintendent for secondary administration, and the named deputy superintendent for administration for the school district. In June of 2023, Dr. Woods retired after 11 years as superintendent. As of August 2023, Dr. John Craft is the superintendent of the district.
Campuses
Northside ISD has over 110 campus locations:
Northside has chosen a unique method of naming its traditional high schools; each school is named for a former or current United States Supreme Court justice. Under current district policy, eighth graders who will be part of a new high school's first graduating class are encouraged to research prior justices and submit nominations.
Ed Cody Elementary School, which opened in 1982 and is located at 10403 Dugas Drive adjacent to Fillmore Street, is named for Edmund D. Cody, the NISD superintendent from 1965 to 1982.
Thomas L. Hatchett Sr. Elementary School at 10700 Ingram Road in San Antonio was named in 2005 for an African-American educator (1932-2003) and native of Navasota, Texas, who began his teaching career after retiring in 1971 from the United States Air Force.
Alternative schools
School
Irene L. Chavez Excel Academy
John C. Holmgreen Center
John Jay Early College High School
Nellie M. Reddix Center
Northside Alternative High School
Northside Alternative Middle School
Northside Learning Center (adult education)
Northside Learning Center (community education)
Student locator project
The school district spent over $500,000 on a system whereby students wear an RFID chip and barcode around their necks, allowing the school to track their locations during the school day. The students needed the tag "to use the library or cafeteria, vote in school elections, and in some cases for toilet breaks". One student was expelled in 2012 after refusing to either wear the tag or to wear a version of it that included the barcode but not the RFID tag. Her objections were for reasons of religion, privacy, and freedom of expression; the school had also forbidden her from handing out leaflets criticizing the program. She later returned to the school following a federal judge's injunction. The school district's website was brought down in retaliation for the program. An individual claiming responsibility for the website disruption described the school district as "pervs" for their policy of RFID tracking children.
The RFID tracking program was discontinued for the 2013-2014 school year. Even during the controversy, the program was very limited in scope. The schools chosen had the fewest ratio white students (Jones M.S. - 4% and John Jay H.S. -13%).[citation needed]
Police department
The Northside ISD Police Department is the district's full-service police department. The department has jurisdiction in the district's boundaries and has primary jurisdiction over all district property regardless of county.
Incidents
On September 11, 2007, NISD police officer Patrick Ritchey reported that he was shot twice through his bulletproof vest with his own pistol after confronting two men after seeing graffiti at Lackland City Elementary School (now Allen Elementary). Following an overnight search by the San Antonio Police Department for the suspects, Ritchey admitted that he shot himself.
On May 16, 2012, NISD police officer Doug Schramm negligently discharged his pistol in his office at Jordan Middle School. Schramm immediately informed the NISD police chief and campus principal, and it was found that the bullet did not leave the office. He was put on administrative leave and later fired on May 29 for unholstering a gun inside the school.
In August 2016, Texas Commission on Law Enforcement investigators recommended criminal charges against NISD Police Chief Charles Carnes and suspension of his peace officer license for falsely stating that NISD officers do not make routine traffic stops and failing to submit the required racial profiling reports for years.
Shooting of Derek Lopez
On November 12, 2010, Northside ISD police officer Daniel Alvarado shot and killed 14-year-old student Derek Lopez. Alvarado witnessed Lopez punch another student at a bus stop and pursued him, then radioed his supervisor, who instructed him to stay with the victim. Alvarado returned to his car and ordered the victim into his car and pursued Lopez. Lopez jumped over fences, then closed himself in a backyard shed. Alvarado approached the shed with his pistol drawn, and when Lopez opened the door, Alvarado fired one round. Alvarado claimed he feared for his life and that Lopez was charging for his weapon or had taken a weapon from the shed.
Alvarado had been reprimanded at 12 times and suspended four times prior to the incident and on May 29, 2008, the NISD Police Department considered his termination. He resigned in January 2013, and later that year, Northside ISD settled the federal lawsuit brought against it by Lopez's mother for $925,000.
History
The district was formed in 1949 via consolidation of several rural school districts, having a mere 823 students:
Clifton
Culebra
Helotes (including the former Los Reyes district which Helotes absorbed in 1939)
Hoffman
Leon Springs
Leon Valley (including the former Evers district which Leon Valley absorbed in 1924)
