35 years of experience<\/a>\u00a0in some of the largest school districts in the country, including in New York City, Los Angeles and Denver. He worked as a consultant for Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado and a charter school network in New York before moving to San Antonio.<\/p>\nWhen he was officially hired by the SAISD board during a public meeting, Aquino read a letter to his younger self, where he talked about growing up in an \u201cimpoverished country\u201d with loving parents who would become his inspiration.<\/p>\n
Aquino\u2019s departure will come only a year after the superintendent of another large San Antonio school district, North East ISD, retired from his post. In this case, the board picked one of the superintendent\u2019s cabinet members to lead as interim.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SAISDFirstDay_BaskinElementarySchool_03_AmberEsparza-scaled-1.jpg\")
Aquino cheers on students as they arrive to campus for the first day of the 2025-2026 school year at Baskin Elementary on Aug. 13, 2025. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
At SAISD, officials said the board would announced \u201cnext steps regarding the superintendent search process\u201d in the next weeks. <\/p>\n
Aquino\u2019s tenure kicked off at the tail end of COVID-19 shutdowns, when students were still masking, and later marked by numerous school closures in 2023. Under his leadership the district has made big moves in \u201crightsizing\u201d to deal with lowering enrollment and multi-million dollar budget deficits, two issues that aren\u2019t likely to go away anytime soon \u2014 and which most school districts in San Antonio are also dealing with.<\/p>\n
Aquino will also be leaving as the district implements a \u201cnew way forward\u201d to address growing challenges, which includes future bond elections, consolidating schools, tearing down some of SAISD\u2019s oldest building and building state-of-the-art campuses that could serve as community hubs as well as traditional schools.<\/p>\n
He will also be leaving as state and federal leaders put more political pressure on public school systems.<\/p>\n
School board president Alicia Sebastian, who\u2019s served on the board since 2019, said she was \u201cwe are deeply grateful to Superintendent Aquino for his dedicated service to public education\u201d and for choosing SAISD nearly four years ago. <\/p>\n
At a \u201cState of the District\u201d event in February, Aquino told a crowd of SAISD students and educators that though he doesn\u2019t have children of his own, being superintendent to a district with more than 40,000 students fulfilled his lifelong dream of being a father.<\/p>\n
He has also linked his passion for education to his upbringing in the Dominican Republic and his time serving in a seminary of the Redemptorist Order. <\/p>\n
In Friday\u2019s announcement, Aquino offered a message directly to students:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are the reason for everything we do. You are powerful, brilliant, and full of possibility. Never let anyone define your limits or tell you what you cannot become,\u201d he said. \u201cLong after I step away, I will continue cheering for you, believing in you, and taking pride in all that you will accomplish. <\/p>\n
\u201cYour future is bright \u2014 and it is yours to claim.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio Independent School District\u2019s top leader abruptly announced his retirement on Friday, right before the district\u2019s scheduled…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":636844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,209411,21880,7202,25534,7203,271353,358,7453,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7819],"class_list":["post-636843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-jaime-aquino","tag-saisd","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-independent-school-district","tag-sanantonio","tag-superintendent-leaves","tag-texas","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-typedaily","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wc-500-750"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116183524157392364","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}