When a new school building has a real problem, everyone should want it fixed. Parents want it fixed. Teachers want it fixed. Taxpayers who paid for it want it fixed.
And the contractors who built it should want it fixed too. In Texas, they are expected to.
That is why so many people in Pharr, San Juan and Alamo should be asking a hard question about their school district: if there are problems with our buildings, why are we still in court seven years later instead of getting them fixed?
Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD has been in litigation with contractors over its construction projects since 2019. It has not gone away. This June, the school board once again listed the litigation on its agenda as pending and up for possible resolution. Seven years of lawyers, filings and hearings, and the community still does not have a clear picture of what is actually wrong or what it is costing.
Texas has a law designed to keep this from happening.
It is often called the state's right-to-repair law for public construction, and its idea is simple. When a school district or other public entity believes a building has a defect, it has to put in writing exactly what it believes is wrong. Then it has to give the contractor a fair chance to come inspect the problem and fix it.
The law has teeth. If a public entity goes to court without taking those steps, the lawsuit is supposed to be dismissed until it does.
That is not a loophole for contractors. It is a protection for taxpayers. The whole point is to get buildings repaired quickly and cheaply, before years of legal fees pile up.
In PSJA ISD's case, contractors say the process has broken down. They maintain that they have been tied up in litigation without being told, specifically, what the district believes they need to fix. If that is true, it is a serious problem. You cannot repair a defect nobody will identify.
The Legislature saw problems like this coming. In 2025, lawmakers strengthened the right-to-repair law to remove confusion that was fueling expensive legal fights. The change was not partisan or controversial. It passed nearly unanimously in both the Texas House and the Texas Senate.
Legislators of both parties understood something basic: public construction disputes should be about fixing buildings, not keeping lawyers busy.There may well be honest disagreements about who is responsible for a particular problem. That is what courts are for. But Texas law sets out steps a district must take before and during that fight, and the public has a right to know whether those steps were followed.
After seven years, PSJA ISD owes its community straight answers to a few simple questions.
What exactly is wrong with our buildings?
Has the district told the contractors, in writing and in detail, what it wants fixed?
Have they been given the chance the law requires to make those repairs?
Which schools and projects are still caught up in this?
And how much have taxpayers spent on attorneys and legal costs since 2019?
None of these questions are an attack on PSJA ISD's teachers, its students or public education. They are questions about how a public body is spending public money, and whether it is following a law the Legislature passed to protect that money.
If PSJA ISD has done everything the law requires, it should be easy to show the public. If it has not, the law already points to the answer: the lawsuits should not continue until it does.
Either way, the answer is not another seven years in court.
PSJA ISD families deserve to know what their school district is doing. Students deserve buildings that work. And every dollar spent on a lawsuit that could have been resolved is a dollar that never reached a classroom.
Texas already has a process for fixing this. It is time for PSJA ISD to use it.
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Ana Grace Husted, vice president of government affairs for the Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas. There she directs the association's legislative, regulatory, and political affairs efforts while overseeing statewide advocacy engagement, member outreach, and strategic communications.
