Less than a year after opening, national coding school "The Iron Yard" announced it will close its San Antonio office at the Pearl.
The Iron Yard opened its doors last April after months of marketing and billboards in San Antonio, and on April 7, it will close those doors for good.
San Antonio is one of five campuses the boot camp-style coding school is closing and the only campus in Texas. Campuses in Dallas, Austin, and Houston will remain open.
Campus director Stephanie Guerra says their last class graduated 8 in February, which is about 2/3 full, but they were still getting students in the door.
"I don't think that demand was an issue. I don't feel like San Antonio didn't have the people that wanted to or needed to be trained."
The company says closing down these five campuses and refocusing on the remaining 15 will make the company more sustainable. Guerra will assist their most recent class with finding jobs until the office closes next month.
"It's hard to grow in a market that isn't your primary focus."
That's Kay Jones, CEO of Codeup, a locally founded coding school. She says The Iron Yard closing would have been a red flag for her and other area coding schools, if they had seen a decrease in interest.
"But we're actually seeing just the opposite. We've seen an increase in the pipeline of candidates coming in. We have a higher volume of applications than we ever have."
Despite the closures, The Iron Yard announced with its partners last week at South by Southwest that it plans to give $40 million in full-tuition scholarships to the #YesWeCode Fund. The fund says it will give $100 million in diversity scholarships to women and minorities over the next five years.
