Education Notes

Smith funeral

Funeral services for Ezra Gerald Smith, the Chapin High School senior who was shot and killed last week, were today in Louisville, Kentucky. Here is the obituary that ran in the Louisville Courier-Journal.

SMITH, EZRA GERALD, 18, was born March 27, 1991, and he departed this life April 24, 2009. Gerald attended Captain John Chapin High School in El Paso, TX. Survivors include his parents, Renee and Robert Richardson; his father, Ezra Gerald Smith III; his sister, Jasmine Richardson; grandparents, Belzora "Bonnie" and Bishop Joseph Scott, Richard McKnight Sr., Dennis and Deborah Townsend and Marilyn Richardson; and a host of other relatives and friends. Funeral: 1 p.m. Friday at Greater Faith Church of Deliverance, 4032 Bardstown Road, with burial in Evergreen Cemetery. Visitation: after noon Friday at the church. G.C. Williams Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.

Montenegro reappears

EPISD chief of staff may leave district

Ed Gabaldon, the chief of staff for the El Paso Independent School District, is one of eight finalists for a superintendent position in Espanola, New Mexico, according to the Rio Grande Sun.

http://www.riograndesun.com/articles/2009/03/26/news/education/doc49ca6bd3d63f5311990534.txt

Gabaldon is the former director of personnel for Socorro. Sources have also told me that he is  a finalist for the superintendency in the Clint Independent School District. 

The district plans to release the name of only one finalist later this month.

Those watching stimulus money

The creation of a state task force that will oversee the management of federal stimulus money was announced Thursday by Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott.

Scott appointed department and division managers from the Texas Education Agency to the 22-member Commissioner's Task Force on Federal Stimulus and Stabilization.

Texas expects to receive about $6 billion in federal funding for education. That money will be distributed to various districts throughout the state, including those in El Paso county.

Where's Sergio?

Sergio Lewis, who represents the Irvin and Chapin feeder patterns on the El Paso Independent School District's Board of Trustees, did not seek reelection this year.

Instead, Gerald Cheek, a retired Marine, and, and Russell L. Wiggs, an insurance agent, are vying to succeed the trustee.

Lewis, an East Side business owner, seems to be setting his sights on other elected offices down the road.

"Rumors are that I'm running in the 2010 Primary Election for County Commissioner and although the possibility is there, it's still in a stage of contemplation," Lewis said in a letter to the El Paso Times. "However, if I decide to run in this capacity, I feel I am a strong candidate and advocate for the County of El Paso as well."

County Commissioner Veronica Escobar currently represents that area.

Update on YISD meeting

Administrators with the Ysleta Independent School District and Marty Reyes, one of four trustees who requested a special meeting to discuss leasing a district-owned home to incoming superintendent Michael Zolkoski, said board policy was not ignored when posting the meeting without consent from the board president.

The meeting was posted without the approval of Board President Carmen Munoz on a district holiday in order to meet a requirement of 72-hours advance notice.

Board policy stipulates that "the President of the Board shall call special meetings at the President's discretion or on request by three members of the Board. The president shall call an emergency meeting when it is determined by the President or three members of the Board that an emergency or urgent public necessity, as defined by law, warrants the meeting."

The policy seems to imply that the board president is required to call a special board meeting at the request of three trustees, however, Munoz said she did not call the meeting.

Interim Superintendent Roger Parks, the school board's liaison Ann Miller and Reyes said the policy is open to interpretation.

"I was contacted by Ann Miller, the board liaison, that she had been contacted by one of the board members and they wanted this issue to come forward at a board meeting and board operating procedures allow that to occur," Parks said. "So, I contacted our board president and told her that we were going to go ahead with the board meeting and that is where we are." 

Parks said he could not recall the exact time he called Munoz and did not know if he talked to the board president before or after the meeting was posted.

Ann Miller said a security guard was present at 6:20 p.m. Monday as the district's chief of staff, Tom Miller, posted the meeting on the website and at 7:20 p.m. that day as she finished emailing and faxing the information.

The board liaison said that the presence of the security guard demonstrated that administrators were not "sneaking in" to post the item on a holiday.

Trustees "wanted to do it this week and (administration) tried to do it on the 17th and our board president did not want that meeting to be posted, so we didn't post it and then three of the board members got together, which is in their policy, and decided that they wanted to call it. They are allowed to do that according to the way their board operating procedures read."

Miller added, "we do not believe we broke a board policy."

The meeting is at 6:30 p.m. today.

YISD special meeting draws questions

While the Ysleta Independent School District was honoring President's Day and all employees were supposed to be off for the holiday, a notice for a special meeting popped up on the district's website.

District employees did not respond to an email seeking information on a related topic on Monday and repeatedly reminded the newspaper that offices were closed for the holiday but someone was able to slip into Central Office to make sure the district met its requirement of 72-hours advance notice of the meeting.

Trustees at the meeting scheduled for Thursday night are expected to gather behind closed doors in executive session to discuss leasing a district-owned house at 10621 Vista Alegre to incoming superintendent Michael Zolkoski. If a decision is reached, it will be made in open session. 

The house, which was previously used by former superintendent Hector Montenegro, was to be sold after his tenure, trustees had said. The benefits included in Zolkoski's contract, approved in December, did not provide for a district-owned home.

What is peculiar is the meeting was posted without consent of the board president. When reached by phone Monday evening, Board President Carmen Munoz said administration posted the meeting after a request by four board members: Marty Reyes, Robert Ward, Beth Riggs and Linda Chavez.

"I did not approve the meeting and I and some of the other board members were not called to see if we would be available on that date," Munoz said.

Board policy stipulates that "the President of the Board shall call special meetings at the President's discretion or on request by three members of the Board. The president shall call an emergency meeting when it is determined by the President or three members of the Board that an emergency or urgent public necessity, as defined by law, warrants the meeting."

The policy does not seem to give administration the authority to post the meeting without consent from the board president. District officials could not be reached Monday evening to clarify the issue. Perhaps it was the holiday.

A few clarifications

I was out of town on Sunday when a Guest Column was published that attempted to address an incident I wrote about in a blog, which detailed how I was kept from entering a portion of a Socorro Independent School District board meeting. 

The column, written by Board President Karen Blaine and Interim Superintendent Mary Benham, ran in the editorial section of the El Paso Times and contained a few points that compelled me to respond.

Like many people who attend these meetings, I work and must finish a task before I move on to another. From time to time, I will arrive late to a meeting. A late arrival, however, does not justify keeping someone from entering an open meeting, according to state law.

District officials may focus on the fact that I arrived at 6:25 p.m. but those doors to the meeting remained closed until 6:45 p.m. when the first presenters walked out of the room.

My tardy arrival does not change the point of the blog, which was that I was denied access to a public meeting for 20 minutes.

Also, the letter stated that I was given a recording of the entire meeting. This is incorrect. As I stated in a previous blog, I was given a recording of a portion of the meeting.

The district should be commended for pointing out its error and providing training to employees to prevent future mishaps.

Parents, students, teachers and taxpayers can only benefit from attending public meetings.

Growing pains

For the first time in more than 20 years, El Paso Independent School District officials will apply for waivers to increase student to teacher ratios at eight campuses.

On Tuesday, administrators told the school board that the district exceeds the state-mandated 22:1 ratio in 14 classrooms at Douglass, Hughey, Kohlberg, Mesita, Moye, Roberts, Schuster and Vilas elementary schools. 

If the waivers are approved by the Texas Education Agency, each classroom, which currently exceeds the ratio by two to three students, is expected to return to normal by the 2009-2010 school-year, administrators said.

All of the district's portables have been placed at 93 campuses to accommodate for growth.

Administrators said there is no room at the campuses to create extra classes and that separating students from their current teachers could disrupt their learning experience. 

Trustee Carlos Flores, who worried about the increased classroom sizes, asked that student performance be monitored.

Lucy Clarke, president of the El Paso Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel, said she hopes the district does not try to cut costs by increasing class sizes permanently.

  "One is always cautious about waivers because it opens the door for waivers to become a standard practice and, with the current state of Texas education funding, one of the things discussed is changing class size," Clarke said. "We hope that this is not a precursor of things to come."

Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia said no plans exist to permanently increase student to teacher ratios.

Open records training for employees

Socorro Independent School District officials called to inform me that several employees received training today on the Texas Open Meetings Act after the public was denied access to the first portion of a school board meeting.

The meeting, to listen to presentations and select a superintendent search firm, was to be open to the public, however, district employees denied me access and said the meeting was closed to spectators. (For more information see blog below)

District spokeswoman Vicki Icard said three assistants to the interim superintendent and the district's chief of police were briefed on district policies and procedures for school board meetings during a training session today with the district's attorney.

Each assistant will also be required to participate in an online training to learn more over the Texas Open Meetings Act and should receive a certification through the Attorney General's office, Icard said.

Icard said the incident was a misunderstanding and that the training should prevent it from happening again. Administrators also said that no parents, taxpayers or students were turned away.