Education Notes

Bad news for Socorro critics

The one thing critics of Socorro Superintendent Sylvia P. Atkinson didn't want just happened. Those critics didn't want a crowded race for the two at-large positions on the board of trustees. Nine people filed to fill those two positions, including board President Charlie Garcia. This crowded race could give Garcia enough name-recognition votes to win re-election. Oh yeah, Garcia is a supporter of Atkinson.

The people on a cleverly-named online forum have thrown their support to two candidates: Joe Sarabia and Tony Ayub. But so many people threw their names in that they are afraid the votes on May 10 may be scattered. This could give Garcia, or any of the other candidates who allegedly support Atkinson, an edge.

Here's a list of all nine candidates in alphabetical order: Tony Ayub, Lorenza Fraire, Charles Garcia, William Goodman, Paul Guerra, Karina  Hagelsieb, Rafael  Hernando, Ernest Peña and Joe Sarabia.

Of note here is the decision of Barbara Perez-Peña not to run for re-election. Perez-Peña is the county's longest-serving trustee currently active. She's finishing her 15th year on the board. While her last year was tainted by criticism that she backed Atkinson for personal reasons, it should be noted that she has served the district with honor for a very long time.

More school-board election stuff

There are two positions up for re-election in the Ysleta Independent School District this year: the Eastwood feeder pattern area and the Ysleta High feeder pattern area. The incumbents in those races are Mickey Duntley and Marty Reyes, respectively.

A quick call to the district showed that Reyes has already filed for re-election. No big surprise there. It'll be interesting to see if she draws an opponent. That area has not been known for having too many school-board candidates.

Duntley, who has been implicated in the ongoing corruption investigation by the FBI but has not been charged with any crime, has not filed for re-election. Richard Telles-Goins has, though. Telles-Goins was a frequent board meeting attendee about six years ago and at one point told me he would run for the board. He never did file, though. This time, the paper work is already in.

The filing deadline for all districts is Monday at 5 p.m. Interested people should pick up a candidate package from the superintendent's office at their respective district.

Socorro trustee candidates keep on coming

With the filing deadline for school-board races looming, a fourth person has filed to run in the Socorro Independent School District. Parent Karina Hagelsieb contacted me with the news that she, too, is seeking to unseat at-large trustees Charlie Garcia and Barbara Perez-Pena.

Hagelsieb is a Socorro High graduate, a former central office employee and a resident of the Horizon City area. She also has children in the school district.

Here is a quote she emailed over to me with her notice of intent to run:

“The low morale and the inability to pass the SISD’s bond election are strong indicators the District’s leadership is lacking.  It is time the resident’s voices are accurately represented. I will work to ensure decisions are made based on the best interest of the District."

She also said that if she's elected she would:

• Listen to the employees, parents, and residents and take positive action on the issues and concerns at hand.
• Search for funding alternatives to help teachers obtain much needed support in purchasing of classroom supplies and equipment.
• Utilize my strong governmental financial background to ensure accountability and compliance from Administrative Staff.
• Evaluate the adequacy of compensation to the District’s non-salaried employees.  I worked with the schools many years.  I found that the secretaries, bookkeepers and other support staff are underpaid.

And Tony Ayub makes three

There was a lot of talk about whether long-time Montwood area band parent Tony Ayub would run for the Socorro Independent School District Board of Trustees this May. Late on Friday he made it official: he is. Ayub filed the necessary paperwork to be on the ballot and joins Joe Sarabia and Paul Guerra as the only official candidates so far in the race to select two at-large trustees. The incumbents, Charlie Garcia and Barbara Perez Pena, have picked up the application to file for re-election, but neither has officially filed.

Ayub, who in this picture can be seen on his frequent role of band booster, is being heavily supported by the people who normally post on a cleverly-named online forum. The people on that forum say they will back both Ayub and Sarabia chiefly because of their opposition of Superintendent Sylvia Atkinson.

This election should prove very interesting if Garcia and Perez Pena decide to run for re-election. They both have been supporters of the superintendent and their controversial extension of her contract should come up during the campaign. The people on the forum often claim that their grassroots efforts were responsible for the failure of the $397-million bond election last November, and say they can regroup to help elect their candidates to the board. This May's election will be a test of whether that's true or not.

Del Valle JROTC

I got this email from the Ysleta Independent School District public relations office and I decided to post it here. Congratulations to the Del Valle JROTC for a job well done:

Del Valle High School JROTC precision air rifle team has won the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) Western Region Championship Army.  The championship was conducted at Colorado Springs, Colorado on February 23, 2008.

 

The Del Valle (Conquest Rifles) Army JROTC precision rifle team is coached by LTC (R) Gary Crafton; Team Captain is Cadet Captain Juan Gaucin; members are Cadet Captain Atenas Bojorquez, Cadet Staff Sergeant Lorenzo Hernandez, Cadet Corporal Juan Arceo and alternate Cadet Staff Sergeant Jacob Najar. 

Del Valle scored 2,285 points out of a possible 2,400, outscoring ten other Army teams from the West and six other Army teams from the East.  The cadets fire the .177 caliber air pellet rifle, at a distance of 10 meters from three positions, prone, standing and kneeling.

Del Valle will compete against three other Army JROTC regional qualifiers and four teams each from Marine Corps and Navy JROTC's at Fort Benning, Georgia on March 27-29 for the combined Army, Navy, Marine Corps JROTC National Championship. 

New Bowie principal

Dr. Jesus Chavez is the new principal at Bowie High School and he was welcomed to the campus with a great reception that included mariachis and a folklorico dancer. You can tell how important this appointment was because we had some big shots in attendance. They included Mayor John Cook (who sang a Bowie version of "This Land is Your Land"), state Rep. Paul Moreno and other El Paso notables like Paul Strelzin and Queta Fierro.

I love going to Bowie because you can really feel the pride that people there have for their school. Everyone from the students, to the teachers and the alumni are very vocal about their love for La Bowie. Dr. Chavez is an El Paso native and he said that gives him an appreciation of how big Bowie pride is. He called La Bowie "an institution."

I couldn't get into Dr. Chavez's background in my story in today's paper because of space. So here are some interesting tidbits from his resume.

• He received his bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees from UTEP, all in education.
• He started his career as a sixth-grade teacher at Sanchez Middle School in the Socorro Independent School District.
• His first administrative position was at Socorro High, where he was an assistant principal.
• Then he became principal at Paso Del Norte School before leaving last summer to become the principal at Jefferson High School in the San Antonio Independent School District.
• His first principal appointment was under former Socorro Superintendent Robert Duron. Duron, who now works for the San Antonio school district, took him to San Antonio with him.

In a document he presented to the school district, Dr. Chavez said his role as the principal was to serve as "the leader of the education team, which is composed of administrators, teachers and staff. As the principal, I accept that I alone am not able to run the school. Therefore, I am responsible for the establishment and growth of the educational team, which is responsive to the needs of its students, staff, district and community."

One impressive aspect of Dr. Chavez's credential, which isn't even listed on his resume, is his perfect Spanish. He answered questions from Univision reporters using the type of Spanish that would make my father (a retired Spanish professor) proud.

Another Socorro candidate surfaces

I got a call today from Paul Guerra, a Socorro resident who ran for the school board last year against Willie Gandara, to officially announce that he, too, is running for the at-large position on the Socorro board this May. That makes him the second person to announce his candidacy, behind Joe Sarabia.

Guerra was part of the committee that was charged with promoting last November's failed bond election. He can also be seen frequently at school board meetings.

I asked him about some of the issues that are sure to come up during the campaign, chiefly the tenure of Superintendent Sylvia P. Atkinson. Here are some of his quotes:

"I worked with her, and I do have some concerns," he said. "But my concerns are mostly with the school board. They should have waited until after the TAKS scores came out to extend her contract. That was a mistake."

He also said that there are some aspects of Atkinson's leadership that need to be addressed and that the leadership on the board did little to prevent the schism that exists in the Socorro school district community right now.

Not clear enough?

At last week's Ysleta school board meeting, the administration and board minority slammed Trustee Liza Montelongo for bringing to the table an item to hire an auditor to look at potential shoddy workmanship in several bond projects. Their complaint was that the request was too broad, and that because of that the cost would be too high.

Montelongo talked about her original motion, and how it had been pared down by the administration without her knowledge. I'll let you be the judge of what happened.

Here's Montelongo's original motion:

Consider and act to retain the services of an independent construction quality control specialist firm to conduct a quality control review, overall performance audit and physical inspection of first and second year bond construction projects and ensuring compliance with construction contracts to include base bid and alternates approved and compliant with the district's standards and approved designs. To determine that construction time lines were being followed and review any liquidated damages due to any unapproved extensions or unfinished work. To determine that all change orders were properly approved, necessary and properly budgeted. To simply determine did the district receive what it paid for.

Yes, it's wordy. But it seems quite detailed. Here's what was placed on the agenda by the administration:

Move to approve the administration to solicit request for proposal for the retention of the services of an independent construction performance and quality control specialist firm to conduct a physical quality control inspection of first and second construction bond projects.

Doesn't quite have the same kick, huh?

Elections

The presidential primary elections and the high-profile local elections for sheriff and district attorney seem to be on the news lately. It's not hard to see why. These are close elections with amazing implications.
But for those of us in the business of schools and school business, the election season will come in May, when school districts around the county are slated to have board elections.

The Ysleta Independent School District will see trustees Marty Reyes and Mickey Duntley go out for re-election. Neither has said whether they plan to run again. It will be interesting to see if Duntley, who has been implicated in the county-wide FBI investigation into public corruption, will defend his reputation by running for re-election. Also interesting is the fact that Duntley and Reyes are part of the 3-member minority on the board. This election could leave Trustee Linda Chavez all alone in the minority.

But the real interesting races will definitely be in the Socorro Independent School District. The two at-large seats on the board are up, and the two trustees currently in those seats are Barbara Perez-Pena and Charlie Garcia -- two staunch supporters of Superintendent Sylvia P. Atkinson. With the public uproar over Atkinson's actions and tenure, many in Socorro say Perez-Pena and Garcia will have a hard time getting re-elected. That is, if they choose to run at all. They must know that the superintendent -- and their controversial vote to extend her contract -- will become an issue during the campaign.

One person has already said he's running for the Socorro board. That's Joe Sarabia. You can see his web site here. Sarabia has been a constant critic of Atkinson and the board members that support her. And if the Internet is any indication, he's got a lot of support out there.

It's important to note that at least two trustees in Socorro have said they're not happy with Atkinson, so if two new anti-Atkinson trustees get elected this May that will give the critics of the administration a majority on the board.

Tempers flared, finally

I could feel it coming for months. I did.

Members of the Ysleta Independent School District Board of Trustees majority have been questioning many of the decisions and projects under the division of operations. If you regularly attend board meetings (and not many people do) you would know that it is not a secret that there is no love lost between that division and trustees like Liza Montelongo and Beth Riggs.

Their exchanges have been on the cusp of being heated in previous board meetings, and on Wednesday night it finally crossed that line.

I didn't write down exactly what they said, but basically it went like this:

• Associate Superintendnet for Operations Anna Perez told the board that not once has any board member contacted her office with concerns about shoddy bond project work.
• Riggs then said she has not directly approached Perez, but  that she and other trustees have brought up concerns publically and that the administration has not responded to them.
• After another exchange between Perez and Montelongo, Riggs said the board has faced resistance from the division of operations in trying to get things done or information distributed.

There is a real struggle in Ysleta right now. The board majority is trying to reclaim some of the authority that previous boards gave up to former Superintendent Hector Montenegro when he was first hired in 2003. These trustees say they want to have more of a say on issues that on average other school boards in the state are invovled. Among some of those responsibilities are the hiring of top administrators, the settling of grievances and the monitoring of the budget.

Of course, Montenegro set up a system where he -- not the board -- made those decisions, and the current top administration seems accustomed to that. The tiffs and arguements that we are seeing now could become more frequent as some trustees try to bring that level of governance back to the board.