The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) teachers that I have spoken with in the last few years have been universally critical of what they call the central office. The words “top heavy”, “incompetent”, “ineffective”, and “clueless” are frequently heard.
These teachers generally seem to think that many of the people in the central office are good and are thankful for their support. The problem seems to be that the teachers perceive that there are far too many people at the central office that are not effective.
I thought I would look into the “top heavy” claims so I went to the EPISD web site. The district posts its job descriptions online. What I found was that there were:
474 different professional job descriptions. These include both teaching and support staff positions. In the 474 there were job descriptions for 44 directors, 9 executive directors, and 15 assistant directors. There were also 13 different associate and assistant superintendent jobs. That’s 81 different kinds of bosses at the assistant director level and above.
In the separate clerical area there were 241 job descriptions including 68 different types of secretaries.
There are another 138 “support personnel” job descriptions.
I have no idea how many of these different categories actually have people working in them. What the numbers suggest to me is that we have a situation where jobs are highly differentiated.
Is that because the employees are out of control and we must have a highly specific job description in order to get them to do the right thing for the students? Could it be that we have all of these different job descriptions so that salary levels can be gamed? I don’t know.
What I do know is that it looks like this should be simplified if for no other reason than for operational flexibility.
According to a highly critical 2012 report EPISD had about 9,000 employees in 2012. Of the 9,000 employees only 50% were evidently teachers. The report claimed that only 54% of the budget was spent in the classroom.
I don’t know if the report was either accurate or fair. On the other hand I have not seen any rebuttal from the EPISD.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I look forward to all of your posts and admire your ability to research, explain, and question so many topics. I would like to ask if you could do a post on the VNA closings after almost 50 years and shed some light on that. It means 850 jobs and although I believe the impact of losing quite a bit on medicaid, there were also the factors of losing clients and workers after cutting hours to 29 in anticipation of Obamacare (which I believe was something they should not have done and probably could have found a way to deal with better) and competition from many, many other smaller companies. What I believe is the undisclosed factor is possible mismanagement by Joe Wardy who came to VNA after restructuring Ready One where he was highly paid and left that agency with the highest paid executives of nonprofits in El Paso and underpaid workers in comparison. How much was Wardy or other top level execs at VNA paid and still getting paid while laying off workers getting paid 7.50 to 10 per hour? Why could VNA not compete with these other organizations who seem to be taking on many of the clients and laid off workers from VNA? Could Wardy have done other things to save the agency that he didn’t even try to do? The impact on workers was a total shock and a total slap in the face. The impact on clients who are elderlyand/or disabled and who very much relied on their caretakers of many, many years is unconscionable as they have had to scramble to find other programs, other caretakers, readjust schedules and face other unnecessary hardships at the hands of Wardy and the Board of Directors. Hope you’ll consider this. Thanks.
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Thank you for the kind words.
We will look into it.
Unfortunately they have not made their financial and operational reports widely available for analysis.
This means that we will have to rely on tips from citizens to point our way. We need help here.
The authors of this blog try very hard to see to it that what they publish is factual and they also try to avoid getting personal.
Brutus
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If VNA is a non profit then their form 990 must be made available to the public. Check the IRS website and there is another website that publishes non profit 990s. In defense of VNA the competition and Medicaid reimbursement rates have been a very big concern longer than Wardy’s time as Executive Director. Also check out the board members and ask the question why they couldn’t keep it open. Non profits are completely dependent on the decisions of their boards. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement killed the skilled nursing facilities in El Paso many years ago and that was a vital service. I think only one hospital has a skilled nursing facility.
Back to EPISD it is a huge bureaucratic nightmare mess and hasn’t been properly run for at least 25 years.
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A few years ago, the El Paso Times printed what appeared to be an advertisement that was multiple pages long showing all the EPISD central office jobs and the pay for each. It was staggering. It really demonstrated how bloated the central office is and how much of the cost is not invested in the classrooms and how much of the budget does not truly benefit the students.
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First off: I do not speak for the EPISD. Let us make that very clear. I only speak for myself. This is in no way an official EPISD anything.
Secondly, I work in the central office. I do not know if I am one of those that people think are “incompetent”, “ineffective”, and “clueless.” Maybe some people think I am, maybe some people do not.
Thirdly, I know that no matter what I say here, someone will say that I am out of touch, overpaid, etc. etc. because I work for EPISD in Central Office. I know, I have heard all of those complaints before.
I will agree that there are people, like in any large organization, that do not do their jobs. Just as there are teachers that should not be teaching, there are probably administrators that should not be administrating, janitors that shouldn’t janitoring, and bus drivers that shouldn’t be driving. But that is true in any large organization. Hospitals, the military, the city and state governments, large companies heck, even football teams. It is just a fact that some people do not pull their weight.
If you count the kids as well, EPISD has close to 80,000 people in it’s organization. That is a lot of people to watch out for.
I think that many people look at positions and say “I do not know what that is, therefore it must not be useful.” Many of the school district’s central office positions (not all of course) are there because of Federal and state mandates. There is a lot of red tape and paperwork that goes into running a district. That does not get done by itself. There are also positions that are tied to Federal and State grants. For instance, when a district gets a large grant, often the stipulation IN THE GRANT, is that the district hire a separate grant overseer/coordinator. That is a new position. Not all grants are like that, but there are a few.
Many of the positions, that are handled by multiple people in EPISD are handled by fewer people in smaller districts. That does not immediately make it bad or evil, or malicious. For instance, the number of athletic competitions and events that EPISD students go to simply dwarfs what smaller districts do. A district like Anthony ISD with one high school does not nearly have the logistical issues (transportation, expenses, equipping) that a district with 10 or 11 high schools has, with more sports, both boys and girls. Same with fine arts, etc. The more schools you have, the more people you need to run them. That should be obvious. I suspect that in the “real world” Apple Inc has has more management positions than say, a startup company. Does mean all of Apple’s management is bad? No, it just is a matter of size.
Education, for years and years, has always had an “us vs. them” mentality when it came to teachers and administrators. Any edict from a Superintendent was looked upon with suspicion, and often ignored, not just in EPISD but in public schools in general. That is historical.
Different districts do things different ways. Some districts, like YISD, put all of their central office employees out a a particular campus and say they are campus based, not central office based. That looks good on paper, but the people are still central office personnel, just located off central office property.
Perhaps a better measure would be the COST compared to other similar sized districts.
Let the flames begin…
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Click to access finance_charts_12.pdf
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http://www.episd.org/departments/finance/
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Tim,
You make some good points.
Yes I should have made it more clear that there are some very talented and hard working people in your central office.
I hope that the new superintendent will place a priority on improving the relationship between the schools and the central office.
As you know some of the coordinators and program facilitators that visit the schools are relatively junior and could use improvement. Your point that every organization has under performers is well made.
Brutus
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