The new EPISD superintendent fielded a question from a member of the public on a television show the other day.
The caller pointed out that the husband of a high school principal had been awarded a contract to do some work for the district. The implication was that this was improper. I don’t know the circumstances so I can’t say.
The superintendent’s response was that he would look into the matter — and that is where I have a suggestion.
- If the district wants to be serious about eliminating wrongdoing, it should have a standing mechanism in place that citizens can use to register their concerns.
- If the district does not have such a mechanism in place now, then we have a failure on the part of the board of managers.
- If the district does have this kind of mechanism today then we have a failure on the part of the superintendent.
Once again, we don’t know that anything is wrong here relating to the contract that the individual has.
We can see however that the superintendent thinks that this kind of potential wrongdoing is a rare event and that his organization does not need to have a process in place to handle it.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
If the principal had no say in awarding the contract and the husband was awarded the contract through legitimate means, as possibly by competitive bids, then this doesn’t seem like a problem to me. I don’t see why a person who has a business and is related to a school employee shouldn’t be excluded from being able to legitimately and publicly pursuing a contract with the district. Surely, the district has conflict of interest policies regarding these things.
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I meant “should be exluded.” rather than “shouldn’t”. Sorry.
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“If the district wants to be serious about eliminating wrongdoing, it should have a standing mechanism in place that citizens can use to register their concerns.”
There is an ethics hotline: http://www.episd.org/district_info/ethics.php
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Thank you
I guess one of my points is does the superintendent know that?
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Does anyone in administration or at the board level bother to listen to the Hotline messages or read transcripts of the messages; or is the Hotline simply intended to create a perception that they care? After all, the Board has made it clear that it has limited patience for public comment. The Hotline might have more credibility if they shared some of the things that have been reported and investigated.
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That “tip line” was only in place AFTER the scandal broke….AFTER the FBI was involved….and AFTER TEA finally got involved in helping. You might remember in the beginning the TEA actively working to whitewash the scandal. Feel free to call it and then you can experience retaliation. EPISD is a joke and should have been subject to a federal takeover. After being out of town for a week it makes me sick to be back in town.
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Actually @Brownfield, the anonymous Ethics Tip Line was instituted in 2005 and has been online ever since. Now, when people NOTICED it might be a different thing all together…
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Awesome….so we are still using a Dr. Garcia program that caught exactly nothing because nobody with a brain in EPISD trusts anyone within EPISD on ethical or moral issues?
Since you are inside EPISD… was anyone from the Ed Center or administration at the award thingy Ms. Patricia Scott got from the FBI?
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@Brownfield “Since you are inside EPISD… was anyone from the Ed Center or administration at the award thingy Ms. Patricia Scott got from the FBI?”
Just a small bit of digging and you will find the video from all EPISD Board meetings online.
The Superintendent’s Special Recognition is located here:
http://elpasoisdtx.swagit.com/play/11192013-640
The recognition of Ms. Scott begins seven and a half minutes in this section.
You can clearly see everyone in attendance. However, I believe that the “special recognition” was a surprise for Ms. Scott, so most everyone did not know it was happening.
Was Kids First EPISD present? i don’t recall. The El Paso Times knew it was happening…but that is just me.
Again, I do not speak for EPISD in any formal capacity.
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Sorry for the confusion. I do not do business with EPISD…I no longer have kids in the EPISD. Therefore I have no reason to waste my time with the minutes from a board meeting. My only skin in the game is my wife teaches in EPISD and I know how miserable her job has made me. I beg her to quit all the time, but she will not. She likes teaching but is not a fan of Ed Center or the administration. I tell her if I hated my management as much as she does, I would quit. She says we need the money for when my job gets sequestered, I think suicide is better than trying to live off a teacher salary in EPISD.
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