According to an article in the Times the Texas Education Agency released ratings last week that showed three EPISD schools to have failing grades. (Schuster, Alta Vista, and Moye)
This is bad.
The EPISD board of trustees is having its next meeting Tuesday, August 20, 2019.
The agenda does not include an item to discuss or take action relative to the failures.
No special meeting of the board has been called.
The Texas Education Agency grades should not be a surprise. We would think that someone in the legion of administrators would have seen this and set the ships right.
Actions need to be taken immediately.
We deserve better,
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Supposedly (per KVIA) they are going to lower property taxes, as well at that meeting. Should be interesting.
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None of our schools do very well in teaching our children. All of our school employees constantly beat the drum that they are underpaid and overworked. The public school system is a failure, in El Paso and everywhere else, yet somehow failure continuously gets rewarded and the fact that teachers can get paid well for performing poorly gets reinforced.
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And, once again, the unknown masked intruder gets it wrong! How do you know that “All of our school employees constantly beat the drum that they are underpaid and overworked?” Have you talked to all of them? Have you ever worked in a school? Have any family members who worked in a school? Any first hand knowledge? As for your opinion (because it certainly is not true) that “somehow failure continuously gets rewarded and the fact that teachers can get paid well for performing poorly gets reinforced” is so far off the mark as to be laughable. FYI, too many districts reward only high test scores, and punish those teachers whose students do not perform well on tests. As for teachers being paid well, that is certainly not the case in El Paso especially, but in most places generally. For the hours they devote to teaching, they are all underpaid.
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Our teachers, with a few exceptions as in any organization, are not failures. They are working in a broken system.
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Schuster is closed and I think the other schools are on the list to be closed.
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The latest article from the Times about EPISD $8M in costa overruns that were approved by a single person and not the board. The board already approved a $14M overrun. So it looks like $670M in bond money will not be enough to do what they promised. They will either need more money (inevitable) or some people are not going to get what they were promised. Someone will get screwed no matter what and we can count on taxes going up. This is what happens when people over-trust their local school boards. El Paso voters are suckers.
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Suckers with short memories too!
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Remember when Cabrera was found with his had in the cookie jar by Susi Byrd. Something about he wanted a friend to get a bid and had written the bid in favor of his friend or the people that he wanted to give a large contract too. Wasn’t this favored company going to help with the bond issue and watch over Jacobs to make sure they were doing things right?
I wonder if the Superintendent still wants this company to work for the district and that is why all the negative audit stuff is coming from. Where did the auditors get their marching orders from and why?
And after the public was made aware of lack of ethical business practices the Board of Trustees gave him extra vacation days extra sick days a raise of $40,000 and an extension of his contract.
By the way, does anyone know what Incidental Employee Benefits are? He gets $2,500 a month or $30,000 a year for them. All of the others, car, phone, health, annuity, insurance policies and personal protection if needed.
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Well what the WORKING people of El Taxo need is another tax INCREASE. That always fixes “stuff”. Flush MORE money down the Juan Cabrera, EPISD toilet. Maybe if they CUT Teacher salaries, would give them “Incentive” to do better. Give their money to Cabrera,. THOUSANDS$$$ more to him, giving him MORE in his bloated, over paid pay check, will give him some “Incentive” to have some IDEAS on how to teach “Johnny, Juan, Suzie” to read, write, do math. Give Cabrera MORE to WASTE. The School Board people do not REPRESENT the people, students, TAXPAYERS. They “Represent” Cabrera and all his “Wants”. WE have to start telling HIM, THEM, NO ! ! THEY float another multi-million$$$, BILLION$$$ Bond? No !!
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By the end of the year Schuster had a part time principal, no secretary, nurse, counselor or librarian. Alta Vista was much the same. Throughout the years rumors of closure then closure pushed parents to enroll their children elsewhere. Promises were made to Schuster and never kept. (Multi purpose bldg?). Moye is THE most challenging population to teach in El Paso. Students have all the emotional, social, and educational disadvantages imaginable. I volunteered last year with the little ones and never in my 30+ years of teaching have seen a more needy group of kids. Their teachers are the greatest and the kids are tough. They need a minimum of 2 counselor’s and a social worker there. But it is possible. Best of luck to Moye. I hope EPISD does not beat down the teachers and staff. Please build them up and give them the resources they deserve.
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My 11 year old grand daughter is in a magnet school.
Poor child is studying aeronautical engineering in a program designed by NASA,
Building trusses. So uneducated!this is San Antonio
Last year program was based on castles math history English her elective is strings and German
Oh well we’ll do girl language and remedial reading
As long as the people in this town vote one party who controls everything and we continue to hire other districts cast off supers the future of this city will remain service.
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The City of San Antonio spends a lot of money on education. The City of El Paso spends a lot of money on ballparks and water slides. Go figger.
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How many times do we have to repeat this for you???!!! This town is not now, nor has it ever been, partisan! Yes, we still vote stubbornly for Democrats, especially in Statewide and National elections, but we ignore party locally when we go to the polls! You think Dee Margo is a Democrat?!
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Our district has been negligent in terms of educating the children of our community, as evident by the newly implemented , but suspect, TEA rating system. It appears that EPISD administration is complicit in paving the road for the privatization of our schools. This assertion factors TEA processes that allow charter school corporations to assume oversight of schools designated as “failing” after a period of time. These companies already have an influential presence at Andress, Bowie, and Chapin.
It’s difficult to dismiss this premise, when Supt. Cabrera spends $119 million on pedagogically-suspect education technology initiatives, such as Engage2Learn, yet our district is the only one in the State of Texas that had failing schools. It is difficult to trust the $668 million bond oversight manager, when we learn that he was previously employed by a charter school, and that he alone authorized an additional $8 million for construction projects deemed underfunded.
Therefore, it is requested of this new board to reconsider school closures, the implementation of the Transformation Zone Grants, and the extension of the superintendent’s contract, given that these actions were sanctioned by the previous Board President, who never legally resided in the appropriate zone.
It is also requested of the board to be more inclusive of students, parents, faculty, and staff when it comes to restoring democratic values to our school district.
Xavier Miranda
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To this retiree it seems we keep throwing huge sums of money at education and don’t see results for it. Why?
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Two reasons: educational content corporations are lobbying for legislation that benefits their product offerings which school districts buy at high prices and second, parents who care about their kids’ academic achievement put them in private school. This means that public schools have large numbers of kids whose families see school as a child care service vs a path to achievement later in life. Teachers focus on the problem kids and the rest of the kids fall through the cracks.
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Because the money is not used for students, “Education”. The money goes to pay the salaries, wants, high-dollar stuff for politicians, Public Officials, School Superintendents. And that is why “Johnny, Suzie, Juan”, can’t read, write or do math. And then there are the “Unteachables”. SOME kids only go to school because that’s where their friends are, nothing to do at home.. And Jerry K. El Taxo is NOT a place for Retirees, people on fixed incomes or maybe little to no income. Can’t afford the COST of “Living” HERE. Nothing ever gets better for the PEOPLE in El Taxo. Selling out, moving out after 30 years in El Taxo..
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