EPISD then and now

March 30, 2014

A 1968-1969 personnel directory from the El Paso Independent School District made its way to me recently.

It will take some piecing together but we should be able to compare how the district was run back then to how it is now.

The 1969 book has a very clear organization chart in it.  I have not been able to find a current one on the district’s web site.  That in itself is interesting.

The directory listed 9 high schools.  Today we have 13.

There were 49 elementary-intermediate schools.  Today there are 57 elementary schools.

The biggest change seems to be that we had two intermediate schools back then and now we have 16 middle schools.

I have not found enrollment numbers to compare.

Directly beneath the superintendent we had three assistant superintendents, one each for administration, instruction, and special services (census, records, personnel).

Determining what the first layer under our current superintendent is today is a bit of a problem without an organization chart.  They do list their job descriptions.  There are 15 that have the word superintendent in them.  At this point I don’t know which of these positions is currently filled, but here is the list:

Deputy superintendent of academics and school leadership

Assistant superintendent curriculum and instruction

Assistant superintendent curriculum, instruction and accountability

Assistant superintendent elementary schools

Assistant superintendent high schools

Assistant superintendent lang arts & social studies

Assistant superintendent math and science

Assistant superintendent middle schools

Assistant superintendent research, evaluation, and accountability

Assistant superintendent secondary schools

Assistant superintendent special education

Associate superintendent curriculum and instruction

Associate superintendent human resources

Associate superintendent operations

In addition we have a job description for a chief of staff and a chief, school administration and leadership.

Looking at their web site, they list their academic leadership team.  It consists of 7 people, including a deputy superintendent, chief school officers for areas 1, 2, and 3, an assistant superintendent for C & I and R & E, an assistant superintendent for academic support programs, and an assistant superintendent for special education.

Most of those job descriptions are not listed on the web site.

Are our children better educated today than they were back then?  I hope to see active discussion about this on the blog.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Thank you EPISD

March 29, 2014

The El Paso Independent School District has a very nice feature associated with the video coverage of their board meetings.

Each agenda item is listed next to the video frame with a link that will take you to the video for that particular agenda item.

That is a big time saver and contributes to transparency.

For the record this feature was available under the elected board and was not an improvement made by the state appointed group.

Something got better

Brutus

1 Comment | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Missed opportunity

March 10, 2014

Evidently the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas hosted a seminar in El Paso the other day at the El Paso Independent School District central office.

They presented information about the Public Information Act and the Texas Open Meetings Act.

Unfortunately few of us knew about the event and so did not attend.

What would it have taken for EPISD to have notified the newspapers, television, and radio stations so that more of us would have known about the seminar?  Maybe they did.

Unfortunately many local government employees consider anyone who makes a request under the Public Information Act to be the enemy.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Something getting better

March 7, 2014

The Times reported yesterday  that the Ysleta Independent School District board has voted to:

“… provide all back up materials for board meetings available to the public on the district’s website.”

Hopefully this material will be posted along with the board agenda so that members of the public can be better informed before board meetings.

Both this blog and the Times have made this request.  Thankfully the board listened.

The El Paso Community College and the county hospital boards do not post the backup material.  I hope that others will join in asking them to do so.

The city has done a pretty good job of posting most of the material.  Once in a while we see agenda items with missing, skimpy, or misleading material.  Unfortunately the city has chosen to remove the ability to electronically search city council agendas before 2014.  We sent a copy of a blog article about this to the mayor’s email address but have not gotten them to change this policy.

A reader of this blog sent in this comment that has been helpful:

woodyco says:
February 19, 2014 at 12:45 PM  (Edit)

You can always use the city’s google search to look em up

just go to the city site, go to the google search

add the following:
+”AGENDA FOR REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING”
then a search term afterwards
Or you can use +”Special City Council Meeting”

if you don’t want the pdf’s, just add -pdf.

example:
+”AGENDA FOR REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING” alcohol -.pdf

He’s an example of their agenda’s that is “not searchable”

http://imgur.com/AAnfRiK

Let’s do what we can to get our local government agencies to be more transparent.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Save the EPISD central office

March 4, 2014

The recent disclosure of a mistakenly sent email from an EPISD employee to, of all things, a news outlet has pointed out that the district is now actively planning the replacement of it’s central office.

Their current central office is on land leased from the city.  The city has notified the school district that the lease will not be renewed past 2019.

Prior postings indicated that EPISD staff was aware of the lease issue but that they were still exploring options with the city.

Why not?

The city does not have to kick the school district out.  We should all ask our mayor and city representatives to extend the land lease and save the tax payers the expense of building a new complex.  You may use this link to contact them.

District officials are telling us that a new building will cost us about $40 million.  I suspect that the number could be made smaller if the central office was more efficient.  If the city’s chief financial officer came up with the number it will probably cost two or three times more than the estimate.

Before any of my readers write in telling me that there are hard working and effective workers at the central office, let me first say that I agree.  We are lucky to have the services of many of those people.  On the other hand we have a significant portion of the central office staff that do not measure up.  Getting rid of them would reduce costs and improve performance.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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