elpasospeak

This item from the December 17, 2013 El Paso Independent School District board book contemplates setting up a task force to make recommendations about the dual language program.

Each member of the board of managers would appoint two task force members from the community.

The task force would be in existence from January 1, 2014 through February 18, 2014.

The task force would be charged with these tasks:

• To identify and describe successful Dual Language models for the program design with associated costs
• To propose a timeline of district wide program implementation
• To recommend a plan for community and parental support of the program

Wow!

These civilians will drop what they are doing and in the period of 49 days find programs that have worked elsewhere, figure out what to do, determine how much it will cost, recommend a timeline for implementation, and figure out how to get the parents and community to support the new plan.

I don’t see how they can do this.   If on the other hand the community task force is being appointed to rubber stamp a plan that staff has already been developed, I can see that they might be able to do this in 49 days.

We deserve better

Brutus

The facts are out about our new superintendent’s compensation from the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD).

He will receive a base salary of $285 thousand per year.  I have no problem with a qualified superintendent earning that kind of money from this district.  He does not have a state mandated superintendent’s certificate. He will be given three years to get one.  Our contract with him requires the taxpayers to pay for the costs related to getting the certificate.  That will probably mean travel, lodging, tuition, books, fees and maybe other things.  I suspect that we will pay for those costs and then probably give him a raise since he will have become qualified.  Who will do his job when he is working on his certification?

In addition he will receive $1,500 a month for a car allowance.  In my opinion we should pay by the mile instead.

He will receive $1,200 a month for home office costs.  Bunk!  This is nonsense.

Another $2,500 each month will go to incidental benefits.  I have no idea what those might be.  Hopefully they are not bribes.

That comes to another $62,400 a year for things that would come out of a normal person’s pocket.

I haven’t included the $35,000 for moving expenses he will be eligible for.

Nor have I mentioned that that we will pay for his spouse to travel with him when he is out of town on district business.  This is simply outrageous to me.

Then we have the up to $20,000 annually the district will pay into a special annuity and the fact that the district will pay the superintendent’s portion of the employee’s contribution to the Texas Teacher Retirement System.

Sick leave will be 10 days per year, starting with a balance of 10 days effective September 3, 2013.  Vacation will only be 10 days his first year, but will be 20 days each year thereafter.

Personal protection will be paid for by the district.

The district will pay $3,500 per month for housing rental while the superintendent looks for a house.

A KVIA report from 2012 put the salary of the highest paid superintendent in Texas at $347,834.20 .

It’s all good

Congratulations El Paso!  We are getting closer to the top.  Our superintendent can get $347,400.  Neat coincidence, huh?

This isn’t bad for a guy that earned $182,000 last year.

Other options

I have never met the superintendent.  I hope that he does well by us.  He negotiated well for himself.  I do object to some of his perks and to the fact that he is willing to take them.  I would think that for this kind of money we would get someone who showed some moral leadership.

I don’t understand our board of managers.

Editor’s note:

This article was written by Cato.  I mistakenly attributed it to Brutus.  Consider me chastised.

Recently there has been talk about a reporter  who did some digging and found a former Bowie student who was evidently kicked out of school as part of the EPISD cheating scandal.

The EPISD superintendent was asked on a local news broadcast how an individual could find students like this but the school district could not.

I think the superintendent’s answer was fair.  He essentially said that the district has several resources dedicated to finding the students but that the district will probably fail to find all of them.  He asked the public to help and to contact the district if someone has information that would be helpful.

A sound clip of the former student talking about what happened to her was played on the air.

What no one commented about was the fact that the said that after she was kicked out she went to Juarez to talk with her mother about the situation.  Is it possible that in this particular situation the reason the student was denied access was that the student was not eligible to go to Bowie?

Denying students access to schools to help improve statistics is horrible.  Those involved in doing this to kids should be dealt with.  However, not all that wander are lost.

We deserve better

Brutus

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