EPISD–transfer credits follow-up audit

February 28, 2017

EPISD recently published a report dealing with an internal audit of the process used to grant or deny credit for course completion to students transferring into the district.

The audit report outlined seven problems as follows:

  1. 39% of applicable students’ transfer course credits were either not earned or shorted by the district.
  2. 40% of applicable students’s transfer requests were not correctly evaluated.
  3. 13% had the incorrect school year recorded
  4. 24% of the cases had inadequate documentation in the files
  5. 31% of the courses that were evaluated resulted in an incorrect grade being credited to the student
  6. Roughly one third of the cases were not documented within the state required 30 day period.
  7. 61% of the foreign transfers resulted in the student being awarded the incorrect Spanish course.

We have heard a lot of lip service from the district staff, their board, law enforcement agencies, and The El Paso Times about how horrible it was when in the past the district “cheated” in evaluating transfer credits.

We deserve better

Brutus

11 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD–not downtown

February 20, 2017

Where will the new EPISD central office building/s be?

The Times printed an article suggesting that the old Hotel Dieu site and/or the high rise adjacent to it might be chosen.

The EPISD board publicly stated that they will move downtown to support downtown development.

Neither of the two properties mentioned above qualify.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

EPISD–special board meetings

February 16, 2017

EPISD used to make the video of their special board of trustees meetings available on their web site.

The last one they published was for the March 15, 2016 meeting, almost a year ago.

Since then the the board has held twelve special meetings.  None of those videos are available on their website.

The January 17, 2017 special meeting included an agenda item that allowed them to take action on the new central office.

It seems that they are using special meetings to handle issues that they don’t want us to know much about.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

EPISD–ambushing a contractor?

February 15, 2017

EPISD recently filed a lawsuit against a prominent local builder.

The contractor built an elementary school for the district in 2009.

The company’s senior vice president was quoted at saying:

“To date, EPISD has not notified us directly of any issues with our work performed at Tom Lea Elementary School in 2009, aside from routine warranty work, which was completed and approved by the district,”

If the builder is correct and EPISD has not worked in good faith to resolve whatever problems there may be then EPISD is out of line.

EPISD’s board president was quoted by the Times as saying:

“It will affect the score during the procurement process,” Fenenbock said. “If there are defects, if litigation was required to resolve it and if there was a settlement and the defects were cured – all those things will be scored and taken into consideration” when awarding a contract.

Bond money

Is this EPISD’s way of taking the contractor out of contention to get contracts out of the new bond money that the district has?

The school was built in 2009.  If EPISD has problems with it why have they not put the contractor on notice that the problems must be fixed or a lawsuit will be filed?

If the contractor is telling the truth EPISD has damaged the contractor’s reputation unfairly and may itself face litigation.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD–board election

February 14, 2017

Four of the seats on the EPISD board are up for election in May.

Those seats represent districts 1, 3, 4, and 5.

The deadline to file is this Friday, February 17, 2017 at 5 PM.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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