EPISD Closures: Secrets and Broken Promises?

I just watched the replay of the ABC 7 Xtra on KVIA's website about the closures at EPISD.

Click here to watch it, its enlightening/infuriating.

Lets start with some basics here. To his credit, Al Velarde went on the air and did something most elected officials don't do, acknowledged a mistake. He acknowledged that the closure discussion is something that should have been dealt with by the board long ago. Ross Moore of the AFT also said the board should have dealt with the issue sooner and didn't.

And that is something important to acknowledge. The budget with the number of schools they have right now is unsustainable. The math doesn't work. You gotta shut something down somewhere and be more efficient. There's really no way out of closing/consolidating schools.

And we as a community have to get passed the NIMBY mentality and make choices that are in the best interest of the district. Therein lies the rub. The community doesn't have that place at the table.

What Velarde and Moore didn't do, was convince anyone why they need to do it now at the 11th hour.

And thanks to this conversation on Xtra, I have a clearer idea of the timeline involved and I see why people are pretty pissed about this. EPISD is just three weeks away from adopting a budget. That is basically no time to have a meaningful community conversation about the closures.

According to Velarde the "officers" of the Board have been discussing it for three weeks before that. So by their own admission, they are looking at making a very big decision that will change the face of public education in El Paso barrios and the whole thing is supposed to take 6 weeks start to finish?

Yeah, there's no way that is going to get messed up, right? Seriously, have you seen how graduations are run by EPISD? They know those happen every year and they are always a fluster cuck.

The officers had a three week head start on this and didn't think to bring it up? This is why the community doesn't trust EPISD.

Secrets and broken promises.

Susie Byrd makes a compelling point that moving on this so late in the game is disrespectful to the public. Word around the campfire is Trent Hatch isn't fond of having meetings with angry people so he feels its better to rip the band-aid off and just make the hard decisions.

The problem is you don't get to have it both ways. The community was really important to EPISD when they wanted to pass the largest bond ever attempted in El Paso County. Having a community meeting AFTER you've decided the schools that are going to be closed is a slap in the face to the community and anyone who doesn't understand that should go back to school.

Why not deal with this year's budge shortfall by making some tough choices that don't involve shutting down schools? You live to fight another day, and then you buy some time to have a thoughtful and respectful conversation with the community about what schools need to close.

Let me speak a little truth to power here for a second and say something a lot of people are thinking but no one really wants to say...

There's only one brown person on EPISD's Board of Trustees. Seriously the board couldn't look less like El Paso if it tried, but that is the community's fault for not electing people that represent their communities. Anywho, everyone in the community just knows that its going to be the poor brown schools that get closed.

And that is why the Board appears to not give two shits about consulting with the community. Making a multi-million dollar major policy shift just 3 weeks before the budget is supposed to be finalize is disrespectful to the communities where those schools are located. This is going to look like a bunch of white folks shoving a decision without community buy-in down their throats.

This is where all the Chicano activists should be defending their barrios. This is where they should be raising hell with torches and pitchforks.

Ross Moore makes a good point about the Board being too caught up in drama when they should have been dealing with this issue. Although, I think Moore needs to acknowledge he was part of the drama himself. I mean he did get in some pretty public fights with Dori Fenenbock and Juan Cabrera.

So was Hatch.

Speaking of Cabrera, where the hell is he? Your Super is usually the face of the district. He has been conspicuous in his absence in this conversation. There's a reason he's not anywhere near this issue.

The reality is that this conversation didn't happen sooner because it was too close to a bond election, or it was too close to election cycle.

There really is no "good time" for this tough decision to be made, but 3 weeks before the budget finalization is probably the worst possible way to go about this decision. Its always easier to rationalize why you don't do something versus having the political courage to make the tough calls.

And the rush on this isn't necessary.

They should find a way to meet the budget shortfall through departmental and administrative cuts for this year (which contrary to Mr. Velarde, administration costs at EPISD ARE quite high), then take their time and involve the community in a deliberative and collaborative process.

Can you think of one reason why you shouldn't, other than you don't like meeting with people who are angry? I'm sorry that inconveniences you as a leader and that you expected every decision to be easy, but welcome to being a leader.

The Fenenbock Factor 

Lets all take a moment to pause for a minute and remember a couple of things. First, when Dori Fenenbock was peddling the bond as a spring board for her congressional bid, the idea was for students that were going to schools that would be consolidated to go to schools that were upgrades to the school being closed.

That isn't going to happen now.

Lets also remember that Dori was running for congress and never once showed the leadership to bring this issue up before now. There were a lot of hardcore Chicanos that supported Dori because, well they didn't like Escobar. I wonder how they feel now knowing that this was an issue that could've been dealt with when she is in a position to ensure that it was a reasonable conversation and not something shoved down our throats but chose not to?

Sure is interesting when you put into perspective her trips to visit charter schools around the country and now we have a situation where the charters can follow their normal playbook and open up in abandoned schools in impoverished communities...

Especially now that this plan is being put into place by Trent Hatch, her hand-picked successor.

Union Role

I know a lot of people that are pretty upset with the unions in this situation and think they "sold out". Predictably, I'm gonna defend them on this one. Ross Moore and Norma De La Rosa have shown leadership that is absent from the EPISD Superintendent on this issue. The Super is at least as guilty as the school board trustees for not acting on this issue sooner, if not more so.

A union boss' first job is to protect their membership. The union boss' in EPISD did their job.

The unions hate Cabrera, hell Ross Moore called for Cabrera to be fired. There's no love lost there. Hatch probably has Cabrera duct taped to a chair in a basement in the main office while they iron this all out for that exact reason.

But the union bosses, Norma De La Rosa from El Paso Teachers' Association and Ross Moore of AFT, protected union jobs. Thats what they are supposed to do. That is their job. To his credit, Ross Moore seems to understand more than the officers on the board exactly how bad the budget problem is there at EPISD. According to his figures, when you compound interest, inflation, etc the problem is even bigger than EPISD has said.

Moore is also calling for a couple of really important things that you should take notice of.

First, he's calling for a special meeting of the Board of Trustees to be held on June 19th to discuss this issue. This would likely be the only meaningful time for a public conversation on the issue. One meeting isn't enough obviously, but it is important that Moore is calling for the meeting and if he wants it, its likely he will get it. Hatch wouldn't dare risk upsetting the unions during the next three weeks.

The other important thing he's asking for that I think is really great, is a separate closure plan from each trustee. That gives you options and lets you see who is really putting some thought in solving this problem that they have with declining enrollment and a budget shortfall. Its like he's going back to the classroom and asking the trustees to show their work in math class. The community will get to see who is actually committed to solving the issue and who is just there to cast a vote with the wind.

The trustees need to put the effort into this mess they (unnecessarily) created with the 11th hour approach, not the bean-counters on Boeing.

The problem I see for the unions here is that the jobs are protected to the extent that they can take Hatch at his word that the teachers will be protected. Thats a lot of faith to put into a Republican. Republicans want to end unions. Yes, I looked up Hatch's voting record. Solid Republican, until the last primary were he could vote for his benefactor Dori Fenenbock...

I just don't see how union folks can stick their neck out for a guy who's values are diametrically opposed to their existence as an entity.

The brilliance of what they did is that they are in a position to pull out Hatch's chair from under him if they aren't getting what they want. But they are also in a position of great responsibility and the community is going to expect a lot from them. They are essentially the only thing stopping the community from getting completely hosed in all of this.

They can either parlay their position to benefit transparency and fairness in the closure process - or they will be seen - best case scenario, as naive for working with Hatch, or worst case scenario, co-conspirators in a community screw job.

Byrd-Dogging

Byrd is taking the community position on this and trying to push back on this effort to shove this down the community's throat, but she's essentially the only one.

Union Boss Ross Moore said something about her that just isn't consistent with the facts. He implied that Byrd isn't pro-teacher and wasn't holding Cabrera accountable.

Byrd appears to have a 100% voting record when it comes to teachers. She's certainly the most teacher friendly member of the board, so I'm scratching my head wondering why Moore made that remark, but there's a chance I misunderstood his implication.

But one I didn't misunderstand was is implication that Susie Byrd wasn't holding Cabrera accountable on the board and that Diane Dye (of all people) is.

Diane Dye holding him accountable? Laughable.

Byrd is essentially the ONLY person holding Cabrera accountable. The travel gate is a big example. Why the hell does Cabrera have a grievance against her if Byrd isn't holding him accountable? You don't file grievances against people you have a good relationship with.

I don't think there is enough time for Byrd to be able to stop this now. She's literally the only one standing up for barrio kids right now. This is going to end badly. Its going to be yet another reason people don't trust local government.

And its a perfect example of why people need to take a close look at who they elect for school board because when you don't, you get a board that doesn't look like your community, and worse yet, doesn't respond to your community.

To my fellow Chicanos...take note of who is on what side of this issue. Remember who is on our side, and more importantly, who is not.

Vote accordingly.