SPECIAL REPORT: Allegations Of School Credit For Minimal Work

A whole semester’s worth of instruction may have been gained by students in a matter of hours.

Teachers, administrators, even students tell ABC-7 that a rush to graduate students who’ve fallen behind motivated El Paso Independent School District administrators to award full credit for minimal coursework.

“They’re basically getting a free credit,” said a current Jefferson High School student, who asked his identity not be disclosed. “The average I finished was about two weeks, but the fastest was about one week.”

The teen, who took part in a computer-based lab meant to recover credit for a failed course, said he wasn’t the fastest. Mini-mesters, also known as credit recover programs; have been completed as quickly as two or three hours, according to him.

“There is no minimum; you finish as fast as you can,” he said.

According to an official with the Texas Education Agency, the rules on mini-mesters are vague. The agency’s policy simply states that districts must ensure that teachers have enough time to teach, and students have enough time to learn.

Teachers within the El Paso Independent School District say they don’t believe students have been given sufficient time though.

At Irvin High School, a school never linked to the current EPISD investigation publicly until teachers came forward discussing the issues with ABC-7, described an odd occurrence at their school. According to one teacher, mini-mesters began as a four-week term, but as pressure intensified to increase graduation rates, the workload dwindled but credits continued to be churned out.

First mini-mesters were condensed to two Saturday instruction days; eventually one source claims they were whittled down to a few hours on a single Saturday.

“Some (students) were shown a movie for two or three hours, others were given a small paper to do,” said the teacher.

Others, including a former administrator at Jefferson, claim mini-mesters were administered as discussions that showed a student showed knowledge of a subject often lasting an hour or less. That former administrator said the practice was “the norm” during 2010, but more recent students say the process now includes computer learning, though it can be completed in hours.

According to a current teacher with Irvin High School, several colleagues have reached out to the current superintendent and the TEA about what they call “the twisting of policies,” but have yet to hear back from anyone.

EPISD officials did not give an interview with ABC-7 regarding this story due to an ongoing investigation the Federal Bureau of Investigation is performing with the help of the U.S. Department of Education.

However, a statement was issued that reads in part, “School districts are required to have an accelerated instruction program for students who are at risk of dropping out of school, who are not performing at grade level, or who did not perform satisfactorily on a state assessment.”

The statement also admitted that the district had turned over information regarding improperly conducted mini-mesters to federal investigators. Until now the district had not discussed mini-mesters, or the use of them despite holding a public news conference in April discussing the issues discovered during an internal audit into Bowie High School.

Several educators have now come forward and spoke with ABC-7 about mini-mesters at schools never discussed by the EPISD including Jefferson and Irvin High Schools.

“It’s taken a lot for me to come forward and talk this way, I fear for my job,” said one Irvin teacher. “I fear for other people’s jobs who are in the same boat.”

The current administration has been adamant that employee can come forward with information, and share it with the proper authorities. Meanwhile, students claim they have recently received course credit with little work.

To date, EPISD has only publicly addressed issues at Bowie High School. Former state senator Eliot Shapleigh claimed there were irregularities at Austin High School, and sources have come forward from Jefferson and Irvin as well.

The district maintains it can’t comment on anything because of an ongoing federal investigation.