Former EPISD employee speaks out on allegations of intimidation and retaliation

“I’ve been vocal about it before but nobody has ever really listened.” said Deborah Svedman.

She’s worked for the El Paso Independent School District for almost thirty years, but near the end of her teachingcareer, Svedman says things started to change.

She says what she saw superintendent Lorenzo Garcia doing was wrong.

“I had a good friend of mine who was unceremoniously dumped from her position and replaced with Garcia’s girlfriend.” said Svedman.

Garcia recently confessed to making El Paso educators cheat on standardized testing.

Svedman says principals and teachers weren’t given a choice.

“This was a new initiative. It was a non-negotiable, that the new superintendent came in an said this is what we’re going to do and we’re going to get our test score up and your going to do this.” And if there was any dissent, Svedman tells ABC-7,”You’re demoted and you are out, or you have your choice of going back to the classroom, or going to the professional library.”

And if there was any dissent, Svedman tells ABC-7 or you have your choice of going back to the classroom, or going to the professional library.”

Svedman says it wasn’t the educators who paid the greatest price, it was the kids especially, those who had been hidden due to their low scores or failure to master the English language.

“Something needs to be done. We need to reach out and find these kids and offer them something,” said Svedman. “We need to offer them night courses. We need to offer thempossibly of going to a G.E.D.; reimbursement if they had to pay for something, because I think we owe that to them.”