SISD audit results in four administrators put on leave; new investigation launched
Auditor Dr. Pam Padilla found no evidence of the Socorro Independent School district of falsifying grades or manipulating credits after reviewing thousands of transcripts.
Yet four Socorro administrators have been on put leave effectively immediately
They are Pat O’Neill, assistant super of administration; Dr. Cynthia Lopez, assistant superintendent of secondary education; Rebecca O’Neill, assistant superintendent for elementary education; and Dr. Holly Fields, director of secondary staff.
These administrators could be connected with a questionable SISD policy, the EIE regulation.This policy allows the credits of a 9th grade student from Mexico to be held. After the student has finished the 9th grade in the U.S. the credits from Mexico are then added to the 9th grades here, pushing the student past the tenth grade and straight into the 11th, allowing them to skip the TAKS state accountability test.
Overall, Padilla, who is the former Canutillo ISD superintendent, found 21 anomalies in the 13,000 transcripts she reviewed from the graduating classes from 2009-2012.
They mainly included unexplained grade skipping, failing the TAKS test but still being moved to the 12th grade, and not being promoted on time. She gave the board some recommendations:
– Get new software to better report and monitor credits
– Have standard procedures for recovering credits
– Make staff aware they can anonymously share any concerns with the internal auditor
– Strengthen that internal auditor’s expertise.
“I have recommended to the SISD Board of Trustees that and outside, independent legal team be hired to conduct a full investigation into the matter to determine whether individuals were involved in wrong-doing,’ Superintendent Jose Espinoza said. “We will leave no stone un-turned in the search for truth.”
The district will now pursue a second external audit, find the students affected by this policy, and send results of this internal audit to the Texas Education Agency, Department of education and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The board said they are also going to initiate a corrective action plan as soon as possible.
Padilla was paid $100 per hour with a cap of $45,000.
