EPISD School Board to Discuss Task Force Recommendations

(Nov. 2012 story)

The El Paso School District Board of Trustees will address its adoption of recommendations submitted by the EPISD Task Force at the school board meeting Tuesday evening.

Task Force members pushed to have an item added to the meeting’s agenda to gauge the district’s progress in implementing the recommended changes.

Some members of the task force say the school board has not taken action on its recommendations that include public apologies.

“We ask that each Board member prepare a written apology to the constituents of their district,” a task force letter to the District, written in September, states. “Expressing acknowledgement of their failure and stipulating the measures they will take to prevent a recurrence of such events above and beyond what is being recommended herein.”

School board members did not return KVIA’s calls Monday night.

The task force also called for school board members to take immediate action on the following items:

Redevelop selection process for the superintendent. Acquire an internal auditor. Create rules for financial accounting. Perform a school board self-evaluation. Address the board’s internal organization via an attorney.

Task force members contacted by KVIA did not want to be identified, but suggest the school board has not addressed all of the recommendations.

The EPISD Task Force is an advisory committee composed of eight business and community leaders, created in response to the EPISD scandal that earned former Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia a prison sentence.

Garcia pleaded guilty to a scheme wherein low-performing students were placed in wrong grade levels in order to avoid standardized testing.

The former superintendent also was convicted awarding a $450,000 district contract to a woman with whom he was having an affair.

Garcia is currently serving a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for his misdeeds.

(Nov. 2012 story)