Ex-Bowie principal testifies, says district officials called him the ‘Golden Boy’

Two more key witnesses took the stand on Thursday in the trial of five former El Paso Independent School District employees accused of taking part in the district’s cheating scandal.

Former Bowie High Principal Jesus Chavez and the man who discovered he was discouraging Limited English Proficiency students from enrolling at the school, EPISD’s Director of Pupil Services Mark Mendoza, testified for several hours.

Chavez talked about the directives he received from EPISD administrators, including then superintendent Lorenzo Garcia, assistant superintendent Damon Murphy and associate superintendent James Anderson to discourage LEP students from enrolling at Bowie in order to meet federal accountability standards.

Chavez was asked by U.S. prosecutors if those actions were in the best interest of students.

“No sir,” Chavez said. “They were in the best interest of the district and the school, not the kids.”

Chavez said all schools were following district directives but only he and Bowie found itself under the microscope. Chavez was given the term “Golden Boy” by colleagues at the district because of his closeness with Garcia.

“I didn’t know I was the ‘Golden Boy’ — that term — until years later,” said Chavez, who was not charged in this case but has been sanctioned by the state to include the loss of his teaching certification for five years. He is now working as a trauma nurse in El Paso.

Under cross examination, Chavez was asked by defense attorneys about a possible deal with the government to testify in the case, in order to avoid prosecution.

“You’re telling the jury you had no agreement, but conspired and broke the law and you were not charged,” defense attorney Liz Rogers said. “And you have no agreement you will not be charged?”

Chavez responded, “That is correct.”

Mendoza took the stand and described how he discovered LEP students were being turned away at Bowie.

“Students who were a risk to the campus in terms of graduation rates were not allowed to enroll,” Mendoza said, pointing to a conversation with Chavez where he admitted what he was doing. “I told him this is wrong. I cannot believe what you are telling me you are doing to these kids. And he was bragging about it.”

Mendoza was then asked why he chose to become an informant for the FBI in the case, after telling Anderson and Murphy about it.

“I was making my concerns known to people that to my estimate were responsible for actually putting these things in place,” Mendoza said.

Anderson, former Austin High Principal John Tanner and assistant principal Mark Tegmeyer are charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Government. Former Austin assistant principal Diane Thomas is charged with retaliating against a witness or a victim. Former Austin assistant principal Nancy Love is charged with retaliating against a witness or victim and false declaration before a grand jury.

According to court documents, the cheating scandal was designed to allegedly artificially inflate schools’ federal accountability scores. The administrators allegedly engaged in schemes designed to discourage at-risk students from registering in schools, to underrepresent at-risk student populations within the schools and fraudulently award class credits to students to falsely increase graduation rates of schools, change attendance records of students and manipulate students grade levels to avoid state accountability tests.