El Paso American Federation of Teachers decides against endorsing some board members

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)-- In a Facebook post to their members, the El Paso American Federation of Teachers said they will not endorse Leah Hanany from District 1 or Jack Loveridge from District 3.

The letter states: "You put 500+ EPISD employees at risk of losing their job." The president of El Paso American Federation of Teachers, Ross Moore says board members voted against school closures for personal benefit.

"When you started looking through the details and thinking why would they want to block closures, improve schools then other motives came out," Moore said.

Hanany and Loveridge deny all accusations. Loveridge said he voted against school closures because not enough information was provided to board members about how the closures would impact the district in the long run.

"The community outcry around this particular plan, was such that, I felt I couldn't vote for that plan. As it was, I was concerned about, the financial outlook of it that it would actually add to costs in the long run, that it wouldn't really help, academic performance," Loveridge said.

Hanany said she believes everyone on the board has in one way or another, agreed that school closures needed to happen, but it was matter of which schools and how. "Unfortunately, the district did propose, 10 schools slated for closure. A majority of those schools were schools with economically disadvantaged populations of 90% or more".

Moore says the financial advising firm Hanany works for could apply for a contract with the school as a subcontractor, which could be a conflict of interest. Hanany says her firm has never worked with EPISD and has no plans to.