Sharon Boyd, Editor/Publisher |
DallasArena.com Your alternative to The Dallas Managed News Gehrig Saldaņa
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Last Thursday, the DISD Trustees gave a strong "No" to Dr. Hinojosa's recommendation to do away with the residency policy for upper echelon DISD administrators in a 6-3 vote. We commend DISD Board Chair Jack Lowe and DISD Trustees Lew Blackburn, Leigh Ann Ellis, Jerome Garza, Adam Medrano and Ron Price for doing right by DISD students and taxpayers. They rebuffed another attempt by Dr. Hinojosa to disrespect taxpayers by voting against his recommendation that the residency policy be scrapped. They also made the residency policy stronger by taking the power out of his hands to grant waivers to this board policy. It must be noted that Trustee Carla Ranger voted "No" on keeping the residency policy because she wanted a policy stronger than what was passed. We also commend her for keeping the best interests of students and taxpayers foremost in her efforts.
Dr. Hinojosa
has claimed he would lose a couple
of the top administrators at DISD if the residency policy was not
scrapped and that it would be bad to lose these two or three
people. After he has just callously thrown
hundreds of little people out of
their jobs, he is now crying about possibly
losing two or three top-paid administrators because of the residency
policy. His arguments to scrap the residency policy ring very,
very hollow in some circles.
Dr. Hinojosa has done a flip-flop on this issue. When it was brought to light by the media that some administrators were violating the board's residency policy, Dr. Hinojosa said they had until July 1, 2007 to move into the district DISD schools chief stands by residency rule (DallasNews.com, 2/13/07). July 1st came and went and still these administrators had not moved into the district. Then comes Dr. Hinojosa's recommendation to scrap the residency policy which the trustees voted down.
By not giving the superintendent carte blanche on this
issue, maybe the majority of trustees are finally ending the rubber
stamp era for Dr. Hinojosa. It's well time they did. Why? Let
me count just some of the reasons:
1. He didn't make good on his promise to account for
every dollar fraudulently spent in the p-card scandal.
He did
not hold accountable those responsible for misspending
DISD education
dollars. In fact, he promoted some of the the biggest spenders, and most
of the biggest spenders are still employed by the DISD.
2. He made Sherri Brokaw the scapegoat for the p-card
scandal. That got us a lawsuit filed by Sherri Brokaw which
will cost us, school children and taxpayers, lost dollars if
she prevails in winning this lawsuit. Another botched job of handling
employee issues. (
Scapegoat -- How Michael Hinojosa escaped blame
in the DISD credit card scandal, by Jim Schutze,
DallasObserver.com, 9/20/07)
3. In the 2005-06 school year 26 schools in DISD were
found to have failed under federal No Child Left Behind
benchmarks. Last school year (2006-07), that number
increased to 46 failed schools! (N. Texas schools
falling further behind, DMN, 8-16-07)
4. By state TEA standards, we had an increase
in low-performing schools and a decrease in
exemplary and recognized schools.
5. He allowed one of his top administrators (Viramontes)
to engage in nepotism by allowing that administrator's wife to work for
someone that reports directly to him. First the superintendent said he
saw no problem with this nepotism; when there were complaints, all of a
sudden he flip-flops and Viramontes' wife is reporting to another of his
deputies. (DISD
couple's positions raise nepotism questions,
DallasNews.com, 8-22-07.)
6. He allowed close to 200 employees to attend a
conference in
Canada to the tune of $300,000+ dollars not spent in the
classroom. (DISD
incurs 'eye-popping' costs on
Canada trip,
by Brett Shipp, WFAA.com, 9-27-07)
7. His reorganization ended up throwing close to 200
employees out on the street, employees who were on the lower end of the
salary scale, while leaving the majority of the high-paid administrators
in place. The reorganization was carried out in a way that created lots
of turmoil, anxiety and demoralization of staff.
Let's hope the trustees continue to provide oversight of
DISD administration and expenditure of tax dollars to assure that those
decisions and expenditures are made in a way that best serves the
children in DISD schools and the DISD taxpayers. Let's hope that the
rubber stamping by the majority of the board has truly come to an end.
Time will tell.
Gehrig Saldaņa |
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