Edinburg Consolidated Independent School

EDINBURG — A resolution that would have temporarily granted Superintendent Mario Salinas a greater degree of hiring autonomy sparked controversy Tuesday on the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School Board of Trustees and was ultimately rejected in a split vote.

The resolution was billed as a way to give the new superintendent hiring flexibility in order to reorganize staff while schools continue to reopen.

As it was originally written, the resolution would have suspended certain board hiring provisions contained within local district policy and allowed the superintendent to act as the final authority for the employment of contractual and non-contractual personnel.

It would have also allowed the superintendent to hire TRS retirees to fill positions in the district. The resolution was originally planned to last through December of this year.

Critics of the resolution — namely Carmen Gonzalez, Xavier Salinas, Oscar Salinas, and Dominga “Minga” Vela — opposed it for a variety of reasons. Some expressed concern over the retire/rehire exemption while others were worried about the impact the resolution would have on current district employees.

“As you already know, there are many of our ECISD staff that have been waiting, hoping and praying for an ECISD opportunity,” Vela said Tuesday. “Please, do not take that opportunity away from our present staff. Because at the end of the day, we are all family at ECISD.”

None of the trustees who opposed the resolution criticized Salinas and some even reaffirmed their support for him.

Salinas, and board supporters of the resolution, argued that the resolution gave the new superintendent the power he needs to fulfill his mandate.

“The larger the pool of qualified applicants, in my opinion, the higher degree of the quality of the pool,” Salinas said. “Therefore, enabling me as a superintendent to make it easier for me to hire the most qualified individual that I can find. I owe it to the students of the school district to find the most qualified individual for the school district. If I fail in doing that I fail as a superintendent, and I’m out of here. Period.”

Board supporters of the resolution — Mike Farias, Louie Alamia, and Letty Garcia — also said the new superintendent needs help administratively and that hiring decisions need to be made quickly. They argued that Salinas deserves trust and support from the board and doesn’t need to be micromanaged.

“I’ll be the first to say, this board has way too much authority and power,” Farias, the board president, said. “Way too much. And all that this is trying to do is pull us out of the process so he can make his decision and pick his cabinet. That’s it.”

Alamia, the board’s only freshman trustee, also called the retire-rehire concerns hypocritical.

“Where was this retire-rehire stoppage when we brought back Mr. Gilbert Garza as an interim superintendent two years ago,” he asked. “Not only that, he did not have his certification to be a superintendent two years ago.”

Supporters of the resolution were ultimately out-voted. A compromise amendment that would have changed the expiration date of the resolution from December to May, and restricted personnel affected by it to central office staff, was also rejected.

“I think we don’t need a resolution to allow the superintendent to do the right thing,” Carmen Gonzalez said. “There’s enough policies in place that will give him that opportunity.”

The often pointed discussion illustrated some deep fissures on the board.

After the vote, Alamia read a prepared statement criticising a senior board member who shared part of their agenda packet prior to the meeting. He said that document should have stayed out of the public eye and called for the trustee to be excluded from executive session.

“There is a senior board member serving on the ECISD board who openly admitted to me that the ECISD board packet that was shared by Truth Tellers of RGV was her board packet,” he said. “Understanding this information makes me feel very uncomfortable and also requires me to inform the public that we are not here for the amusement of this Facebook page or other entities that try to demoralize our families, our administration or us as individuals. I don’t feel it is in the best interest for this board to go into executive session with this senior board member present.”

The Facebook page Alamia referenced is anonymously operated and has been a frequent critic of his. The page primarily posts about Edinburg CISD gossip and local political news, and has posted about rumors of high level administration changes at the district and made allegations of cronyism at the district for weeks.

Carmen Gonzalez said that she was the senior board member Alamia was talking about, but she denied being in cahoots with any blog and defended sharing agenda packet information with the community. She said she would be attending executive session.

“Once I get the packet, the agenda packet, in my house, it becomes public information. And we’re talking about being transparent? There’s nothing wrong with sharing with your community what is being discussed Tuesday,” Gonzalez said. “This is not executive session. I know and have respected executive session all of my life.”


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