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By a 4-3 vote, the Brownsville Independent School District Board of Trustees has extended the contract of Superintendent Rene Gutierrez for an additional year through 2025.
The vote came at the last official board meeting of the 2022-2023 academic year on June 28. At the same meeting, the board approved administrative appointments for the coming school year, including new principals at several schools.
Gutierrez is to be paid an annual salary of $354,128 through June 30, 2025, according to the contract, which is posted on the BISD website.
Board President Jessica Gonzalez voted in favor of the contract extension, along with trustees Daniella Lopez Valdez, Denise Garza and Eddie Garcia. Board Vice President Carlos Elizondo and trustees Frank Ortiz and Minerva Pena voted against.
Garcia thanked Gutierrez for moving the district forward and credited his leadership for the district being in a financial position to award employee raises to catch BISD up with other Rio Grande Valley districts in terms of employee compensation. He said teachers were given raises totaling $10,000 over the last three years.
“We navigated through COVID and did not have any issues as far as personnel is concerned and that is something you are advocating. And I thank you. We don’t want to lose any more personnel,” Garcia said after the vote had been taken.
Garcia also gave credit to the staff and noted BISD went from having 26 students to more than 300 receive their associate’s degrees through dual enrollment programs.
Elizondo said the district’s teachers, staff and students deserve the praise.
“All the accolades should be given to the staff the teachers and all BISD employees not just the superintendent,” Elizondo, speaking remotely, said during the meeting.
“He was brought in here with all the staff he already had here, so he didn’t bring any leadership other than himself … the accolades should be given to the staff, the kids of the district. They’re the ones that are making you look good,” Elizondo said.
Gonzalez said she decided to vote for the contract extension after consideration.
“As board president, I just want to remind the community that as board members our duty is to evaluate the superintendent, not the staff out in the community. So I will say I debated. I did speak to one of my colleagues today. And I will be honest, and I will say that I have been threatened on how this vote was going to go and to be very careful,” she said.
“I want to remind the community that every vote that I do is in the best interest of the district not necessarily my political future.”
Gutierrez has been BISD superintendent for the past five years. The Region One Educational Service Center named him the 2023 regional superintendent of the year, an honor he also received in 2012 as superintendent of the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District.
