PSJA school board member Cynthia Gutierrez is threatening legal action against her board’s president if he doesn’t apologize to her or resign his post following an interaction at an Oct. 18 meeting she characterizes as sexist and racist.
That interaction is the latest between Gutierrez and brothers Jesse and Jorge Zambrano, who sit on the school board as trustee and president, respectively.
That most recent incident happened early in that meeting, when Jorge Zambrano noticed a “Dr.” in front of Gutierrez’s name after she requested to speak. He asked IT to change it.
“This is misleading,” Zambrano said.
That request led to a significant rebuttal from Gutierrez, who described it as a personal attack against her. She described her medical credentials, and said she didn’t care if her name had a “Dr.” in front of it but certainly did care about the way that title had been addressed.
“But I just want to say that it’s disrespectful, the way that I have been treated for the past 11 months,” she said. “One, being a female — and I’m not playing any female card — and two, with respect to my education. So thank you everyone again, and I apologize to everyone for having to witness this last 11 months that have been unnecessary and embarrassing.”
Trustee Carlos Villegas jumped in as well, defending Gutierrez and castigating the board president.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Villegas told him.
In a committee meeting a week later, Gutierrez remained standing after the pledge, acknowledged that she was out of line and not following the agenda, and said that she would continue standing in meetings until she received an apology from Jorge Zambrano.
Shortly after, Villegas stood up as well in support of Gutierrez.
Most of the meeting took place in executive session, after which Villegas took a seat again. Business seemed to proceed as normal around the one-person protest.
Gutierrez said Friday that she plans to stand in a courtroom as well, though she didn’t specify what sort of form that legal action may take.
“I stand by my belief that it was a racist comment, it was racist,” she said. “It’s discrimination. It’s misogynistic because they continuously, constantly, make comments like that.”
Jorge Zambrano did not respond to a request for comment, and so far it doesn’t appear any apology has been forthcoming.
The incident continues to simmer on social media, on posts made by Gutierrez and video clips from the meeting.
It’s a complete about-face for the relationship between Gutierrez and the Zambrano brothers.
A year ago, those three and trustee Jesse Vela ran an energetic campaign that successfully won a majority of seats on the board.
The way Gutierrez tells it, after a honeymoon period of a month or so she began differing with her former political allies on matters of district business.
That rift became apparent as the second half of the 2020-21 school year progressed.
At a committee meeting in April, Jesse Zambrano defended a stance on UIL before asking Gutierrez how long she’d served on the board.
“I’ve been here four years, Ms. Gutierrez, and every year we look at this,” he told her. “So I don’t need you to school me on stipends or programs or anything like that. I’m very well aware of the programs.”
Zambrano said he felt he needed to make his point because Gutierrez had “made it a point at every board meeting to continue to go against some of the suggestions” that he made.
Villegas rode to Gutierrez’s defense, telling Zambrano to stop attacking her.
“And four years on the school board, really, what kind of weight does that carry?” he said. “I can say I was on the school board six years before you were.”
“Good job, Mr. Villegas,” Zambrano retorted before Superintendent Jorge Arredondo cut through a cacophony of voices to bring the meeting back to order.
According to Gutierrez, those sorts of interactions became the norm, especially behind closed doors in executive session meetings.
“I let them, because I want to be the bigger person,” she said. “Everything, their yelling and their behavior when nobody’s watching. To me, that’s not what is protected, what’s protected is the information that is in front of us.”
A year’s worth of vitriol, Gutierrez said, led to that Monday meeting in October.
The crux of the issue — Gutierrez’s title — was a talking point during the 2020 election as well.
Gutierrez said she is a licensed doctor in Mexico and provided The Monitor with a variety of medical certifications and diplomas.
“Everyone in my community knows that I went to medical school in Mexico,” she said. “Everyone.”
Gutierrez even says the “PSJA Stronger Together” slate actively used her medical credentials to their advantage while campaigning. She’s also serving as an epidemiologist for Hidalgo County.
“He knows because we ran together,” she said. “He knows because back when we ran on our biography they made it a point to mention that I was a doctor in Mexico because they felt that in our area it gives people some respect, even if you’re not practicing.”
It’s also common practice for Rio Grande Valley school districts to refer to administrators with doctorates in education as “doctors,” including PSJA ISD’s own Superintendent Jorge Arredondo.
