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MERCEDES — Ceiling tiles falling on employees. Leaky roofs. Millions of dollars in unbudgeted expenses.
Add to the equation a bitterly divided board, a board president who consistently refuses to speak to the press, a pair of widely talked about alleged sex scandals and a school that can’t seem to find a permanent campus.
Lastly, throw in a superintendent’s sudden announcement that she’s retiring and then, finally, you’ll have an understanding of the eye-popping drama unfolding at Mercedes ISD.
Tensions at the district have been simmering for at least a year. Last week the pot appeared to finally bubble over.
The breaking point, it seemed, was the board denying Superintendent Carolyn Mendiola’s request to delay an unbudgeted campus move expected to cost at least $2.15 million. Among myriad other concerns, she said repairs simply can’t be made in time for the beginning of the school year in August.
By the sound of it, students will be moving into facilities that seem blatantly inadequate and perhaps unsafe. Staff will be moving from those inadequate facilities into other inadequate facilities.
Superintendent Mendiola announced her intention to retire later this year within 24 hours of that meeting and the board is set to consider her resignation in a meeting Monday. She plans to stay on through September.
However, another item popped up on Monday’s agenda: discussion on engaging law firm O’Hanlon, Demerath & Castillo as special counsel.
It’s unclear why the board is considering special counsel.
What is clear is that over a year’s worth of turmoil at Mercedes ISD has come to a head.
A WANDERING CAMPUS
The root of district leadership’s most recent controversy stems from where to put the Mercedes Early College Academy, or MECA.
Despite being heralded as one of the district’s main academic successes, the academy and its 400-odd students have had a difficult time finding a permanent home.
The district moved the institution into Mercedes High School for the 2021-22 school year, where it has its own wing and a portable.
Mendiola said Tuesday that conditions at MECA’s previous facility actually scared her. It lacked AC and heating. There were leaks and possibly mold.
However, housing MECA students with Mercedes High students proved to be less than universally popular.
Some students and parents complained of a culture clash at the campus that led to bullying between students and friction between Mercedes High staff and MECA kids. Others supported the move: MECA students could take advantage of the district’s Career and Technical Education programs more readily because of it.
Mendiola, for her part, urged patience.
A majority on the board felt differently. They voted to move MECA once again in February, this time into the district’s central office building.
A minority faction of trustees and Mendiola urged caution: none of the funds associated with the move were budgeted. The district estimated at the time that it would have to relocate 71 staff members at central office, in addition to hundreds of MECA staff and students.
The district had no ready plans to accommodate culinary and special education students that may be impacted.
Still, the board plowed ahead, planning to have students move into the central office building by the beginning of the school year in August.
Mendiola said Tuesday that that timeline is simply not possible. If students move into the building this August, they’ll be moving into inadequate facilities.
“Again, we need a cafeteria, they need to have a TDA compliant cafeteria, which we did not have funding for, and that is gonna take time. Obviously, the roof is gonna take anywhere from eight to 10 months,” she said. “So we won’t have a cafeteria ready and the roofs will continue to leak.”
MAKING A MOVE
Just how leaky are the roofs at the central office building?
Mendiola said ceiling tiles in that building have fallen on staff members.
MECA’s previous campus scared Mendiola. She’s also afraid of the central office building it’s slated to move into.
“I have staff here that we deal with the tiles falling, we deal with the leaky roofs, we deal with the sewer smell,” she said. “But we’re adults and we’ve been able to manage. My priority are students, as far as the safety — of course staff is definitely a priority — but we’re not as many as 400 individuals in one building.”
Staff moving out of the central office building to accommodate the academy won’t find their lot substantially changed.
Trustee Rachel Treviño provided The Monitor with photos from one of the buildings those staff members will be moving into.
Those photos show gloomy looking rooms with discolored, water-stained ceiling tiles. Other ceiling tiles are absent or appear to have become wet enough to break into pieces.
Treviño caustically accused trustees pushing the move of sacrificing the well-being of staff to complete the project quickly at Tuesday’s meeting.
“What is wrong with everybody?” Treviño asked. “You know, we make decisions like this like it’s no big freaking deal.”
Asked about the results of her request to delay the move being denied Wednesday, Mendiola wrote, essentially, that district staff is working hard and crossing their fingers.
“We are diligently working on moving out so we can move to early college over this summer,” she wrote. “We hope we have no delays so they can be ready to start school here in August.”
Mendiola did not respond to a question about whether the central office building would be safe for students by August, or if students may have ceiling tiles falling onto their heads.
To make matters even more complicated, the MECA move will not be cheap.
A February estimate of at least $1.2 million for the move has since ballooned to at least $2.15 million, district materials show.
That estimate excludes culinary relocation costs, installing an intercom system and adding a fire alarm panel.
Total estimates for unbudgeted projects at the district stand around $3.14 million.
ESSER funding and disaster pennies, brought financial relief to the district and helped it move forward on projects without going out for a bond. Those funds haven’t solved the district’s financial woes.
“Even with the disaster pennies and the ESSER 3, we’re still gonna lack funding,” Mendiola said.
Trustee Brian Acosta, who is in the minority faction, expressed concern about a lack of financial planning to the board.
“Things have to be planned out,” he said. “We can’t just shoot from the hip and go through this type of projects which are going to cause us to sacrifice things that we’ve worked very hard to get to at this point in time.”
LEADERSHIP CHANGE
When Superintendent Mendiola announced that she planned to retire by September, she said board politics and the decision to go ahead with the MECA move played no role in her decision. It was, she said, simply time for her to slow down and spend a little more time on the beach.
It’s difficult to see how Tuesday’s meeting wouldn’t make someone want to head to the beach.
Trustees in the majority on the board pressed Mendiola, particularly over what they saw as a too-slow approach to the pending MECA move.
“I did not want to begin any of the construction until the total amount was approved and the cost is budgeted for,” she told them. “Because all these moves were not budgeted. They were not part of our budgeted items.”
Mendiola said in addition to getting estimates and budgeting, the district has made some incremental steps to prepare for the move, like moving around textbooks and vacating a COVID testing site that was housed in the human resources building.
That action did not appear to have been aggressive enough for some trustees.
“I just, I’m kind of concerned, because you know, the incremental part of it…I would say somebody move a desk, at least. But that’s just me and my humor,” Board President Oscar Hernandez said dryly.
No one laughed at the humor.
Trustee Treviño — the only trustee who talked to The Monitor last week — said she feels Mendiola’s decision to retire was directly caused by her relationship with the board and micromanagement by trustees.
“In my opinion, when you hire a superintendent to do a job for the district, you have to allow her to make decisions based on what she sees,” Treviño said.
Treviño speculated Mendiola refrained from saying that to be professional. There is, Treviño claimed, a culture of silence at the district. She said employees fear retaliation from board trustees, and Treviño herself expected to face some sort of blowback for speaking with The Monitor.
Micromanagement aside, Mendiola and Board President Hernandez have certainly found themselves at odds before.
About a year ago, Hernandez joined an attempt by trustees to have Mendiola put on leave in the wake of a sexual assault scandal at the district that lead to an arrest.
The attempt failed.
Instead, trustees voted Hernandez out as board president and Treviño was voted in.
Political winds shifted on the board in November.
Trustees voted Hernandez in as president once again, with Lucy Delgado apparently switching over to his faction.
Mendiola says she wants to serve through September before officially retiring. The board is slated to meet Monday to consider accepting her resignation.
The elephant in the room is why the district is considering hiring special counsel.
Treviño said she was surprised to see that item pop up on the agenda and doesn’t know why it’s there, although she added she feels “perhaps a discussion has occurred and a decision has been made…that’s my opinion and I hope I am mistaken.”
Treviño, the only trustee to comment on Mendiola’s retirement announcement, said the news is a blow to the district.
“We are losing a great leader,” she said. “I know that in my opinion or my thoughts things could have been handled differently and we would have been more successful if she had been allowed to do her job.”
