Weslaco school board trustees narrowly approved Superintendent Dino Coronado’s resignation Tuesday in a sharply divided vote that indicated the divorce is anything but amicable.
One trustee said he felt Coronado could have been fired. Another, in the minority, steadfastly backed the superintendent’s efforts since he joined the district in March and disagreed with the timing of Coronado’s resignation.
Trustees on both sides of the issue indicated the agreement they reached with Coronado will be pricey. Their discussion also indicated Coronado had lost the support of the majority of the board, and may have been facing removal.
Absent from the picture was Coronado himself, who did not attend the meeting and said Wednesday that he was in Chicago visiting family.
Coronado denied any insinuations of wrongdoing and said he didn’t do anything worth being fired over, adding that he felt he’d had a difficult time gaining traction due to frequent leadership changes.
“It was an honor to serve the community of Weslaco and Weslaco ISD,” he said. “So I think that for them to paint a picture of my performance being negative I think is a way to justify their actions. I think in the end, the truth will come out.”
Coronado declined to elaborate on his agreement with the district. He said his last day as functional superintendent was the 20th, although his effective resignation date won’t be till the end of January 2023.
A release from the district said the agreement allows Coronado the ”ability to pursue other interests.”
The board voted 4-3 to approve the resignation agreement. Old guard trustees voted against approving it. Trustees serving their first terms on the board voted in favor.
The latter group hinted there might be some significant concern about Coronado’s performance at the district. Trustee Jesse Treviño said the board had “witnessed things that were not to our liking,” things he said he wouldn’t stand behind.
Trustee Marcos De Los Santos said trustees couldn’t paint a much clearer picture of their attitude toward Coronado.
“There (are) policies and regulations and things in place that really prevent officials from being transparent (to) the community — and even the media — from seeing the true story and some of the true actions and things that happen here,” he said.
For at least some on the board, those concerns are evidently significant.
Trustee Ben Castillo, an education attorney elected in November, said he felt the board could have pursued Coronado’s termination and met the threshold for just cause. He described the board’s actions Tuesday as more efficient and possibly cheaper than termination in the long run.
“Going down that route, that process by statute is just complicated,” he said. “And lawyers are involved — it’s just a very lengthy process. And by entering into an agreement like this, it saves everybody the time and the effort to go through something like this.”
Signs of friction between Coronado and trustees began popping up late this summer, although tension never appeared to reach a boiling point publicly and it’s unclear exactly what those trustees are concerned about.
In August, De Los Santos expressed significant concern over the way Coronado handled an administrative shakeup at the district prompted by its incendiary forensic audit from 2021.
Treviño later expressed concerns about an HVAC project the district was considering.
Now board President Jacky Sustaita has bumped heads with Coronado over dress code policies. Trustees have discussed in depth this semester district personnel policies and employee compensation.
Whatever led to the lack of faith did not seem to affect the district’s longer serving trustees as significantly.
Trustee Armando Cuellar said the timing of the resignation the board approved wasn’t right and gave Coronado a wholehearted endorsement.
“I believe that Dr. Coronado has done his very best to move this district forward, and he’s invested into personnel, bringing people from the outside to move this district forward,” Cuellar said. “He has done a lot of very positive things that I’m very pleased with, and I just want to say that having worked — and still working — with him has been an honor and a privilege.”
Trustee Idsidoro Nieto also endorsed the superintendent, saying an evaluation had been lacking from the process and criticized a lack of professionalism and ethics regarding the situation.
Coronado decried a lack of process as well.
“Those conversations never took place,” he said Wednesday. “I was never given a writeup, I was never given an evaluation, I was never given expectations, I was never given any form of formal communication from the board.”
Trustee Dr. Jaime Rodriguez did not explicitly endorse Coronado, but did seem uncomfortable with the decision the board reached. He said he felt the district shouldn’t “be held liable for any agreements that might be out there.”
“And if there is some wrongdoing on either party, I think in my opinion that should come to light and we shouldn’t have to be held liable for anything that might come out of this agreement,” he said.
Whatever the details of the agreement, it’s difficult to read Coronado’s departure and whatever led to it as anything but a failure for the district.
Coronado was the board’s chief instrument to address concerns unveiled by a forensic audit that coincided with former superintendent Priscilla Canales’ departure and led to the termination of two high-level district administrators.
Coronado’s hiring was the result of a formal, vigorous superintendent search process. He was a superintendent meant to last.
The administrative reforms Coronado embarked on were the most significant constructive measures to come out of that audit and the turbulence it led to.
The resignation was clearly hard news to put a positive spin on, but Nieto tried.
“Whatever the board decides, we’ll move forward and hire an interim and go forward and eventually get a superintendent that will benefit all seven that are up here,” he said. “Then we can move forward and get the school district back to where it was.”
The board voted to name Richard Rivera interim superintendent after approving the resignation agreement.
