This board got together and actually put together a good little road map that we’re asking Dr. Gonzalez to strengthen particular areas — that are already good and strong and firm — and to develop some new ideas so that we can move forward past everything that we’ve seen in the past couple of months
In the wake of a scandal in the district’s communications department, McAllen school board trustees unanimously approved Monday a list of directives for Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez, and they want action within 45 days.
The six directives are, at least in part, a response to fallout from two complaints filed in the marketing and communications department last year that so far have resulted in an investigation, the exit of that department’s two highest-ranking employees and changes to the relationship between the district and the McAllen Education Foundation.
Mostly, the directives are policy initiatives. Several of them seem pointedly aimed at concerns brought up by those complaints and their aftermath, which included claims about a culture of hostility and unprofessionalism in the department, along with allegations of retaliation.
Board President Tony Forina, who last month was part of a minority on the board saying no further trustee action was necessary, described Monday the directives as being a constructive measure rather than a critical one.
“This board got together and actually put together a good little road map that we’re asking Dr. Gonzalez to strengthen particular areas — that are already good and strong and firm — and to develop some new ideas so that we can move forward past everything that we’ve seen in the past couple of months,” he said.
In a second vote after the board approved the resolutions, Trustee Sam Saldivar successfully moved for the full resolution to be posted online as part of the board’s agenda. It wasn’t originally.
In a comment to The Monitor Tuesday, Gonzalez voiced his support for the action.
“We are a high-performing district and, together, as a team of eight, this resolution will serve as a vehicle to make our district even better,” he said.
Perhaps the most significant of the measures in that resolution is a directive for the superintendent to assist the board in requesting professional services to conduct an “external comprehensive audit into the Human Resource department’s practices, procedures and processes to ensure compliance, governance and to identify the employee interactive experience.”
Policy changes included in the resolution include one directive telling Gonzalez to develop a progressive discipline board policy “designed to promote employee development based on rehabilitation, honesty, ethical behavior and mutual respect,” and another that calls for a recommendation on a viable board fraternization policy.
The board also wants a policy on technology use “regarding the implementation of enhanced technology to regulate, monitor and prohibit personal, non-business-related use of district electronic equipment and block access to personal applications and software on district computers.”
Trustees want better regulated communications with Gonzalez as well; they’re calling for a plan to promote effective governance and ensure the timely delivery of information to all trustees.
Finally, the board wants to assess how open records requests are handled. Trustees are asking for a workshop where their attorney would prepare an outline establishing guidelines and procedures aimed at directing the district in determining criteria on which open records requests require a Texas Attorney General opinion.
Several of the directives appear like an attempt to address the sort of behavior that allegedly popped up in the communications department over the past few months.
Both of the complaints that began that situation — filed by former communications department assistant director Felicia Villarreal and department secretary Victoria Pena — described an inappropriate culture in the department that went unaddressed.
An investigation later rescinded by the board because of their loss of faith in it was followed by Villarreal and the department’s former director, Jake Berry, leaving the department for other posts at the district earlier this year.
Berry later resigned from the district after the discovery of inappropriate material on his school laptop.
In addition to alleged hostile treatment from Berry, Villarreal said she was a victim of retaliation aimed at protecting him, citing a friendship between Berry and Forina.
Both of those men have maintained that politics drove allegations against them. Forina is in the middle of a reelection bid and news of the allegations did become public toward the beginning of campaign season.
However, the district resisted releasing the complaints through an open records request for months, doing so only after a Texas Attorney General’s opinion ruled that almost all of that information should be made public.
