The Weslaco school board approved a policy Tuesday evening that would record all communications between the district’s trustees and its superintendent and make those communications available to other trustees and to the public.
Trustee Marcos De Los Santos championed that policy change, billing it as a way to improve transparency and communication, and as a way to reduce board micromanagement of its administration.
The policy would require a weekly report on any text, phone call, email or in-person communication with a trustee or trustees on the board, De Los Santos said.
Although he said it’s not a common policy, De Los Santos said that sort of policy is allowable.
The measure received ready support from the entire body, which hasn’t always been the case over the past year amid a frequently divided school board and a series of eyebrow raising scandals.
De Los Santos said after the meeting that he’s not aware of any policy that’s very similar to the one the board approved Tuesday.
“I think this is a tool, if used wisely by our superintendent, it’ll benefit everyone,” De Los Santos said.
De Los Santos also described the policy as a way for the district’s interim superintendent and prospective future superintendents to be protected from a potentially hostile board, and a means to better explain themselves to their board
“One of the major things is that — and some of us have mentioned it before — that we need to make sure that we govern each other as board members and as a team,” De Los Santos said. “As a body corporate, that we don’t cross the line between governance and micromanagement.”
De Los Santos also requested the reports be available to the public through open records requests, noting sensitive information could be redacted if necessary and describing the move as a way to ensure transparency.
Weslaco ISD has not earned high marks in the transparency department in recent days. Last week interim Superintendent Criselda “Cris” Valdez, Board President Armando Cuellar and a district spokesperson all failed to respond to questions from The Monitor about a grievance hearing and a high-profile incident last year in which a district employee allegedly slapped a student.
De Los Santos said the public deserves to know what Weslaco trustees are saying to their superintendent.
“I was elected and put here by the public, and they should know exactly what I’m saying and what I’m thinking and how I’m acting with the superintendent and with the rest of the staff,” he said.
The policy change, De Los Santos said, would signal the district’s commitment to transparency to the community and stand out as an innovative move to other districts in the area.
Trustee Jacky Sustaita, who supported the change, encouraged Cuellar, the board president, to ensure items trustees ask to be on agendas actually show up there and suggested communication snafus on that front had occurred before.
“Because a lot of the policies that we have here, we’re not following them ourselves,” she said. “So the communication has to be there.”
