School districts can learn lessons from PSJA’s troubles

McALLEN — Trips to tourist hotspots. Cash payments. Personal gifts. Tickets to sporting events.

Not exactly what should be on the minds of school board members as they oversee millions of dollars to create a solid education system for students.

However, Pharr-San Juan-Alamo schools Superintendent Arturo Guajardo and board members Vangie Garcia-De Leon, Roy Navarro and Roy Rodriguez are accused of abusing their power and influence to reap these rewards and more — and violating the public trust in the process.

A 22-count indictment unsealed Tuesday charges them with conspiracy and extortion during a period spanning 1998 to 2004. Rodriguez was arrested late last month. The other three were arrested Monday and Tuesday. All four have pleaded not guilty. Also indicted were Garcia-De Leon’s ex-husband, Richard De Leon, and “contractor defendants” George Hernandez, who owns a roofing company, and Harlingen insurance agency owner Arnulfo “Arnie” Olivarez. These three also have entered pleas of not guilty.

The indicted trustees, meanwhile, are temporarily barred by the court from conducting any district business.

Area school officials said the PSJA scandal serves as a warning about what not to do in public office — and as a reminder of the importance of rule of law, accountability, transparency, inclusiveness and other hallmarks of good governance which serve, among other things, to minimize corruption.

“What it should teach all of us is we should be open with meetings, to be sure our agendas reflect every position and make public as much as you can about the process that was used to follow a final decision,” said Carmen Gonzalez, the Edinburg school board’s president.

The four PSJA officials arrested last week are charged with accepting, among other things, money, trips to Las Vegas and South Padre Island and tickets to see Cher on her long-running farewell tour for casting votes in favor of firms wanting to do business with the district.

Not surprisingly, Ben Garza Jr., the president of the PSJA board, sought to draw a bright line last week between how the board conducts itself now and any misdeeds trustees may have committed during the 1998-to-2004 period addressed in the indictment.

“Everybody on board right now has been elected after 2004,” Garza said, referring to himself and the three other trustees who are not indicted. “We are not going to make the same mistake twice. We have all learned from this, of course. With the community, it’s going to be temporary and we are going to have to all bear with this. Once this ordeal has passed us, we have to look forward.”

Sharyland schools Superintendent Scott Owings, meanwhile, highlights the need for school districts to follow protocol, particularly with regard to contracting and procurement.

“When you do things, for the most part you go with the low bid on things,” Owings said. “Sometimes, there are other reasons not to go with low bids and you have to show the reasons why you are not.”

But manipulating the bidding process certainly isn’t the only way in which officials may put personal interest above public service.

The McAllen school district dealt with its own indictment situation in January 2002 when the superintendent at that time, Joe E. Gonzales, received eight state felony counts from a Tom Green County district court jury for allegedly stealing money when he led the San Angelo school district. The charges were dropped in 2003 after Gonzales and San Angelo prosecutors reached an agreement.

The McAllen district has not had any trouble of that magnitude since then.

“We would never presume to know how another district conducts business,” said McAllen schools Superintendent Yolanda Chapa, who replaced Gonzales in 2004. “I do know that, in McAllen, we’re extremely conservative in our financial transactions and we plan to stay that way.”

Gonzalez, the Edinburg school board president, said school boards can shield themselves from unnecessary criticism by letting district staff bring research and recommendations to them to help make decisions. The Edinburg board, for example, looks to its insurance and building committees, which are comprised of campus representatives and community members, to study facts before taking them to the board, she said.

Beyond having such a system in place to gather input before making decisions, school boards also have training available to them to teach board members, whether newbies or veterans, what they can and can’t do in the performance of their duties.

Indeed, Texas law requires the State Board of Education to provide a training course — to be offered by regional education service centers — for independent school district trustees.

New board members must attend a district orientation within 60 days of being named to a position and take at least 17 hours of training in state education law, team building and other topics. After their first year, board members must take at least nine hours of training in the same subjects yearly. Sessions are done by school districts, the state attorney general’s office, education service centers and other certified organizations.

The Texas Association of School Boards in Austin provides some of the needed training. Spokeswoman Barbara Williams said the organization is not a regulatory agency but tries to keep up with districts on how many hours of training board members get.

Williams said 800 to 1,000 new board members take office yearly. Statewide, she said, there are about 7,000 board positions in more than 1,000 districts.

The training that board members receive makes it clear what it means to work in an elected capacity, Gonzalez said.

Even so, she predicts the PSJA scandal will result in greater scrutiny of school boards — to make sure not only that trustees are clear about what the public expects of them, but also that they don’t fall short of those expectations, as the indicted PSJA officials are alleged to have done.

“All of us are going to be asking a lot more questions,” Gonzalez said. “The public’s definitely going to be looking at those serving now and making sure these kind of things are not occurring in our district.”

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Daniel Perry covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4454.