Donna schools politics flows over
DONNA — Every day, Donna school district employees arrive at work wondering whether this will be the day they will be reassigned or have their files confiscated.
“There’s a lot of people updating their résumés,” said one employee, who asked not to be identified.
“Since they took my computer I just sit in my office. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”
Over the course of the summer, the mood around the district’s campuses has gone from tense to outright paranoid as one blow after another has struck the school district.
First, in early June, school board President George Hernandez was indicted for his alleged involvement in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district’s corruption scandal.
Then, a month later, the Texas Education Agency forwarded the findings of a recent investigation to state and local authorities for possible criminal prosecution — one allegation maintained Donna officials broke state law when they awarded technology contracts without opening them for bid.
Not long after, former superintendent Joe D. Gonzalez was suspended.
Each event has set off its own series of aftershocks, most notably the loss of the district’s top three officials in less than a month.
Gonzalez; Nellie Cantu, the former assistant superintendent of curriculum; and Alfredo Salinas, the former assistant superintendent of human resources, have all been suspended or reassigned to lesser positions, according to district correspondence.
Superintendent Cecilio Sauceda, Gonzalez’s replacement, explained the moves as designed to improve efficiency.
“It’s an unusually high number of people at the top, and I don’t know if it was done arbitrarily,” he said.
“Everybody’s on contract and in their contract there’s stipulations they can be reassigned at any time for any reason. The superintendent has the authority to reorganize the district.”
However much Sauceda argues his case, the restructuring is seen by many employees as a case of political favoritism.
And now that the transfers are extending down into the lower ranks, that view has only strengthened.
Within the district’s administration complex on Main Street, employees can be observed in the hallways exchanging the latest gossip or huddling in offices speculating who’s the next to go.
Two mid- level employees, former district spokeswoman Angie Gonzalez and former custodial head Frank Garza are both preparing grievances after Sauceda ordered their transfer to lesser positions — though with equal pay.
Garza declined to comment on the record for this story.
But Gonzalez, a young mother, attributed her shift to the political affiliations of her husband, David De Los Rios, a prominent campaigner in city and school board elections.
“I hate this is happening, not just to me but to all of us,” she said.
“It’s another black eye on our district, and I want what’s best for our district.
“But everybody’s scared for their job, their pay. It’s making it difficult to focus on what’s important.”
Sauceda said Garza’s and Gonzalez’s reassignments were disciplinary actions.
While the atmosphere in the school district may well be described as fraught during the last two months, one point no one in Donna seems to argue is that it’s all that out of the ordinary.
Like in many smaller Rio Grande Valley cities where the local school district is the largest employer, school board politics readily spill over into most aspects of city life.
And when tensions are high, everyone can feel it — even the superintendent.
“Whenever there’s a change in majority on the (school) board, or there’s a disconnect in the community, parents come to their representatives and provide information, saying we don’t agree with this or that,” Sauceda said. “It is nothing unusual or unfamiliar.”
____
James Osborne covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428.
