Tales of KISD Debacle

3/21/2019 Special Board Meeting

Blog by Liz Ramos

Mr. Coufal was absent. Ms. Yaklin was late. There were a lot more in attendance tonight than I have seen in the last few meetings.

Board decided to move Special Education Audit from closed to public session in agenda. I may blog about that at a later time.

Bera talked to the board about canvassing the schools with the principals and a little of what that entails. The last meeting the board agreed with her to bring out someone from the valley to help with the school’s scores pro-bono and this meeting they were upset about it. Real head spinner because last meeting they seemed to agree and be on the same page and today they flipped it on her. I’d be annoyed. Principal Jose Mireles may be compensated with a stipend for helping Bera with school walk-throughs and a retroactive stipend for past work.

Bera named off all the titles that Dr. Ruiz Ed. D. has at this current moment. Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, now the Special Education Director, and listed off all the other jobs she does or has done or will do. I honestly think this woman wears way too many hats! There is no way one person can do all of this without compromising and slacking off in areas. And with those job titles, at this current time in KISD, none of them be slacked on. Wasn’t Dr. Ruiz the Super of Curriculum in the past? Why does the curriculum need to be restructured and an overhaul if she did a wonderful job with that lone job title? She also takes down notes when people come into Bera’s office to speak with her. Bera has an open-door policy but you cannot go into her office without being on “record.”

Ms. Alvarez was sent packing to another school from being the Director of Special Education. Special Education isn’t doing so hot so they put Dr. Ruiz in charge of that and many other responsibilities. How Special Education will get turned around with her wearing so many hats is beyond me.

Mr. Garza said his eyesight isn’t good and could not see the scores on the tiny paper that Bera sent to them. Bera will have a better copy sent to everyone.

Mr. Crites asked if the HR job had been filled or if any applications came through. Bera stated, “no, no applications for the job.” Mr. Crites believes, from a previous meeting, that KISD is asking too much in the applicant as far as credentials or the pay is too much for the position. Mr. Greenwood agreed. They even tried to pass an agreement to make it easier to get position filled and Mr. Prado, Ms. Yaklin, Mr. Gara Jr, and Mr. Garza Sr were opposed.

Mr. Crites was concerned that the schools are passing children who are not ready to go into the next grade and maybe this is why our school scores are low. If the board can take that into consideration.

Mr. Crites wanted to go over stipend situation. The paper that had all the stipends on it was not easy to understand and he wanted a better stipend pay scale in front of him and all the board members. Mr. Greenwood brought up concerns that stipends should go to teacher supports and administration. Some other board members chimed in on this later in the meeting asking the same questions about understanding the pay scale that Mr. Crites literally brought up moments ago. Makes you wonder if they are paying attention in between whispering, talking amongst each other and having a dumpy face on the whole time.

KISD has had a new employee resign over spring break (Ms. Gonzales) and it seems like KISD is losing admin and not a lot of action is being taken by the board to try to get them filled. If anything, they are making it more difficult for Bera to her job.

Board members touched on the topic of campus police moonlighters. You know I had a ball with this one! Mr. Crites brought up that for the first couple of days KISD paid $35 an hour for local police to sit around and do nothing all day. Friday another officer seems to be walking around looking like he is working. This was laughable. Ms. Yaklin finally spoke up stating the guidelines need to be clearly defined. “If we do something in haste, we fail to set expectations, and I believe that is what we have done.” Someone give her an award for speaking, something! She also spoke of the board needs to stop playing the blame game and fix it. That was about it from her. She looked like she was having a miserable time, or a migraine. KISD cannot go into a contract with city police without the city council.

If anything happens on school campus with police, KISD may be held liable. Bera wants everyone to look over a contract from the Sherriff’s office. Sounds like they will be pulling a contractual template on duties from another school. Copy and paste. Lol Didn’t Ms. Yaklin state we shouldn’t do things in haste moments prior?

Mr. Prado chimed in and said with such conviction, “Remember this, keep this in mind. An active shooter event, goes almost to zero, where they have the presence of a uniformed officer at school. So, while we might not have all the great details. Just having a car parked out in the parking lot and a uniformed guy walking around the building, drops the percentage to almost zero.” This was word for word what he said. Please tell me what makes sense in this statement. When there is an active shooter they stop because they see an armed guard? What? Que?

LIES! ALL LIES!

First there is no way you can find quantifiable statistics on crimes that never happened or were “contemplated by someone with a gun.” This is the dumbest thing I’ve heard come from a board member. Dumb. I wonder how many people asked and recorded conversations of people who contemplated shooting up a school but didn’t!!!!??? Please, find it for me Mr. Prado! Maybe a Statistics professor at Yale can answer that! Otherwise, there are no true statistics on that. Been there done that in looking them up. There are about 4,000 bank robberies each year. Why do you think you don’t see armed guards there like you used to? Because “statistically,” and I type that loosely, if someone wants to commit a crime, an armed guard won’t stop them.

Just ask the kids in Parkland at Douglas high school how that SRO deterred 17 dead and 17 injured and 2 suicides.

Ask Huffman HS how their SRO stopped 1 death and 2 injuries.

Ask Great Mills HS how their SRO stopped 2 deaths and 1 injury.

Ask Dixon HS how their officer stopped a suspect from coming onto a campus armed.

Ask Santa Fe how their two-armed officers stopped 10 deaths and 13 injuries.

Armed police officers may be able to deter the amount of violence but not the initial thought or bringing a weapon on campus.

Mr. Prado is serious about his Campus Police Department and I think it is STUPID.

Mr. Garza Sr. mumbles a lot or doesn’t speak up or the mic doesn’t work that well in front of him. So, I’ love to comment on what he states, but it is always difficult. He is a good murmurer.

Board members went off on this poor woman hired by TEA to help them with a grant which they have not yet spent in it's

entirety of as of today. KISD has a grant with about $100,000 left and it will expire summertime. This poor woman was being yelled at by the board and Mr. Greenwood went on a tangent about the prior board. Mr. Greenwood has passion and this is what I am talking about, unfortunately it was taken out on this poor woman. She stated, “I have been working for you for free for 2 months.” Bless her heart! She was trying to explain her heart out and Mr. Prado and Mr. Garza Jr. would ask her questions after she explained the answer to them. I giggled a little out loud. This was pitiful. Then they tried to vote on something that didn’t need a vote. *bangs head on wall*

They spend more time in closed session than open session which makes me wonder what it is they are doing for KISD. There are a lot of good topics that seem to never fully get addressed in a timely manner in open session for around an hour then they go into closed session FOREVER. At other board meetings it is usually the opposite. A lot of public discussion on the books and less time behind closed doors.