"The Quietest Bombs"

“Quietest Bomb Drop”

KISD Blog by Liz Ramos

9/22/2019

Crickets. I used to live in the mountains of North Carolina. I thought I lived around an enormous amount of crickets until I moved to Kingsville. In Kingsville though, the crickets aren’t the insects, the people are. More crickets here than in NC! Usually after a board meeting, I get plenty of texts, messages, and phone calls to fill up a good two hours of my time after I get home from a long board meeting. I have to peel myself out of the bed in the morning I am so tired. Not a lot of people understand how school districts work. Hell, I don’t know everything about them myself. I am still learning. Everyone who graduates high school should know a little bit about how civics in this aspect work. I don’t think they teach that. They didn’t teach it in my school. It is all trial and error for me. Asking questions. Googling. One thing I am sure of is I have lived long enough to know what is right and what is wrong. I don’t always get it right.

Let me break down what happened during September 9th’s board meeting.

Board members went through their regular agenda per usual. Pledge, moment of silence, then Coufal, the president of the board, read off the rules of public participation. The rules for this changed on the 1st. Wayne Grant stood up to talk about policies of KISD and the fact that he has come up to publicly participate on several different occasions and no one has ever put his idea up for discussion on the agenda. This is what public participation is for. To ask for things to be put on an agenda. I have been going to board meetings sine January. Never has anyone’s request ever been put up for consideration. Makes you wonder, “Why waste my time?” He went over his 5-minute allotted time. They refused to allow him to continue although they can. It is up to the board’s discretion. (Garza Sr stated with much excitement to put it on the topic in the next workshop. Now he is on board with safety? I can’t help but giggle about that. Is it because we are gearing up for elections in a few months?) I went up to talk about how people come up to ask for things on the agenda and nothing comes of it. I asked them to be more transparent and to put on a future agenda a discussion on how they can be so. Ya think that will happen? If so, you are way more hopeful than me!

Most on the agenda was filler items. But there was Bera, on the agenda, once again. She has been on them for many months now. Why? The last superintendent wasn’t on the agenda as much and Bera is doing more with less. Do they hate that she is not an all-day puppet? Do they hate that she has a Facebook page? Do they hate that people are liking her? Do they think Bera is the leak? Why? What horrible things has she done? You would think after Prado yells at parents, Corando tells teachers they cannot read my blogs because I lie, Cory getting his girlfriend to do his work for him, and Prado going around town saying who will be hired (including his wife) that they would go into closed session and evaluate how the board, themselves, are behaving. Nope, not on this agenda. I asked them to put that on the agenda two board meetings ago.

When they came back from closed session, they had hired a couple of employees to certain positions. Then came the POGUE center hire. The one position Prado had gone around town telling people his wife was going to be voted in. Amazing how he knew this information. Prior to the vote board member Crites stated his peace. I agree with his speech. What I didn’t agree with is the fact that Prado had gone around saying his wife was going to get that position prior to recommendation. It wasn’t ethical at that point. He failed to mention any of that in his speech. Greenwood then gave his speech. The Kingsville Record reported the questions and the answers that were given at that time. In so many words Greenwood asked Bera if there was coercion done by a board member for her to put a spouse up for recommendation. She stated, “yes” twice. First bomb.

You figured after the board and the lawyer heard this that the recommendation would have been tabled. No. Never happened. Even Cory looked over to the KISD lawyer after Greenwood questioned Bera, and nothing was said by either of them. It was like he knew something was wrong and looked over at the lawyer. You can see this on the posted live video at 7 mins and 32 seconds in. See for yourself. They voted on it anyway. With Greenwood and Yaklin voting ‘No’ and Prado abstaining like a good little boy so it would be legal they went ahead with Ms. Prado’s hire. But there was nothing legal about this vote. She admitted violations and yet Coufal, the board president, continued on with the vote. Get this, Coufal has a law degree! My mouth dropped on the floor, twice. Second bomb. I keep telling myself I am too “ye of little faith” and should be less pessimistic, but the board goes and does it again.

Shout out to Brandon Greenwood! I hope he is done drinking the Kool-Aid! I never bought any. No flavor was less bull shittier than the next, so I never partook in it. I hope those who voted for Ms. Prado’s promotion to this school feel like crap. She shouldn’t have gotten it based on how it transpired. She should have obtained that recommendation and that vote by merit. Maybe Bera would have recommended her without the back door talk. This screams that certain board members are only board members for personal gain or for other’s personal gain so they can later hold that gain over that person’s head later when they need it.

A bomb went off in that board room that night and it was like everyone was teleported to another time during this time and no one said or did a thing. Some crazy quantum physics stuff. Not even the KISD lawyer said a peep. On Thursday the newspaper released an article piece and there was still no buzz. My phone was not buzzing after this meeting. The totally opposite as usual. Why?

I thought to myself… If Bera accused me of something I didn’t do, you better be damn straight that I would call her out on it right after. I would have said something. Prado sat there in silence as still as a statue. Nothing. He was like a deer in headlights. Like, “Oh, shit, I just got called out” look on his face. Same face he made when a spouse stood up in open session and called out “a board member” for calling his spouse and yelling at her over the phone. Same. Exact. Look. That just screams guilty to me. I would have said something. The hell if people are going to drag my name in the dirt for something I didn’t do! And if I weren’t guilty, I don’t mind stating it out loud as I don’t have anything to hide. The only sitting board member with a wife that works at the school is Prado. Who else could it have of been?

I did some digging afterwards and came across this:

Penal Code, Title 8. Offenses Against Public Administration, Chapter 39. Abuse of Power, Sec. 39.02. Abuse of Official Capacity and Secc. 39.03. Official Oppression. There may also be conspiracy violations for board members who voted ‘Yes’ for spouse employment after Bera admitted a board member coerced her into recommending spouse. I am no law school grad, so don’t quote me on it.

If you have time google, TEA 19 TAC Chapter 249 while you are at it. Ethics is also in board policy. I read that to them the meeting prior to this one.

I went ahead and reported this to the proper officials in Texas. I will release that info later. What was done that night was wrong. Plain wrong. This seems criminal. I guess that will all be handled and figured out by people who handle and figure out stuff. Only time will tell and you know I will update yall when I can

"I have a stronger will to maintain my ethical and moral obligation"

Thank you, Greenwood, for listening to the angel on your shoulder. Thank you for questioning authority. Thank you for not sipping the same Kool Aid. Thank you for what I hope will be an example set for the future of the board. Please do not stop calling out what you see and hear. Please always listen to your gut and your intuition. Please be transparent. We, the people of Kingsville, need change. This is the change we need.

Bera is back on the agenda for Monday evening. The board isn’t on the agenda even though they need to talk about themselves and how out of control they have gotten. Brandon has always been outspoken but he now also has the guts to call out the people he is supposed to be working cohesive with. He wants to be ethical and honest. That is what the public wants as well. This behavior has to stop. I have nothing witty to say for this blog. I wanted to wait until after Monday’s meeting to blog. If you watch it, hopefully I won’t have to. Hopefully it is an uneventful board meeting and they will adjourn when they come back to closed session after AP hires and go home.

Please come out to these meetings if you can. If you want the best for Kingsville, KISD has to be a part of it. Whether the city admits it or not, a lot of people move to where they want their kids to go. We also have to be apart of the change. Let us get out and show our faces and let people hear our voices! I have asked KISD when elections will be held this following school board election time and I have received little information. Sometime in January is when you apply to put your name down for a seat and voting is in June?

I am done with the immaturity. I am done with the theatrics. It is time to get serious about the future of our children and how we spend money and how we treat one another. I have always been a loner in some aspects because I like things done in a certain way and that can be abrasive to others. I kinda live life to the beat of my own drum. Never have I allowed ethics to be a concern in my life or my professional career. It is time to stop sweeping concerns under the rug. It is time to hear from our community! It is time to be transparent. It is time to get people excited about civics in our own city. It is time to allow people to do the job they were hired to do. If someone has the exact info for me on when and where elections are taking place, please let me know! Cause you know damn well I am putting my name on a seat this next year…..BOOM!

*************Disclaimer************** All of these bombs and booms are imaginary, just an adjective. A way to describe an event. Do not take these seriously. It is meant as a satire of sorts and a figure of speech. No one to my knowledge dropped an actual bomb or will drop an actual bomb. (I remember waaay back in the day when “aww man, he dropped the bomb on you!” was just a way of conveying what happened not an actual threat. Am I showing my age?) Please do not call the cops on me.