EPISD Board Members Get Schooled

The EPISD board elections (May 9) pretty much went as expected. One liar and cheater got voted out. One liar and cheater stayed in. One incumbent fell victim to being an associate of these two liars and cheaters.
As the old saying goes, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”
Actually, it is a slight surprise, because Eagle Pass election results usually aren’t so rational.
Lupita Fuentes survived, I guess partly due to a weak opponent. Rex McBeath and Tom Cary, I think felt the backlash from two recent issues – the poor handling of the C.C. Winn head football coaching vacancy, and the public’s realization that the board duped everyone about the proposed fine arts complex.
Adding these mistakes to a cartload of personal shortcomings, McBeath dealt himself a fatal blow through his lack of professional status. What the hell does he even do for a living nowadays? Does anybody know?
I saw comments made that the personal lives of our politicians don’t matter as long as they perform their duties well. I think it does matter, and matters more for the school board than any other elected position. We shouldn’t allow any school employee or school administrator to be a drunk, an adulterer, or a wife beater because the people around our children need to show by example how to live healthy lives -- emotionally, physically and mentally.
This triumvirate of McBeath, Cary and Fuentes might have been well-intentioned concerning the Winn coaching job, but they way they handled it created the perception of back room dealing or undue meddling. Furthermore, almost anytime the board rejects a hiring recommendation from its professional school employees (as it did twice in this case), it shows disrespect toward the administrators and other employees who made the recommendation. It says, “Your choice isn’t good enough, try again.”
It’s only human to wonder whether these three had a specific individual in mind that they wanted hired and whether they would reject anyone except their preferred applicant. If so, that level of meddling from the school board is unethical and can even be illegal. Hopefully, the board can now make a good decision on a coach for the Mavericks and hopefully he will have a strong recommendation from the athletic director and the full support of other district employees.
About the fine arts complex, the school board tricked some people who voted for the bond for the athletic complex thinking that it also would include an auditorium for band and drama performances and other uses. I knew prior to the bond election that the fine arts complex was just a ruse. To begin with, the board never proposed adequate funding to build what the fine arts backers requested. Secondly, the idea got tacked on to the bond package at the very end of the debate, obviously just to cast a wider net to garner more votes.
Every major construction project experiences cost overruns, and in this case, when a shortage of funds causes cutbacks, the first thing to go will be the last thing that was added – fine arts.
It won’t be due to the bond package, but we’ll have an EPISD fine arts center some day. Other districts similar to ours have them, and although our administrators and board don’t often lead the way, they are pretty good at following others.
Actually, our school district leadership lately has been effective, stable and almost scandal free. The new school board must realize that if they screw that up, they will pay come the next election. The board members should also each consider what happened to McBeath and Cary. Hard effort and good intentions can be offset by one or two instances of dishonesty and secrecy.
Oh yes, morals also matter.

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