Freedom of Information Request: The process the CCISD Board used is unethical and unfair.

Freedom of Information Request

This Publication request any and all communications including email and written correspondence from one week before Trustee Harry Williams resigned.

Must I formalize it on Monday?

Think I am bluffing?

You gotta ask yourself

Do you feel lucky?

Well Do ya?

Go ahead.........


You guys get the idea?

Now, don't go and seek the OAG's opinion as it will delay our children.

Just fess up and conduct business with honor and integrity and at least give us an appearance of due process. Not one black appointment. You guys are definitely walking on thin ice or maybe already fallen through but just don't know it. Such inadequacy is unacceptable.

CORPUS CHRISTI - CCISD school board members interviewed five candidates Friday to fill the board position vacated by Reverend Harry Williams.

The school board said it will set another meeting to discuss the finalists, and will possibly make a decision then, but still no word on when that would be.

Williams served the school board for more than seven years before resigning last month.

Nick Adame

"Do not be a disservice to our community and choose because this guy is my friend or this guy is my business associate," Dr. Nick Adame said. "I don't want to hear that. I want to hear that we're going to choose somebody because they're going to do right for the community."

Last week, the board narrowed the list of 20 candidates to five

Kenedeno:

Where is the criteria the process for "narrowing the list"?

The process the CCISD Board used is unethical and unfair. Every single applicant took the time to fill out an application, and the thought process for the letter of interest and update of their resume and references. For all intensive purposes this CCISD Board just threw that work product into the trash can while opting for business partners, friends cronies and industry allies.

It is not about the 5 selected it is about how the 5 were selected. It is not about Barrera or Prezas or Bill Clark or Lucy Rubio.

It is about a change of policy where policy is defined by processes of the past. Lucy is the only one with the guts to make the motion, "for the board to scrap the current process and start over. There was no second to the motion." Are there others in that room who agree with her, but politically, they are bound & gagged. The current process is in conflict with current policy. The current process is now a civil rights issue. Is that what CCISD wanted, another Cisneros v CCISD?

We have 19 Candidates who deserve Equal Opportunity and fair consideration. It is called due process.


1. Herbert Cromwell Arbuckle, III Retired Teacher
2. Rolando G. Barrera Insurance Agent
3. Tony C. Diaz, Ed.D. Retired CCISD Administrator
4. Victor Frazier, Ed.D. Minister and University Instructor
5. Cezar Galindo Business Owner and College Instructor
6. Marsha Lynn Grace Professor of Education
7. Coretta Graham Lawyer
8. Helen Gurley, Ph.D. Educator, Director of Academics
9. Patricia Harris Educator
10. Robert Elliott Jones Pastor and Business Manager
11. Deborah W. Johnson Retired Firefighter
12. Bradford Lee Kisner Director of Music and Fine Arts
13. Verna Faye Portis Retired CCISD Administrator
14. Raul R. Prezas, Ed.D. College Professor
15. Norman Haden Ransleben Certified Public Accountant
16. Woodrow Mac Sanders Medical Social Worker
17. Ronald G. Sepulveda Athletic Aquatic Superintendent
18. George Wetzel Retired Public School Administrator/Consultant
19. Goldie Lamarr Wooten Retired Educator

Rubio has said she disagrees with the selection process and would have preferred to use a scoring system instead.

Trustees selected the five candidates to be interviewed by each nominating one from a pool of 20 applicants.

We elect you guys to represent the district with honor & integrity

But before trustees interviewed the first candidate, trustee Lucy Rubio motioned for the board to scrap the current process and start over. There was no second to the motion.

Rubio has said she disagrees with the selection process and would have preferred to use a scoring system instead.

CCCT Editorial

The trustees' refusal to lay out the cards is beyond irritating; it borders on the outrageous.

Particularly disturbing is the fact that three new trustees elected last year - Carol Scott, John Longoria and Dwayne Hargis, all of whom emphasized their intent to bring new openness to the board - appear to have bought into the mum's-the-word ethos that has dominated this exercise.

To be sure, they (and their colleagues) could, and should, reverse their field.

CCISD Trustees: Pick and choose Policy Making with malice. Shame on YOU.

CORPUS CHRISTI - CCISD school board members have decided not to change their policy which forbids seniors who fail the TAKS from graduating.

One parent we spoke with Thursday said the policy didn't make sense, because while students who fail the TAKS test during the school year aren't allowed to take part in graduation ceremonies. The same doesn't hold true for summer school grads. They're allowed to participate in summer graduation ceremonies without knowing whether they passed the test.

The decision didn't sit well with some parents and students.

School board member Lucy Rubio had hoped to amend the policy, and allow seniors who failed the TAKS to at least walk in with their class during may commencement. But other school board members didn't agree.

"I have a feeling it's going to be too late for this year, I think it's something that we should look at [next school year]," said board member Dwayne Hargis. But Rubio wanted to talk about it at Friday's meeting.

"I didn't have a second motion so why are we still discussing it, unless someone will second it, so we can have a discussion," she told the board.

CCISD superintendent Scott Elliff didn't want to change the policy because graduation invitations had been printed, and school officials would need more time to review any changes. It was upsetting news for Carrie Bass who was at the meeting.

Her daughter Cassandra, who's an honor student, won't be graduating this may after failing the TAKS a fifth time.

"It's disappointing, it's very disappointing. I was hoping for that second motion," Bass said. Like Rubio, she worries seniors who don't get to graduate with their class this May, may end up dropping out of school.

"If we are in the business of being there for our students we're not listening...I'm disappointed, because I don't want to have any student, just give up. I think we're there to support them, we're there to encourage them, and obviously it didn't happen today," Rubio said.

In the meantime, CCISD has released the schedule for next weekend's high school graduations on Saturday and Sunday at the American Bank Center Arena.

• Carroll High School - 10 a.m., Saturday, May 26
• Ray High School - 1 p.m., Saturday, May 26
• Moody High School - 4 p.m., Saturday, May 26
• King High School - 1 p.m., Sunday, May 27
• Miller High School - 4 p.m., Sunday, May 27

Students who earned their GED diplomas from the Adult Learning Center, will receive their diplomas next Tuesday, May 22nd, in a ceremony at the Selena Auditorium.

Online Reporter: Roxanne Carrillo

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Posted By The Advocate to CCISD at 5/20/2007 02:34:00 AM

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Kenedeno & Associates