TEA monitoring BISD probe

The Texas Education Agency continues to monitor an investigation of Superintendent Hector Gonzales and the BISD Special Services Department that the district's Board of Trustees launched six weeks ago.

On Thursday, state Rep. René Oliveira said he had received a copy of a letter that the TEA sent to members of the board, in which the state agency says it continues to receive information about the investigation and is monitoring the situation at BISD.

"I may be requesting documents as they begin to be exchanged in the litigation," Oliveira, D-Brownsville, said Thursday in reference to the investigation.

On Jan. 16, the BISD board suspended Gonzales with pay and ordered a 60-day investigation of the Special Services Department. The action capped weeks of turmoil that had roiled the district ever since a new school board was seated after the November general election.

Oliveira on Jan. 21 publicly asked TEA and the Texas State Auditor's office to monitor the investigation.

On Jan. 27, trustees officially hired the Harlingen law firm of Denton, Navarro, Rocha & Bernal, P.C. to conduct the investigation.

Then, on Feb. 10, Gonzales filed a $10 million lawsuit against the board's voting majority for defamation of character and breach of contract. The lawsuit, filed as a cross claim to Special Services Director Art Rendon's earlier whistleblower lawsuit against the district, was filed against Trustees Rolando Aguilar, Joe Colunga, Ruben Cortez Jr. and Richard Zayas.

Zayas said the Harlingen law firm briefed trustees at their Feb. 17 meeting about the investigation but provided few specifics.

"The firm has not shared any information with us," Zayas said, noting that any such information probably could not be revealed publicly anyway because of privacy provisions in the Texas Open Meetings Act.

Trustee Catalina Presas-Garcia, who since the election has voted on the minority side of numerous 4-3 votes by the board involving Gonzales, reiterated her position Thursday that auditors, not lawyers, should be doing the investigation. To date, allegations against Gonzales have focused on alleged cost overruns in the Special Services Department, according to public discussion of the issue at BISD meetings.

"Why are they (the board majority) refusing to give us the facts?" Presas-Garcia asked. "Why are they spending taxpayers money on lawyers to investigate something that our internal auditor or an external accounting firm should investigate?

"Why do we have to go through a law firm?" she asked. "I don't feel Hector Gonzales has been given due process. The superintendent should be given due process just like any other employee. ... If the four board members have something (on Gonzales), why not share it with the other three," she said.

Meanwhile the clock ticks on the 60-day time limit that the board set on the investigation. Presas-Garcia said she would oppose any extension of time.