Nick Jimenez

Sunday, March 12, 2000

Kids will be learning while the fact-finding goes on

Lamar Elementary was in tiptop shape this past week. Halls were filled with science exhibits, art creations and other displays of student achievement. Each classroom had outside its doors the posted scores of mock TAAS tests - no pressure here - and inside kids were busily engaged in the important work of learning.
   Lamar was on display as part of the district's Public Schools Week. And as my student guides Leticia and Erica demonstrated by their enthusiasm as they took me around the campus, the students love their school. And judging by the loving attention to bulletin boards and photos of kids on the walls, so do teachers and parents.
   Lamar is by appearances the kind of school any parent would be proud to send his child to. But that's the story for a lot of campuses in the Corpus Christi Independent School District schools: Test scores are up and achievement is up.
   One would think that the people who guided this kind of success would be basking in the glory.
   So how have we come to the point where the district's superintendent and elected leadership will be in a courtroom tomorrow under investigation for wrongdoing?
   Tomorrow Judge Emil Karl Prohl will gavel to order the long-awaited court of inquiry. A court of inquiry is called an investigative tool, which means no one is officially being accused of anything, but nevertheless everyone is under subpoena.
   In reality, of course, the district trustees and Supt. Abelardo Saavedra are under a big cloud of possible criminal action. The heart of the issue is whether there was intent to violate open meetings laws, to abuse power and to personally enrich at the district's expense.
   Unless District Attorney Carlos Valdez has new facts to lay out, we know the outlines of the case: the expensive meals, the questionable travel expenses, the infamous excursions to the topless bar, and the cozy board dinners where no business was discussed.
   Outrageous? Much of it. Questionable? All of it. Criminal? The burden must be on Valdez to make such a case.
   If there is a smoking gun here, the testimony over the coming days must show it.
   Prohl, the 198th District judge from Kerrville, who was assigned to hear this case as a visiting judge, will make the decision on whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant criminal action.
   But after months of controversy on the board, the judgment must also be made as to whether the final answer to the troubles of the district's leadership is in the courts or in the political arena.
   At heart, the real answer to the troubles of the district is a political one. The public must balance the successes of the district against the interminable warfare that has consumed the trustees. They must weigh the direction that Saavedra has laid out against the overreaching that led to maximizing on his already generous contract.
   Saavedra's future will likely be the focus of the coming school board elections. It shouldn't be, or at least it shouldn't be the only issue in the election. The district faces many challenges - foremost being the possibility of a sixth high school - for a trustee to take a four-year seat based on one vote.
   These aren't judicial decisions; they are political assessments that voters must make. They are the kind of judgments that will still have to be made after testimony is completed in the court of inquiry.
   Visiting kids in their schools and seeing their work is a reminder that courts of inquiry and the rancor of a divided board of trustees are really far from the real work of education. Each day, despite the furor, kids go to class and teachers prepare to teach them to the best of their ability.
   The pity is that if the job of education had been kept firmly in sight, we wouldn't be in this pickle now.
   (Nick Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787 or by email at jimenezn@caller.com.)
  

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