We're not so happy to tell you that the Brownsville Independent School District has taken a lead on other public entities at recycling.
The City of Brownsville has taken a rather weak stab at citywide recycling, but the old guys in bikes who cruise the alleys looking for discarded pop and beer cans make those efforts look tame. Ditto for the cardboard recyclers who clean up the rusting, overflowing GMS containers.
No, and we're not talking about Martin Arambula' efforts at recycling at the BISD which almost got him fired either, or the recycling of exiled out-of-favor BISD administrators or employees at Transportation or Food and Nutrition Services.
We're talking about recycling human beings. And more and more, it looks like the recycling cycle (is that redundant?) is based on retrieving former BISD personnel from the wilds of Raymondville in Willacy County, of all places.
As we know, BISD Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas has been limping along at the district's top position. And we don't mean professionally, although some might argue that it applies, but physically, as in battling with a damaged hip. Those who see her on a daily basis say she's in need of a replacement. We mean of her hip, of course, but a human replacement seems to be in the works as well.
This is what we've heard.
Apparently, just as trustee Joe Rodriguez brought back CFO Lorenzo Sanchez from the Raymondville ISD to help him grease the skids to raid the BISD general fund and build his grandiose sports palace in the district with artificial turf and a $1.4 million scoreboard at Sams Stadium, he and other trustees are ready to bring back superintendent retread Johnny Pineda.
Pineda, RISD's longest-serving superintendent, retired from the Raymondville on January 31, 2017 after 10 years at the helm. In 2016, parents of the district filed a petition with the board not to extend his contract citing a litany of reasons. He left the BISD in 2007.
"Whereas, we, the parents of the Raymondville School District and the employees of Raymondville School District hereby declare that we have lost confidence in Johnny Ivan Pineda’s ability to lead the Raymondville School District.. and "call on the newly reorganized board of trustees...to not extend Superintendent Johnny Pineda's contract..."
Pineda retired the following January and moved on.
Now the plans are for Zendejas to rehire him as a Area Superintendent for Human Resources and then go on sabbatical to have her hip replacement surgery. Pineda will then be named interim principal while Zendejas convalesces from her surgery. But, our sources say, Zendejas will not return. Pineda will be named permanent superintendent and join his buddies Rodriguez as trustee and CFO Sanchez, also formerly of RISD, and things will continue to move along merrily.
Zendejas, however, will not be left out and will remain employed in an "advisory" capacity so she won't miss out on her retirement. Neato, hey?