BISD BOARD MEMBERS: IT AIN'T ALL FUN AND GAMES

By Juan Montoya

The excitement of the campaign faded long ago. The victory party, the glad-handing, the congratulatory calls from people you hadn't heard from in months or years telling you they have been on your side all along.

Suddenly, everyone wanted to be your friend.

And for a while, everything was fun. Workers in the governmental entity treated you like royalty, knowing full well their jobs and careers might depend on one of your decisions. But things have changed.

How long can Drue Brown, Prisci Roca-Tipton, Eddie Garcia, Minerva Peña, Ralph Cowen, and Laura Perez-Reyes, its legal counsel and the Dr. Rene Gutierrez administration of the Brownsville Independent School District keep limping along and letting things go from bad to worse?

Why didn't anyone object to having indicted trustee Dr. Sylvia Atkinson attend a board meeting last week knowing full well that she was under bond restrictions preventing her from being near near her "victims and witnesses" in the district and that three members of the board are on the witnesses list in federal court?

And how about the insistence by the district administration and board chair Minerva Peña on opening the schools to face-to-face despite the rising rate of COVID-19 infection in the district, the shutting down of seven schools, the closing of a handful of departments, and the suspension of the distribution of free meals to disadvantaged needy students?

Today they agreed to start the year with a eight-week period of distance learning and then – considering how the situation with COVID-19 is at that time, opt to switch to face-to-face instruction.

But because three Food and Nutrition Service tested positive for COVID-19, the district stopped distributing the meals. Instead of seeking an alternate method to feed them, the district suspended the meals "indefinitely." Is there a real need? Look at the lines when a church sponsors food distribution. The line of cars snakes along the road for more than a mile.

If those are the adults, imagine the hunger among children. Is the inconvenience to the district more important? Regardless what our racists-in-residence say that they're all from Matamoros and on public assistance, they're not. They're our own needy people. There will always be people who abuse the system. But that 10 percent shouldn't be the excuse to deprive the other 90 percent – especially the children – of basic nourishment.

We're talking to you Drue Brown, Prisci Roca-Tipton, Eddie Garcia, Minerva Peña, Ralph Cowen, and Laura Perez-Reyes. What say you?

More than one person has heard Peña, who guides the policy of the district, debunk COVID-19 as a "hoax" meant to enrich local doctors.

One, a former special education administrator Lind Gill, who came one lost bag of ballots close to being on the BISD board, swears on a stack of bibles that Peña told her she adamantly and passionately disputes what the medical experts say. Gill took notes of her conversation with Peña and read from them to confirm these assertions made by the board chair:

That Peña disputes the experts' opinions and that she bases her opinion on information from hospital employees and "facts" she looked up.

She also said that: Brownsville is doing very well in regards to the pandemic and that the infection rate and deaths are being exaggerated. "It's like the flu," she stated. "People die from the flu every year. It's a bacteria, not a virus."


"People are not dying from the coronavirus. Doctors at the hospitals are the claiming that deaths are coronavirus related in order to collect $3,000. If the death is not coronavirus-related they do not get the $3,000. It's all about the money. The (pandemic) is politically motivated and will disappear as soon as the presidential election is over in November. They are scaring us int staying home in order to suppress our immune system."

And with just several days left in July, educators across the country – like the BISD and its administration – are working to determine what happens when it's time for students to return to class. Already, two students tested positive for COVD-19 after taking the ACT at an Oklahoma high school.

After Trump got to them, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week came down hard in favor of reopening schools, saying children don't suffer much from the virus and are less likely to spread it than adults.

But today, during a special called meeting of the board, the members voted unanimously to "Recommend approval regarding Resolution #018/2020-2021 to excuse and pay up to 40 hours per week for absences of employees caused by State/Local declaration for Public Health Emergency Due to COVID-19 virus of a communicable disease."

The CDC guidelines recommend local officials keep schools closed if there is substantial, uncontrolled transmission of the virus in an area. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says schools should open until teachers or students come test positive for the virus and then the schools should be shut down, sanitized, and then open up again.

"Each community is going to have to make the determination about the circumstances for reopening, and what steps they take for reopening," Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar told CBS's "Face the Nation."  "But the presumption should be that we get out kids back to school and figure out how to make that happen."

Adm. Brett Giroir, a member of the White House's Coronavirus task force told CNN that while the presumption is that children need to be in school, some communities may have to tamper with their reopening strategies if virus transmission is too high.