Scandals rock multiple South Texas school districts in just one month

The past few weeks have been marred by safety concerns and legal headaches for several school districts across South Texas. From students bringing guns to campus to several top administrative shakeups to educators under arrest to budget woes changing what some school districts will look like next fall, the last few weeks of the school year have been anything but quiet.

Here’s a look at all the news that’s rocked schools in the Rio Grande Valley.

Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District (ECISD) Superintendent Mario Salinas is currently on paid administrative leave after a series of incidents that have prompted law enforcement responses to multiple campuses over the last few weeks.

During a special meeting held on Wednesday, May 21, the ECISD Board of Trustees unanimously voted to formally reprimand Salinas and place him on leave for five days after discussing the matter behind closed doors.

Though the school board didn’t openly discuss why they were placing Salinas on ice, Place 3 Trustee Leticia “Letty” Garcia spoke of accountability and safety just before the board voted, adding that the board needed “a precise timeline on what transpired.”

It’s unclear what incident Garcia was referring to, as several major incidents have rocked the district within the last month, including an E. coli contamination that forced the shuttering of an elementary school campus earlier this month that will last through the end of the school year.

Perhaps most notable was an Edinburg North High School student who brought a 9mm handgun to campus on Tuesday, May 6, that he had modified for automatic fire.

Kinzey Lira, 18, is now facing federal gun charges for bringing the gun, as well as a 10-round clip, to campus. He’d also put rubber bands on the gun’s grip because the weapon “was really hard to control,” federal prosecutors said. 

The same day that Lira brought a gun to school, an ECISD middle schooler was the victim of a hit-and-run while walking to school. ECISD Police Chief Ricardo Perez Jr. responded to the incident, where dashcam video from a bystander showed the moment of impact — something Perez said “disturbed” and “infuriated” him.

“This little girl went underneath the front bumper and was pinned by the tire on her torso,” Perez told MySA, adding that he and an investigator went to the assailant’s home “in hot pursuit” using a license plate they’d obtained from the video.

The next day, the district suspended the police chief for three days with pay. Perez said he wasn’t told why, but suspects it’s because he wasn’t in two places at once.

“Once we had secured the 7th grader in the ambulance… by that time, they were taking this individual (Lira) to the PD. And that’s very important, because I wasn’t, like, somewhere eating a donut and coffee. I was at an accident scene where a 7th grader was run over,” Perez said.

The day Chief Perez returned from leave, Edinburg North was placed on lockdown over a security concern. Then on Thursday, May 22, two teens were arrested for posting threats on social media. A 17-year-old junior at Edinburg North, is facing a charge of threatening to exhibit or use a firearm on school property. A 16-year-old student at an IDEA Public School in McAllen is also facing charges related to the incident.

Meanwhile, at Mercedes ISD, Superintendent Benjamin Clinton was placed on leave during a school board meeting on Tuesday, May 20. The disciplinary action comes after Clinton was arrested on May 16 for allegedly driving while intoxicated. DPS troopers discovered an empty bottle of both vodka and whiskey inside Clinton’s car, according to court records.

After unanimously voting to put Clinton on leave, the Mercedes school board then named Alicia Noyola to serve as interim superintendent. During the same meeting, the school board voted to consolidate several campuses, citing changing birth rate trends, funding shortfalls and declines in enrollment. The district will consolidate its two middle schools into one and will go from having four elementary campuses to three.

Over in the Delta region of rural Hidalgo County, Edcouch-Elsa ISD officials appointed a school board trustee’s wife as the district’s interim superintendent. But the vote wasn’t unanimous — with one trustee hinting at nepotism, and another abstaining from the vote because she is employed by the trustee whose wife got the gig.

The board named Sandra Ochoa, who until now has served as the executive director for the district’s social services and testing departments, as the interim super after accepting the “voluntary separation” of Superintendent Alda T. Benavides during a school board meeting on Wednesday, May 21.

But Ochoa is married to Dr. Ricardo Ochoa, a local pediatrician who serves as the school board vice president.

Trustee Norma Linda Peña balked at the appointment, asking EEISD’s lawyer to read the district’s nepotism policy, which has a “grandfather clause” that carves out an exception for people who have been continuously employed by the district at least six months before an official was elected.
“I still take issue with this because there’s a conflict from where I stand,” Peña said.

Trustee Cindy Chapa Tanguma abstained from voting on the matter because she works for Dr. Ricardo Ochoa.