Edinburg CISD suspends superintendent following weeks of turmoil

EDINBURG, Texas (ValleyCentral) — The Edinburg CISD school board held a special meeting on Wednesday. The first item on the agenda considered sanctions and a possible suspension of Superintendent Mario Salinas. Board members decided to reprimand Salinas and place him on paid administrative leave for five days, beginning Thursday.

Alondra Flores, parent of an ECISD student, spoke at the meeting in support of suspending Salinas. But said she'd like stronger action taken.

“I would like termination, and like I spoke in my speech, I am asking him to do right by our district, and just please step down. Let somebody else take over,” Flores said.

The Edinburg school district has recently been plagued by a series of high-profile incidents that have eroded the faith in district leadership among some community members. Canterbury Elementary School was forced to close and relocate in early May. Then there were two separate incidents at Edinburg North High School that raised safety concerns.

The most serious of those incidents happened when a student brought a gun, according to police, modified to become fully automatic. The student also had ammunition with him. Some meeting attendees said they were very concerned that a lockdown of the school didn't happen in that instance, when there was a serious threat to public safety.

That was followed by another incident on Monday, when a lockdown was initiated after a parent expressed safety concerns. In that case, law enforcement found no credible threat. The lockdown was lifted about half an hour after it began.

However, Flores said she believes the lockdown procedure started too slowly. She said it wasn't declared until an hour and a half after the potential threat had been reported. "The fact that they took so long, that's alarming, and this falls on him," Flores said, referring to Superintendent Salinas. Those frustrations, from parents and board members, prompted Wednesday's meeting.

Marsha Gonzalez is a retired teacher with more than 30 years of experience and president of the local American Federation of Teachers union. She said the "outcry was so loud," the board had no choice but to address the superintendent's behavior.

Board members listened to public comments for the first twenty minutes of the meeting before going into closed session to superintendent's fate.

Also on the ECISD board agenda was the discussion and possible non-renewal of district staff contracts. They included the Assistant Principal of Edinburg North High School, the Supervisor of Athletics, one counselor, and five teachers.

It took less than an hour for board members to emerge and announce their decisions. In addition to Superintendent Salinas being reprimanded and placed on paid administrative leave, they decided not to renew the contracts of everyone listed on the agenda. Those staff members will finish the current school year, and then their time at ECISD will be over.

When asked what Salinas had been reprimanded for, Edinburg CISD attorney Benjamin Castillo said he couldn't elaborate, adding, “All these are evaluation documents, so we can’t discuss them because they’re personnel items. But he was reprimanded for the issues that occurred at Edinburg North and other issues as well that the board had concerns with over the last couple of weeks.”

Before the meeting adjourned, board member Letty Garcia proposed bringing in an outside entity to look into how the incident with the gun on campus was handled. Garcia said she wants to get an accurate timeline of events and determine what specific actions were taken. Castillo said the idea would be discussed at the next board meeting.