New Edinburg school board president promises more accountability

Newly appointed Edinburg CISD School Board President Xavier Salinas said Monday that he intends to use the leadership position to strive for more accountability and more efficiency at the district.

 

Trustees voted to name Salinas president while reorganizing their officers at a board meeting Monday.

 

A career educator, Salinas retired as superintendent at Hidalgo ISD last year and currently works as Weslaco’s assistant city manager.

 

 

Salinas said Monday that he intended to set expectations high as board president.

 

“I see our district too loose and too lax. That’s just me looking at 30,000 feet. Every single staff member here has to tighten the belt,” he said. “Everyone in this room plus our principals. Because when you have the discipline in your building, in the schools, good things happen. People know you mean business. And we pay lots of money to everybody in this room, and all I say is everyone needs to tighten the belt, raise the level of expectancy, because we want to get nothing but great results here. And it starts right now.”

 

Salinas mentioned a couple of priorities, among them mental health policies and potential revisions to the district’s organizational chart. He said he hoped to foster a relatively hands off approach to campuses to let principals do their jobs and said he’d be suspending board committee meetings, at least through the holidays.

 

Salinas also said the district needed to examine its safety plans, referencing an incident at Edinburg North in May.

 

That incident resulted in the arrest of a student who had allegedly brought a handgun to school, though the district didn’t initially acknowledge he had bullets and no lockdown was called for the campus.

 

Fallout from the incident included at least six suspensions, an unsuccessful attempt to nonrenew North’s principal, an external review of the district’s safety practices and changes to those practices.

 

Salinas implied Monday that changes to safety practices would be ongoing.

 

“Safety’s so important to this district,” he said.

 

Finally, Salinas said he was concerned about an 862 student enrollment drop, a number that has a significant financial implication for the district.

 

“And we need all those kids back,” he said.

 

Salinas replaces David Torres as board president.

 

 

Torres said Monday that he was ready to be done serving in that position in order to focus on his personal businesses and his family.

 

“Before I lose the seat, I just wanna thank the community for of course allowing me to be here,” he said. “But it was an honor to serve this great district, to work with the team…It was honest a lot of work, I ran it like it was one of my businesses, and I spent a lot of time.”

 

Carmen Gonzalez and Letty Flores, who served as board vice president and secretary respectively, retained those positions Monday.