McAllen ISD changed organizational chart after police chief complaint

The McAllen Independent School District quickly altered a new organizational chart after the school district’s police chief raised concerns that the chart may have violated state law this summer, though the chief still formally complained about the revised chart in a grievance filed against the district’s superintendent.

 

In that grievance, filed by McAllen ISD Police Chief Jose “Joey” Silva against Superintendent René Gutiérrez in late July, Silva described tensions rising over a new organizational chart that altered who he reported to.

 

Previously, Silva reported to the district’s superintendent.

 

Under the new structure, he reported to the district’s chief human resources officer, who reported to its deputy superintendent, who only then reported to its superintendent.

 

Silva argued that the new chain of command was illegal because of Section 37.081(f) of the Texas Education Code, which states, “the chief of police of the school district police department shall be accountable to the superintendent and shall report to the superintendent.”

 

Within hours, the district amended the chart.

 

 

The new chart — the one the district is still using — connects Silva directly to the district’s superintendent through a solid line and to its HR chief through a dotted line.

 

McAllen ISD seems to be the only school district with a police department in Hidalgo County to currently use that structure.

 

Other districts — like Edinburg, La Joya and PSJA — have their police chiefs report exclusively to their superintendents, usually with one simple line on an organizational chart.

 

A sampling of other school districts throughout the state indicates that’s the norm.

 

In his grievance, filed July 22, Silva wrote that he had concerns about being “silenced, dismissed, or not considered essential enough to have direct contact” with the district’s superintendent in any but “major” matters because of the new chart at McAllen ISD.

 

He said he feared the new chain of command clouded a clear directive made by state law in such a way that could hurt safety at the district.

 

“Sometimes doing the right thing is hard or not popular, but I’m not willing to put my Texas Peace Officer License on the line to violate any law regardless of however insignificant or miniscule it may be perceived,” Silva wrote. “I would have thought better post-Uvalde that this would be something any leader would want to be directly involved in, versus putting up a facade of being involved.”

 

HR chief Albert Canales, in a response to that grievance, wrote that Silva’s supervisor wasn’t ambiguous and described the meaning of the extra dotted line.

 

 

“McAllen ISD Human Resources has no supervisory authority over you as the Chief of Police whatsoever,” the response reads.

 

“McAllen ISD Human Resources is just that, a resource, to assist the Superintendent, and yourself, in administering the day-to-day operations of the McAllen ISD Police Department. No other employee within McAllen ISD, save and except the Superintendent, has supervisory authority over you. You are accountable to, and report only to, the Superintendent.”

 

In a text message to Silva written in July, Canales described the new setup a little less formally.

 

“He says you still fall under him I am your Liason (sic). Your personal body guard,” he wrote.

 

That didn’t appear to be the district’s intention before introducing the dotted line.

 

A document included in Silva’s grievance describes Canales not as a “resource” to the police chief but as the police department’s overseer.

 

The district maintained in its response that the dotted line setup follows the rules.

 

According to McAllen ISD’s response to the grievance, the district wasn’t able to find a statute limiting its superintendent’s ability to refer his police chief’s needs to a subordinate.

 

The Texas School Safety Center advised the district the dotted line solution was fine as long as McAllen ISD’s superintendent performs his chief of police’s evaluation, the response said.

 

The grievance indicates that there was significant friction between Silva and Gutiérrez over that organizational chart change.

 

Silva said in his grievance that Gutiérrez spoke to him sternly about the chain of command issue in front of subordinates.

 

While the district was still finalizing its dotted line solution, Gutiérrez and Silva spoke again on the phone.

 

Silva said Gutiérrez “immediately expressed in what I interpreted to be an aggressive tone (not the first time) that he was getting tired of reading too many of my emails (which were only two emails) … He then shared in an aggressive tone to stop sending emails and that if I needed to go to his office to talk to him.”

 

Silva said that he tried explaining that he was merely trying to document conversations for future reference.  Gutiérrez made comments about how he would be responsible for Silva’s yearly evaluations, which Silva interpreted as a subtle threat to his continued employment.

 

The grievance asked for Silva to only report to the district’s superintendent and that Gutiérrez refrain from harassing or retaliating against Silva.

 

 

The district deemed the first of those demands met by the dotted line change and said Silva would be free of harassment or retaliation like any other employee.

 

Silva also demanded corrective action for Gutiérrez, including school law enforcement training, anger management courses and a formal apology.

 

The district declined to take any of those steps.

 

In the district’s level two grievance response, dated Aug. 29, Canales described the matter as addressed.

 

“We trust that this will be an isolated incident and that both yours and Dr. Gutiérrez’s professionalism and commitment to this District will prevent future unpleasant exchanges,” he wrote.

 

Silva declined to comment on the grievance, but it doesn’t appear that it ever made it to a level three hearing, which would have come before the board.

 

The Progress Times filed an open records request for the grievance and associated documents in early August.

 

McAllen ISD resisted releasing them, but did so after an attorney general’s opinion issued late last month obliged it to.