The irony is exquisite
What a difference an election makes. Out with the old, in with the new.
This past August, Alejandro Elias was involuntarily moved from the job he loved -- principal at PSJA High (PSJA Early College High School). Instead, the superintendent at the time, Jorge Arredondo, placed him at Central Office (administrative office) in some newly created job Elias said he never wanted.
He went to county court to fight the move.
In his court filings, Elias claimed that the district and school board president, Rick Pedraza, were retaliating against him due to his known political affiliations.
Those affiliations mentioned by Elias were in opposition to Pedraza’s interests in the upcoming November 2022 PSJA School Board Election, which included three seats up for grabs, including Pedraza’s and his known running mate Jorge “George” Palacios.
The school district’s response in court had been: it was in the district’s best interests to move Elias to central office and the district has immunity from the claims being made.
According to Elias’s court filing, PSJA ISD, through its board majority and its administration, entered into a conspiracy to reassign him and potentially attempt to terminate him from his current position (PSJA High principal). On Aug. 1, he was stripped of his principal’s job and sent to central office.
Elias and the district settled the lawsuit through mediation, accepting a token amount (unpaid personal days) to walk away.
The Irony
As of this Monday, Jorge Arredondo is no longer PSJA ISD superintendent. His replacement as interim supe? Alejandro Elias. As the headline suggests: the irony is exquisite.
That’s thanks to the Nov. 8 school board election, in which Rick Pedraza and Jorge Palacios lost their seats in crushing fashion by double digits to new board members Diana Serna and Yolanda Castillo. Together with Cynthia Gutierrez and Carlos Villegas, they now have the votes to make the changes they promised during their campaign. Onward and upward.
After the election was called, Arredondo should have seen a bad moon rising. After all, during the past two years, Gutierrez and Villegas have claimed repeatedly that he wouldn’t work with them; wouldn’t keep them abreast of what was going on; wouldn’t return phone calls, wouldn’t keep them in the loop when it came to school business. In other words, they were the minority, so they could be ignored without worry.
The Nov. 8 election flipped that paradigm on its head.
Actually, the Elias saga began last July when then-PSJA Superintendent Arredondo and his right-hand man, administrator Rolando Treviño, requested a meeting. Arredondo congratulated him on his accomplishments — thank you very much — according to his subsequent court filing, but then said that things were going to get “stressful” with the upcoming November election.
Call it prescience? Whatever happened after that turned into a legal debate, but before the month was out, Elias was out at PSJA High, and the board minority members at the time (Cynthia Gutierrez and Carlos Villegas) were asking, why move a principal this close before an election, especially one who was earning such high marks, if not for the sake of politics?
So now, after Monday’s school board meeting, the board voted 7-0 to sign a severance package with Jorge Arredondo (one year’s salary and benefits, even though he had three years remaining), and hire Elias to replace him as interim superintendent. That vote was 5-2, with the two Zambrano brothers in the minority. Their usual ally, Trustee Jesse Vela, voted with the new majority.
How quickly things change.