Grand Prairie cuts him loose

It’s official. After only two months on the job as Grand Prairie ISD’s new superintendent up in the Dallas Metroplex region, former PSJA ISD supe Jorge Arredondo is now back on the unemployment line. Or soon will be once he collects his severance pay.

The news broke last week after the GP ISD board met last Wednesday behind closed doors for approximately three hours to discuss Arredondo’s fate.

According to a board statement, Arredondo violated Grand Prairie ISD policy regarding “discrimination, harassment, and retaliation involving District employees.”

Basically, the same sort of allegations for which he was accused of while working at PSJA ISD and Houston ISD before that.

The board vote to “move forward” was 4-2 with one abstention.

Meanwhile, Arredondo remains on paid suspension while presumably, his attorney and the district’s legal counsel hammer out some sort of $$$ settlement.

Best guess, he walks away with what’s left of this year’s contract, which will be made public, while the exact reasons why he was terminated will also be disclosed, according to a story published by Dallas Metroplex National Public Radio station KERA:

“The community … will see what the information that we received and understand the basis of the decision tonight,” said board Vice President Bryan Parra, who abstained from Wednesday’s vote.

What he’s leaving behind are the two years still left on his current three-year contract, worth approximately $634,000.

Grand Prairie ISD really does need to disclose why Arredondo was cut from his job, because at least two board members, both Hispanic, are implying that it’s because he comes from Mexican roots.

My guess is, whatever he did was serious enough to can him, based on the understanding of the board majority, and his ethnicity had nothing to do with it.

Meanwhile, Arredondo will stay home, still collecting regular paychecks associated with his $317,000 annual salary.

The former PSJA ISD superintendent (2019 thru 2021) officially started with the Grand Prairie July 1. Just two months and three days later, he was placed on paid administrative leave (Sept. 4) so a third-party investigation into a possible policy violation could take place.

Approximately four weeks later, the verdict is in: the allegation of board policy violation is serious enough for job termination.

The Audit

This departure from Grand Prairie ISD could hand Arredondo the award for: Shortest school superintendent tenure in state history.

What will be interesting are the settlement terms, which usually includes a clause forbidding either party from denigrating the other.

So, if that’s the case, how will Grand Prairie ISD ever be able to fully disclose its reasons for terminating Arredondo’s employment with the district after only two months and change?

Interestingly enough, the well-known law firm, O’Hanlon, Demerath & Castillo, which handles a lot of work for Valley school districts, handled the Grand Prairie job search, and according to a story published at TexasScoreCard. com, the GP school board was indeed apprised of the forensic audit done at PSJA ISD after Arredondo left the district in 2021.

This goes against those who say that the board members obviously had no clue as to Arredondo’s work history when they hired him. Turns out, they did, but hired him anyway.

Apparently, despite what the forensic audit revealed, the GP ISD board still felt comfortable enough with Arredondo to hire him in 2024 out of a pool of 10 finalists.

In that forensic audit done at PSJA ISD after Arredondo’s departure in 2021, there were plenty items of note for the Grand Prairie ISD board to consider. Just these two alone would have raised red flags with many boards, presumably, but not GP: # For a construction project, two outdoor learning centers at Alamo Middle School and Cesar Chavez Elementary, the district executed a contract with a construction company for $5.4 million.

However, in the district’s projected construction cost for the two same centers named in a federal application (ESSER III app), the work was only worth $2.9 million.

In total, according to the audit summary review, “… the contract…was 90 percent higher than the District’s projected cost for construction the year prior…”

# PSJA ISD paid one consulting firm approximately $114,000 without board approval, which kicks in at the $50K threshold.

This same consulting service had lost the right to work in Texas effective Aug. 20, 2021, according to the state comptroller, and yet the district paid it for three invoices submitted between August 2021 and October 2021, according to the audit. The owner of the firm was a former colleague of Arredondo’s at Houston ISD. The reviews also reportedly contained inconsistencies, and some information was reportedly missing.

So, with this sort of info from the forensic audit, and this is just scraping the surface of what was contained therein, what would most school districts have done?

“No problem. You’re hired.”

Now he’s not. In record time, no less.