VETERANS MEMORIAL H.S. HEARING: A STAGED PROTEST?

By Juan Montoya
Reacting to plans by the trustees of the Brownsville Independent School District to transform the new Veterans Memorial High School into a college prep campus for science technology and the medical professions, the school's administration and a cadre of her followers staged the pseudo protest at a meeting held there Tuesday.
The trustees announced they will follow the recommendations of the BISD administration and implement the Science Technology and Medical Professions College Preparatory Program (STAMP) at Veterans Memorial the 2012-2013 school year.
That move generated a protest against the idea by football parents which were joined by band, choir, Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps students and others who were told that those programs would be eliminated.
“You are singling out only students who are interested in medicine, science and technology and wasting a $75 million facility,” Mary de Leon is reported in the local daily telling the board. “You’re ignoring the football stadium, the gym and students with special needs."
Even though Superintendent Carl Montoya and the board assured the concerned parents and students that those rumors were without foundation, it soon became clear that the protest was not spontaneous, but rather was prompted and coordinated by someone in the school's administration.
"We have learned that before the meeting, students and parents supporting these programs were called to the office during class time to coordinate their activities at the meeting," said a BISD administrator. "It's not a coincidence that when Rolando Aguilar and Minerva Peña were introduced, there was clapping, and when the majority of the board – Catalina Presas-Garcia, Luci Longoria, etc. – there was booing from the crowd. You're not going to tell me that happened spontaneously. It was planned."
The trustees say that the administration planned the introduction of the pre-college program to turn out BISD graduates who would hit the ground running, much as they have done in East and West Coast school districts.
"We can't afford to have our students unprepared when they graduate from high school and not be competitive with other graduates at the national level," said board president Catalina Presas-Garcia. "This (implementation of program) can't be delayed anymore."
Presas-Garcia said she had spoken with a veterans representative who told her someone from the school had called to tell him that the name of the Veterans Memorial High School would be changed. She assured him that there was no plan to do that."
"Someone went through a lot of trouble to stir things up and put up the students and rile the veterans," she said. "We're going to do what it takes to prepare our students for college."
Additionally, she said that those who complained that the football program would be eliminated (it was not) did not realize the amount of money that the district pours into athletics.
"We have put more than $1.5 million into the football program each year for years and years," she said. "Has the program produced one professional football player as did Harlingen and Rio Hondo. On the other hand it took years for soccer to be funded by the BISD and now we're getting scores of our students getting scholarships as a result of the program. That should be our focus."