ZENDEJAS; A TRAIL OF RESIGNATIONS AND BUYOUTS

By Juan Montoya
This past Monday the members of the board of the Brownsville Independent School District unanimously voted to hire Dr. Esperanza Zendejas as an interim superintendent to replace Carl Montoya who departed to take over San Antonio's Judson ISD.
In doing so, they said she would stay on until they conducted a nationwide search for Montoya's replacement.
Now, Zendejas, who has family in Brownsville, was the BISD superintendent from 1992 to 1995 when she left to seek greener pastures elsewhere even though she still had three years left in her contract.
Zendejas came to Brownsville in 1992 from Desert Sands Unified School District in Southern California.
After leaving Brownsville she landed a job with the Indianapolis Public Schools in 1995 that lasted another three years until she was replaced with her assistant superintendent for facilities management. At the time, a news account of her departure indicated that she had a "bankrupted relationship" with the board there.
When she left, she said that the board's support for her reforms had been "lukewarm."
The Indianapolis board paid her $158,100 – a year's salary and benefits – for her early departure.
It's a pattern that has followed her since.
In San Jose, California, Zendejas resigned two years before the end of her contract with the East Side Union High School District over criticism of her management style. According to Zendejas’ contract in San Jose, she made $225,000 a year. The board also paid her a portion of her salary when she left the district.  She continued working for the district as a consultant until Jan. 31, 2011 and collected a monthly payment of $14,000 (about $168,000 a year) plus benefits, according to the consulting agreement
At the Alisal Union School District in Salinas, Calif., Zendejas left in 2010 but stayed on as a consultant with the district paying each administrator $168,000 a year to do the same job.
Now the BISD has her until they find another candidate. With the board's support, will she endear herself to them and land the gig again?