ZENDEJAS LANDS ON FEET TO DO BISD MAJORITY'S WORK

By Juan Montoya
Her last job was running a small charter school in McAllen.
And her applications for counselor jobs at Pace High School and the Special Needs Department at the Brownsville Independent School District were nixed by the principal and the department head.
So how was it that former BISD superintendent Esperanza Zendejas ended up being chosen as the interim superintendent with a very likely possibility that she will be hired for another year or two even after the board promised the public that they would hire a consultant, conduct a nationwide search and even appoint 14 members of nthe community to a search advisory board?
Suddenly, in a most incongruous turn of events, the woman who last headed a small charter school is in charge of a $500 million system with 7,000 employees and 40,000 students.
"It's easy," said a BISD administrator. "She is doing what the majority on the board headed by Minerva Peña, Joe Rodriguez, Jose Chirinos and Cesar Lopez want her to."
The role, that of hatchet woman and scorched-earth personnel directives, has served Zendejas well following her departure from the BISD.
When Zendejas was hired by the board of trustees of the Brownsville Independent School District in 1992, she came in wielding an ax provided her by a majority on the board of the district.
Over time, these changes she instituted resulted in widespread turmoil among the staff, teacher and administrators of the district. Soon, even her staunches supporters like then-board president Peter Gilman could not convince the board majority that they should keep her until the end of her contract in 1998. Gilman was the sole trustee voting not to release her from her contract in 1995.
It's ironic that one of the reasons that Zendejas gave at the time she informed the board she was considering a job with the Indianapolis (Indiana) Pubic Schools was because she didn't think that the incoming board majority would keep her around for long.
However, during her short reign at the BISD, she performed admirably for the majority that hired her, removing principals and administrators hurly-burly as the board majority which kept her at her job wished.
Once the center didn't hold, she could see the writing on the blackboard and knew it was time to move on.
The same thing happened at Indianapolis.
When she arrived there in May 1995 with a four-year contract, it took all of one month for her to kow-tow to the wishes of that board majority. She announced that 63 of its top administrators and staff members would have to re-apply  and interview for their positions because the district was "in crisis."
"The crisis deals with financial resources. It deals with accountability. And it deals with community perception."
Predictably, she ended her relationship with Indianapolis with one year left on her four-year contract amid charges that she had worked to dismantle the district, instead of improving it.
"There is a groundswell of opposition to this board, to this woman (Zendejas) who someone recently described as  'Goldsmith in a dress,'" commented one of her critics in a letter to WIBC Radio in Indianapolis.
"She has no intention of improving or expanding IPS," he wrote the station. "Her agenda was to dismantle it, piece by piece. I am here to tell you that business as usual is no longer acceptable; you'll sees results in the next school election...Zendejas will be out of here shortly, and the rest of us will have to pick up the pieces."
The Brownsville and Indianapolis experience of signing a contract, implementing aggressive polices and shaking up the staff and administration protected by the current majority, and then sensing that the district's voters would elect a new board majority that would not support her policies, and taking a payout before the ax came down, has been a Zendejas hallmark wherever she has gone.
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.
In 1995, Herald writer Anthony Gray said Zendejas knows a thing or two about school boards. Her doctoral thesis at Stanford University was titled: "The recruitment and selection of female school board candidates for rural districts in California." That shows that she was familiar with their political workings, being how she was a board member in California, he wrote.
After she does as she is told by the current BISD board majority of Rodriguez, Peña, Chirinos and Lopez, will she be given the superintendent's gig until the next board is elected?
And will history repeat itself and – as the Indianapolis critic said – : "...you'll see results in the next school election...Zendejas will be out of here shortly, and the rest of us will have to pick up the pieces."