One Northern New Mexico school district will have to do without a superintendent, for the time being, after the School Board voted to put him on leave.
The Board of the Mesa Vista Consolidated Schools voted, 3-1, Jan. 31, during a regular meeting, to place Superintendent Ernesto Valdez on paid administrative leave, following a motion by Board Vice President Moises Peña.
Board President Marvyn Jaramillo, Peña and Board Member Keisha Maestas voted in favor, while Board Member Andy Lopez voted against it. Board Member John Garcia exited the meeting early and did not cast a vote.
The action comes after months of disagreements between what has been described by Valdez, as two factions of the Board.
The split, pitting Garcia and Lopez against Jaramillo and Peña, has caused tension at past meetings, resulting in the Board members snapping at one other, while trying to discuss agenda items. The Jan. 31 meeting was no different and resulted in a police report being filed by Peña, in regard to Garcia.
The meeting lasted until 12:05 a.m., Feb. 1, as the Board discussed, in executive session, the agenda item pertaining to possible action related to the superintendent’s contract, to include contract extension, contract termination, and/or administrative leave.
After discussing the item, the Board voted to place Valdez on administrative leave, effective immediately, until further notice.
“The business manager will review the budget and make recommendations,” Jaramillo said via email, when asked how the District will pay for a new superintendent.
Jaramillo said Brian Henderson, the middle school and high school principal has been named interim superintendent.
“Mr. Brian Henderson has been assigned as acting superintendent in the absence of Mr. Ernesto Valdez, since he was second in command, as outlined in the chain of command organizational chart designed by Mr. Valdez,” Jaramillo wrote. “This topic is on the agenda for Feb. 7, for Board consideration and action.”
Board member walks out
Garcia said he left the executive session because he could see the pre-planned decision to put Valdez on leave, being executed.
“It’s my belief they planned it out before they went into the meeting,” he said. “They decided what they were going to do. My voice means absolutely nothing.”
He said the reasons cited for putting Valdez on administrative leave were petty, though he was unable to discuss those reasons.
Garcia also claims, since Jaramillo got on the Board, he has been trying to get rid of Valdez.
“He’s been non-stop for three years, looking for a reason,” he said. “It’s my opinion, he’s put the school off to the side, as he achieves his goal of removing the superintendent. Their decision is going to cost our already mostly broke school district money we don’t have.”
Garcia said the District is going into emergency funding fairly quickly and will need to ask the state for emergency money to pay a second superintendent.
“It won’t look good on our part,” he said.
He said the district is without direction and it’s kind of scary.
“My daughter is a student there and I’m considering moving her if we can’t get things on the right track, quickly,” Garcia said.
He said Valdez was doing a good job and has had good evaluations for the past three years. In addition, the district is the only District 2 school that has been moved forward a grade point.
“We had something good going,” Garcia said. “He’s been a good superintendent. We’re the only school in District 2 that has had that happen. Why they put him on admin leave is a personal vendetta. It’s a group effort.”
Recorder taken
Shortly after the meeting adjourned, Valdez said, while he went to retrieve his personal belongings from his office, he was accompanied by Garcia, former secretary Carmen Gallegos and Business Manager Brenda Halder.
It was then, that things between Garcia and Peña got heated. Peña claims that he went to Valdez’s office, to make sure he collected his belongings and left the building. That’s when Garcia saw a small recorder he was holding, which he used to record the meeting, and took it from his hands, ultimately running off with it and refusing to give it back, despite his protestations.
“I was recording the meeting with my own personal recorder,” Peña said. “And after the meeting, when we were making sure everyone left the building, and we were ensuring that Mr. Valdez was leaving, my audio recorder was stolen by John Garcia, another Board member.”
Peña said Garcia grabbed the recorder, refused to give it back and ran off with it, only to return about a minute later, to say he’d left it on a table in the library.
“I went to the library, but the recorder wasn’t there,” Peña said. “The next day, after receiving a text message from Mr. Garcia, that he left the recorder at the school admin office, I asked the elementary secretary to see if it was there. She went to check and it was there. All the recordings on it had been deleted.”
Peña said he suspects the recorder was taken because some people in the administration office made comments that were “inappropriate” and Garcia wanted to protect them.
“When he realized those comments would be made public, I believe that’s when he stole it and decided to destroy the evidence,” Peña said.
Garcia admitted, during a Monday interview, that he took the recorder. But said it wasn’t for the reasons Peña claims. He also said Peña got aggressive with him, when trying to retrieve the recorder.
“Everyone started yelling at everybody,” Garcia said, describing the administrative office scene after the meeting. “I made a couple of derogatory comments against Peña and Jaramillo. I noticed Peña got closer and closer to me and pushed this little black thing toward me and then put it on the table. It was a recorder, he was recording all our conversations.”
Garcia said he took the recorder and Peña told him to give it back.
“I said, ‘No, it belongs to the school,’” Garcia said. “I thought it was the school’s. He came around the counter and got aggressive with me. I said, ‘Touch me and see what happens.’ I thought he was going to punch me in the face.”
He said there were a bunch of adults acting like children, including himself.
“It was a very heated situation,” he said. “A lot of passion going on and feelings were hurt.”
He said he backed up, but Peña approached him again, so he exited the office and went into the hallway, but Peña followed him. As he was examining the recorder, it’s then that he realized it was not school property.
“At that point, I went in, put it on the counter and said ‘Here’s your thingy,’” Garcia said. “I left it.”
According to a statement Peña submitted to New Mexico State Police, Garcia sent him a text message on Feb. 1, telling him that he left the recorder on the desk in the administration office the previous night, when he realized it was not the school’s property.
Peña’s fiancée, Victoria Gallegos drove to the school later that afternoon and retrieved it, but soon realized all the recordings on it had been deleted — including hers. Peña said he grabbed the wrong recorder on his way to the meeting and took Gallegos’s, instead of his own. Gallegos is the executive secretary for the Española Police Department and had files from various meetings recorded, to include the January Public Safety Committee meeting.
The Board will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m., Wednesday (2/7), to discuss the appointment of an interim superintendent and review the administrative leave letter.