Dumb and Dumber Running Veterans Memorial, STAMP Program

When Carl Montoya made three critical changes in administrative personnel in the first 48 hours of his superintendency before he even knew the location of the coffee machine, he fulfilled the prophecy of Cata Presas-Garcia days earlier when she declared him "a fit" for the job.  Of course anyone willing to have their puppet strings pulled by the corrupt 4 BISD trustees is a damn perfect fit.  

Carl Montoya is BISD's Roger Ortiz.  Much as Ortiz does the bidding of Ernie Hernandez and Gilberto Hinojosa, Montoya is a "hey boy" for Presas-Garcia, phony doctor Escobedo, Lucy, etc.  

Forget for a moment the 14.3 million dollar lawsuit dropped against Healthsmart because Cata, Escobedo, Saavedra and Lucy were manipulated by con artist Carlos Quintanilla.  Forget the hundreds of thousands of dollars BISD is paying former superintendents and administrators for NOT WORKING,  while teachers are having to foot the bill for hand sanitizer, paper towels and lost books.  

All of that is old news, millions of taxpayer dollars flushed down the toilet of incompetency.  Instead, focus on the new $75,000,000 high school designed for 2,200 students;  Veterans Memorial.  The full service high school, complete with athletic facilities, vocational training classrooms and other amenities had its focus abruptly short-circuited by declaring it a STAMP facility.  Hundreds of students within the school's geographic territory, but not in the STAMP program, had to be reassigned to other Brownsville high schools.  The outcry of taxpayers went unheeded as the corrupt BISD board simply 'knows better."

Michelle Seney

Placed in charge of the STAMP program is former Hanna administrator Michelle Seney.  By most accounts a shy wallflower, Seney has turned egomaniac with the appointment, expressing dissatisfaction with the size of the office afforded her and other like administrators.  

As reported in an earlier article, Seney requested the wall separating two classrooms be torn down to build a personal office sufficient to accommodate her swelling cranium.   This remodel to  placate Seney's ego displaced two teachers from their classrooms, forcing them to "float" to utilize other temporarily vacant rooms and lug their teaching materials with them.  

One commenter, while expressing appreciation for that report, indicated Sweney's  ego had done even more damage to Veterans than first expected:  

"I'm impressed! I thought I was the only one aware of the disaster at Veterans. You need to update that number of floaters to Six! Also, you yanked out all the two (2) year old desks for students and teachers and replaced them with new ones. All the two year old computers for the students piled up in some room and new ones for the STAMP program. What a waste of money! Also, another lost classroom for her secretary and another lost classroom for her counselor. Teachers are leaving as we speak in total disgust and it's only going to get worse. They told you about this awesome program between the community, the school, and the medical field. Mrs. Seney hosted a luncheon for all the medical community, doctors, hospital administrators, etc. etc. One doctor showed up, about 4 from the medical community, and your school administrators. About 25 total. They invited 250, does this look like the medical community is serious about this poorly planned attempt to keep our children from going to Mercedes to get a real education in medical fields. What a joke!"

Another commenter gave us a slightly different point of view:

"I can't imagine Seney knowingly doing anything that might even be remotely controversial, she has the spine of a worm and in general seems to be busier at covering her ass than dealing with what an Assistant Principal needs to be doing on a daily basis.

Most of the people at Hanna were not sad to see her leave, she became unaffectionaly known as the "Traitor Raider". Seney was picked for the STUMP program because she is so easily manipulated, as I say, no spine at all. Seney by the way was not the only Administrator that pushing the STUMP program while still supposedly working at Hanna.

When Seney was questioned about the mess that was going on when BISD decided to up-root the two most successful pathways in the district, she would just "hem and hah" and say "well I can't really talk about it." In the mean time people's jobs were put on the line and lies were told.

It's just a mess, but I don't feel in the least bit sorry for Seney, this is her baby now and it will make her or break her."

It's worse than we at first thought

 

Veterans Memorial High School, originally designed for 2,200 Brownsville high school students is now home to the 565 who signed up for the STAMP program.  Sounds like there should be plenty of room even with Seney and her cohorts converting valuable classroom space into offices for the inept.

Not so quick says one commenter, claiming that since Seney and her cronies used up so many classrooms, the underpopulated, under-utilized facility now has to bring in portable classrooms at taxpayer expense:

"About the Seney fiasco.... OK taxpayers, get a load of this one! Veteran's is getting portables! Yes that's right... they've outgrown their space, or is it, STAMP has taken over the much needed classrooms so now they are bringing in portables for the rest of the non-stamp children. What a mess! And why do the new STAMP teachers get 32 inch computer monitors? Why do they get those and the rest of the regular teachers get the ones half the size? Where do I sign up for an IPAD? Oh si I forgot, I am not STAMP so therefore I get to buy my own tablet if I want to keep up with technology! Nimodo all of the regular students are getting the two year old scraps if you ask me. And they said VMHS/STAMP would be one big happy family! Nada que ver!"

From the editor:  Has there ever been a more incompetent, inept, corrupt, unqualified group of people overseeing a $500,000,000 education budget than the BISD Board of Trustees?