Nepotism Alive and Well at BISD~Uncertified Charlie Atkinson Finally Gets Hired

 

by Jim Barton on Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 3:37pm

     We wrote this back on June 27 as a Facebook note:  "
Are You A Certified Teacher Without A Position?
by Jim Barton on Monday, June 27, 2011 at 4:01pm


    Are you a certified teacher without a position living in the Brownsville area?   Would it interest you to know that a currently uncertified person is on the fast track to certificatiion and will be given a position with BISD pending that certification?  Such is the nature of compadreism, nepotism in the Brownsville Independent School District.  Like an ugly anchor it sinks our children to the bottom of the educational sea.  Don't be fooled by fancy designations liike "exemplary".  It doesn't always mean that our children are even ready for the next level of education let alone the workforce.  When administrators make employment decisions based on anything other than qualifications, children suffer.
     Does the name Charlie Atkinson ring a bell?  Yes, the loudmouth, bullying, bull-in-a-china closet style city commissioner who was recently booted out of office by a first time write-in candidate.  Yes, that Charlie Atkinson.  In a series of clumsily orchestrated moves, BISD replaced the outgoing superintendent with an interim, who on the morning of his first day on the job suspended the Chief Financial Officer and in the first week demoted the Human Resources Director.  The new Human Resources Director is Sylvia Atkinson, Charlie's sister.  She will see to it that Charlie gets a job irregardless of however many hundred better qualified candidates stand in front of him.  That's how Sylvia rolls.  She is the queen of compadreism, leading to her departure from Los Fresnos, Santa Rosa and more recently the Sorocco, NM school districts.
     How much can it hurt if one unqualified PE teacher gets a job?  That's not the point.  This is clearly a modus operandi that has to be reversed.   The impending employment of Charlie Atkinson is not the biggest issue facing BISD, but it is symbolic of the problem.  If you're concerned about developments at BISD, please send an email or letter to the TEA, the Texas Education Agency.  Here is their website:  http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=5032"
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     Now seasoned blogger Juan Montoya tells us in his blog "El Rrun Rrun" that Charlie has finally been hired as a physical education instructor at Faulk.  Juan implies that the district almost had no choice but hire Atkinson because of his litiginous nature:
 "The board was caught in a quandary. If Atkinson was the selection made by the committee and he was denied the position by the board, that may have been grounds for litigation-prone Charlie to sue the district and incur costs that would probably cost the district more than the position pays. Either way, there is no winning in this one."
     I guess if the threat of lawsuit is all an uncertified person needs to get hired at BISD, then the district is wasting several millions of dollars retaining a law firm to protect itself from that very thing.  But, Juan admits in another part of his article that this is not really the case with Charlie:

"There is no denying that the fact that his sister Sylvia is the assistant superintendent for Human Resources at BISD certainly played a role in the selection by the committee. Two other relatives hold position high in the BISD pecking order. To ignore this is to ignore reality and the way politics work in the district."
     When I post this note to my blog "Mean Mister Brownsville"  I will add the video of the El Paso television story of the Sylvia Atkinson buyout at the Sorocco, NM school district.
     BTW, Bobby Wightman-Cervantes of the blog "BROWNSVILLE VOICE" has this take on the Sorocco story:

When I made calls out to Socorro to investigate Sylvia Atkinson and  had two people begin their tirade against her with "did you know she is a lesbian,"  I knew what these people were about.  There was nothing left for me to investigate.  What ever they believed was based on their hatred for gays and lesbians.

The sad part is, Sylvia Atkinson is a political whore prepared to sleep with these very gay bashing homophobes if it gets her what she wants.  She does not care if the actions of the gay bashing homophobes lead to gay children killing themselves.  For Sylvia Atkinson this is a price of business.

If Sylvia Atkinson had an ounce of self respect, which she does not, she would resign from BISD and then publicly denounce Presas-Garcia and her son.  Sylvia Atkinson will never do such a thing - she wants power even if it means gay youth being bullied to the point of committing suicide."
Here is the link to the El Paso tv station report on Atkinson at Socorro, NM(Mean Mister Brownsville blog only since Facebook doesn't allow video on notes)