The Examiner Editorial 10/2/13 Absence of Accountability. It is not exactly shocking news to learn that administrators at Central High School in Beaumont have been accused of manipulating attendance records to reflect that students who missed class were actually present. It is no secret that the Beaumont Independent School District in general and Central High School in particular have been plagued by scandal and the latest allegations of attendance fraud appear to be part of a pattern of lawlessness that the superintendent and a majority of board members either ignored or condoned. The school had ample motive for such actions as the state funds schools to the tune of $12,529 per pupil per school year with that amount adjusted downward for each day the student is not in class. The fact the Texas Education Agency gives the school some leeway in determining when an absence may be excused and setting procedures in which students can make up time missed apparently provided all the cover school officials needed to carve an unofficial Central High exception to the rules that govern all schools. Reports of Central staff manipulating those student attendance records have been circulating alongside widespread allegations of financial irregularities, student rip-offs, altered grades and other assorted high crimes and misdemeanors. Former principal – and current BISD assistant superintendent – Patricia Adams Collins Lambert is a convicted extortionist who has been rocked by so many accusations of possible wrongdoing that it suggests she was a one-woman crime wave. She has yet to be charged with any crimes for her actions here, thanks to feeble BISD investigative efforts, but that could change rapidly if outside agencies obtain some of the documents that have found their way into the public record – and the pages of this newspaper. Of course Adams Collins Lambert didn’t do it alone and the ranks of Central staff are riddled with numerous relatives and friends of hers whose names have surfaced in connection with these stories. The current TEA investigation into BISD appears to be broad-based enough to suggest that a day of reckoning may be at hand sometime in the near-future so we retain hope for an accounting at long last. But the tragedy here runs far deeper than the financial implications of counting absent students present to collect funds from the state tied to daily attendance. Under state law, students who fail to attend 75 percent of their classes are ineligible for promotion or graduation, a measure passed by lawmakers to ensure students are receiving the education to which they are entitled and for which taxpayers are funding. For their diplomas to be worth the parchment they are printed, future employers should know that they represent that the student has indeed done the required course work and been present at the school to do it. But according to our story this week, two graduating seniors at Central in 2013 missed more than half the school year. And that is just wrong.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 04:36:10 +0000
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