We, the undersigned, resolve and present our concerns to the Brownsville Independent School District Board of Trustees, and respectfully request for the entrusted members consider a Vote of No Confidence for Dr. Rene Gutierrez for his failure to effectively lead our school district prior to and especially during this catastrophic pandemic.  Dr. Gutierrez has unfortunately demonstrated a high disregard for the BISD community by frequently isolating and failing to communicate effectively with all necessary affected groups.  Furthermore, he has failed to lead the district efficiently and effectively to operating safely during this pandemic.  It is truly unfortunate, the current state Brownsville ISD is in, under the leadership of Dr. Gutierrez.  This lack of leadership has caused many community members, students, parents, and employees to completely lose trust, faith and confidence in the institution and has deteriorated the image of Brownsville ISD as a whole.

WHEREAS, it is expected of the BISD Superintendent be competent, transparent, concerned with the well-being of students, staff, and community and committed to the mission of the district.

Instead Dr. Gutierrez has fostered an environment of disrespect, hostility, retaliation, and an all-time low morale amongst all groups. Dr. Gutierrez has established a pattern and practice of inequitable treatment of campus and department personnel.

• His lack of leadership, mismanagement, and poor administrative decisions have damaged the relationship between the administration and staff of campuses and departments. Dr. Gutierrez has established an unwritten rule of putting the least number of guidelines and changes in memo format since this COVID-19 pandemic started in March of 2020.

• He addresses administrators and principals with only verbal instructions and directives therefore leaving room for misinterpretation or inconsistent application of critical and yet constantly changing guidelines from the Texas Education Agency, local, state, and national mandates.

WHEREAS, The Superintendent’s administrative priorities are not aligned with our current harsh reality of COVID-19 in Cameron County and in the state.  This has caused for many BISD employees to feel disengaged, endangered, and with low morale. And has additionally caused for the district to lose talented and skilled staff members due to their fear of exposure to the deadly virus.

Instead of Dr. Gutierrez providing a true health and safety plan, the district has endured extreme disregard for their well-being and safety under Dr. Gutierrez’ leadership.

• Dr. Gutierrez has contributed in significant inequities of employees working remotely.
• Egregious violations of families First Coronavirus Response Act, and failure to assist employees who have requested to work remotely due to compromised health conditions and/or need to childcare. Instead employees who requested accommodations were profiled as “lazy or not wanting to work”.  This has caused for more employees to be placed at risk while on the worksites.  Requiring large number of employees to report to work has obviously contributed to an increase of coronavirus cases within the Brownsville community.
• Dr. Gutierrez has only demonstrated total disregard and neglect for the well-being and safety of all employees by not ensuring all employees were provided appropriate PPE and instead began by providing years old expired hand sanitizers.
• Taskforce Committee was not a representation of all employees. The BISD Safety Plan presented to school board is lacking in many areas to provide adequate guidance and resources to all staff regarding critical health and safety concerns.  Certification and training on FERPA or HIPPA laws was not provided to corresponding employees. Failed to enforce contact tracing for positive COVID-19 cases. No official and consistent protocols for disinfecting and evacuating positive COVID-19 areas or spaces.  Failure to provide proper PPE to all employees required to report to the workplace.  
• Students are being denied education and learning requirements as set forth by the state.  Dr. Gutierrez failed to adequately plan, research and ultimately negatively impact the students’ learning process by not providing adequate hot spots devices with adequate mobile plans to allow for use the whole month and not exceed data use within two weeks. Chromebook devices not provided to all students six months into the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Mandated teaching platforms such as Google Meets with no input or recommendations from teachers as to what was needed to use those platforms effectively.  Teachers were not properly instructed as to use of Google Meets: no passwords for safety, no waiting rooms, cannot lock classrooms, cannot control or stop the chat comments, students can login before teacher logs-in, cannot view entire class, cannot share screen, limited extensions.

WHEREAS, the employees, an increasingly large and dedicated group concerned with the well-being of the students and the district, have moved from a concern about their own personal livelihoods to now having a deep and well-motivated concern for people’s lives.

• Several attempts to address workplace safety, health and instructional issues with Dr. Gutierrez have gone unheeded. We feel that the relationship with Dr. Gutierrez is irreparable. He has brought morale to an all-time low. His lack of leadership, lack of transparency, and poor management style has led to early retirement of employees, poor retention, and recruitment of qualified personnel. A bad leader can take a good staff and destroy it thereby causing the best employees to leave BISD and those who remain to lose all motivation. Continuing to follow someone who is truly not a leader will only be totally and completely detrimental to BISD.  Dr. Gutierrez’  blatantly disrespectful attitude and poor management style are more than any student, employee, or community should have to endure.

THEREFORE, be it resolved and petitioned to the Brownsville Independent School District Board of Trustees that students, parents, employees, and community members have lost all trust, faith, and confidence in Dr. Rene Gutierrez as Superintendent of Brownville Independent School District and expresses a sentiment of no confidence.