Edcouch-Elsa...Getting "past this"...Then what?...

As reported yesterday, Aaron Gonzalez has officially resigned from his post as the Edcouch-Elsa School Board President. He is quoted in yesterday's The Monitor as stating, "I have enjoyed my association with many fine individuals over the years and know this district has provided and can continue providing great opportunities to our students". Current School Board Superintendent Michael Sandroussi responds to the letter of resignation by stating, "We are trying to move forward and we just need to get past this and the board needs to decide how to get past this". According to the report, the school district's legal counsel "said its members could either vote to accept the resignation at a board meeting or not do anything for eight days before it automatically goes into effect." Vice President of the School Board Juan Jose Ybarra declined comment, the report states, because he did not want to give the district "any more negative publicity". The thing is it's not the community or the student's that have given Edcouch-Elsa negative publicity. It is the actions of an elected official that has given Edcouch-Elsa a bad rap. Let's be clear on that at least, shall we? And since when is a letter of resignation good enough to sweep the whole affair under the rug? The problem with most elected officials is that they are all too willing for one person to be the "scapegoat" for a system that is obviously corrupt to begin with. A letter of resignation does not guarantee that this type of corruption will never happen again. Look at the Santa Maria case in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo School District. This type of corruption is not isolated, and I believe we are doing ourselves a great disservice if we just allow things to move forward. Move forward to what? Another person who will get elected and do the same thing? Let's stop concentrating on the people being indicted and accused of illegal activities, and start concntrating on a system that feeds this type of greed. Otherwise, as I've stated before, we will be stuck in a situation where we're just changing the names on the masthead, and when our kids grow up, they'll be dealing with the same crap we're dealing with now.