Socorro ISD '29 Students, Not 22 Didn't Have Enough Credits'

Yesterday it was reported that in the last school year, 22 students in the Socorro Independent School District graduated but shouldn't have because they didn't have enough credits. Today, SISD superintendent Jose Espinoza said, nuh uh, it was actually 29 students who were mistakenly allowed to graduate.

Super.

The problem came to light after SISD school board trustees Paul Garcia, David O. Morales and Eddie Mena released the information after school district's internal auditor, gave a presentation on the students to the board on Monday.

Seriously, if there was one or two students who graduated without the requisite number of credits, it might be due to someone transposing numbers on a computer database, but 29 students?

Turns out 3,556 transcripts were reviewed, although no one said why they were reviewed in the first place. The El Paso Times said they got the audit through an open records request, but unless someone thought there was a problem, why would an audit be conducted? And why didn't any news outlet ask that question?

Out of the 29 students who shouldn't have graduated, 22 students had loss of credit which is when a student’s attendance falls below 90 percent, as required by Texas law.

Socorro ISD Superintendent Jose Espinoza said the district has hired extra counselors and clerks to the schools that need help but didn't say which schools the extra staff would go to. He did, however, say that all eight of SISD's high schools were impacted.

Espinoza also said that they have to make sure that "every single student that walks that stage at the Don Haskins Center has met the graduation requirements." Yeah. That's kind of your job, sir.

So what now? Well, campuses will create an individual campus plan by March and a counselor in each of the district's eight high schools will audit each senior transcript. The students who shouldn't have graduated have been notified that they need to return to their schools and work on the requirements they missed. Some of those students are in college.

How will those student's lack of high school credits impact their college plans? Is the district going to pay for their lost tuition if their university makes them drop their classes because they don't have the requirements? What if the students live out of town? What if they are working when the district makes their missed high school classes available?

So many questions, so few answers.