“So the report was not released at that point in time, That was Mr. Patterson’s call.” Superintedent Ashley Chohlis
by Michael Robinson | Uvalde Hesperian
Jesse Rizo spoke during the public comments portion of the Uvalde CISD Regular School Board meeting asking why his request for the Texas Police Association’s report on the Robb School tragedy be put on the School board agenda was not fulfilled?
According to Riza, an article appeared recently in the Uvalde Leader-News about the newspaper’s public information request for the Texas Police Associations report was not released by the District. Uvalde CISD Board President Rizo a synopsis of the report was given by the Superintendent Gary Patterson to the District’s trustees held in November 2022.
“I was disturbed by the fact that he (Superintendent Patterson) refused to release it. We’ve been asking for this for a very long time,”Rizo said.
Rizo said he contacted Trustee Javier Florez asking that the report be placed on the April school board agenda and to email his request to all the individual board members. Rizo said he was told by Florez to contact Mikka Sanchez to ask her to send his request to all the school board trustees, Rizo said he emailed his request to Sanchez on April 7th, 2024.
“On 4/12, on Friday I looked at the agenda, there wasn’t anything related to what I wanted added to the agenda,” Rizo said. He went on to say the day of the school board meeting, the report was not on the agenda. He said called Sanchez and was told that his email was only sent to President Fernandez and Superintendent Chohlis. According to Rizo, when he asked Sanhez why his request was only sent to Fernandez and Chohlis, he stated he was told that those were the ones that make the decisions.
Rizo stated he did find out that the report would be part of the superintendent’s report.
“But it concerns me too because it could have been anything, it could have been a sexual harassment case, it could have been anything and for it was basically to be told you don’t matter. The only people that make the decision are gonna be Ferandez and Superintendent is mind boggling to be honest with you. I can’t understand that at all,” Riso said.
Riso did mention that Superintendent Chohlis just recently released the report.
Uvalde CISD Board President Fernandez responded saying, ” That report was sent October 2022 and Mr. Patterson did give a synopsis in November of 2022 of what that report said. so that why we decided
to put it in the superintendent’s report just so she could touch on it but we didn’t feel it necessary to be put on an agenda item again being we had in on an agenda item in 2022 so that’s why we did it that way.”
Superintendent Ashley Chohlis brought the matter of the report up in her report:
“I’d like to address the Texas School District Police Chiefs Association Report which the local paper reported on in the last month. To be clear, the report which was commissioned by the district came out in October of 2022 which waa a year and a half ago. At that time, there were sweeping changes in the district regarding the police force and district leadership. Additionally UCISD PD has since implemented a policy and procedure manual.
As a note, UCISD released a redacted version of the report in an effort to protect students and staff from bad actors. As a board and as a district leadership,we’re committed to utilizing each and every report that has come out in the past two years, to better protect our students and staff. We continue to seek the support and cooperation of all stakeholders to ensure the safety of our school community.
The board was given a synopsis of the report back in November, that’s my understanding: in November of 2022 is when Mr, Patterson gave the board a synopsis of the report. So the report was not released at that point in time, That was Mr. Patterson’s call.
Based on the fact that so many other reports have come out since then to include the DOJ report, I did not feel like it was in our best interest not to release the report,” Cholis said, She went on to say, “We did release it.”
On Wednesday, April 17th, the Uvalde Hesperian sent an email to district officials asking how a digital copy of the report could be obtained. The district responded to the Uvalde Hesperian’s email stating a public information request would need to be submitted to the District.
