PSJAFT president urges board to disaggregate grievance data as district reports rising complaints
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Summary
Christina Young, president of PSJAFT, told the board grievance counts rose sharply over four years and asked trustees and administration to analyze trends and return to former procedures that allowed hearings rather than only written submissions.
Christina Young, president of the PSJA Federation of Teachers (PSJAFT), addressed the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD Board of Trustees during public comment on April 14 to ask the board to disaggregate grievance data and analyze trends after the district provided a four-year record of grievances.
Young said her organization had requested records and received counts for each school year showing increases: six grievances in 2020-21, 17 in 2021-22, 32 in 2022-23 and 307 in 2023-24 (the transcript indicates PSJAFT had additional updated counts since October 2024). She said the board approved a change in November (the transcript references a change to policy DGBA) that removed in-person grievance hearings at level 3 and reduced them to written submissions; she urged the board to examine whether that change contributed to the increase.
"On October 11 of this school year, our organization put in an open records request for information regarding the number of grievances filed within the district for the past 4 years to date at the time," Young said. She summarized the numbers she received and asked the board: "Where does the data truly reveal on these grievances? Are the current systems in place working?"
Young asked whether the rising grievances are concentrated at particular sites or departments, whether they involve contract or at-will employees, and whether issues could have been deescalated earlier by human-resources interventions. She asked whether supervisors at identified sites are being held accountable and whether HR is providing transparent responses to staff concerns.
Young also framed the change to policy DGBA as a factor that may have limited employees' ability to appear before the board and said the resulting written-only process may have contributed to the rising counts. "We believe we have exceptional leadership here in this district where we can and we should do better," she said.
Board members did not deliberate on the item during public comment; Dr. Elias acknowledged Young's remarks and the board proceeded to the consent agenda. Young indicated PSJAFT planned to file an additional open-records request to update counts.
