When the Socorro Independent School District laid off 43 teachers in May 2025, one of the criteria used by the district’s top administrators in choosing who to cut was the most recent performance appraisal.
Superintendent James Vasquez, who was the key decision maker in determining layoffs, didn’t do the legally required evaluations for his cabinet members that year. Some of those cabinet members were involved in the painful decision of which teachers to cut.
“That’s definitely unfair, not right,” said Veronica Hernandez, president of Socorro AFT, which represents teachers and other employees. “These are the people that are laying off all these teachers, yet, what about them? They’re the highest paid, and nobody’s evaluating them.”
Socorro ISD cabinet members haven’t been evaluated since the end of the 2022-23 school year, said Daniel Escobar, the district spokesperson, who is among the cabinet members who haven’t been evaluated.
“Evaluations for cabinet members were not completed during the district’s leadership transition (in 2024). They are currently being completed for the 2025-2026 school year, with a due date of June 26,” Escobar said.
He said Vasquez also is working to complete the evaluations that were due in June 2025.
Socorro ISD currently has eight members in the superintendent’s cabinet, although that number was as high as 11 in prior years, Escobar said. Administrators received a 1% pay raise for 2025-26, compared with 1.5% for teachers.
The district received a waiver for administrator evaluations in 2024, when then-Superintendent Nate Carman resigned and Vasquez was named interim superintendent late in the school year, Escobar said. But no such waiver was in place for the 2024-25 school year, when Socorro ISD faced deep financial challenges that led to the layoffs.
Vasquez was named permanent superintendent in August 2025.
Socorro acknowledged its failure to evaluate its top administrators in response to questions El Paso Matters sent to the other large school districts in El Paso County, following its reporting on El Paso ISD’s years of failure to evaluate high-ranking officials.
Ysleta ISD said the district has provided annual evaluations to all administrators.
“Reminder emails are sent out. There is an electronic component, but we also have a district employee who monitors submissions and notifies appropriate personnel in the event an evaluation is missing,” Ysleta ISD spokesperson Tracy Garcia Ramirez said.
Hernandez, the Socorro AFT president, said the failure to evaluate Socorro’s top leadership will frustrate district employees.
“I’m sure they’re going to be upset. They get evaluated every frickin’ time they have a chance, excuse my French,” she said.
State law requires all school administrators to have annual performance evaluations. The law says that school district funds can’t be used to pay administrators who haven’t received an evaluation in the prior 15 months, although the law doesn’t provide any penalties for violations.
In El Paso ISD, an internal audit report in September 2025 found that superintendents over multiple years failed to consistently complete required annual evaluations of cabinet-level administrators.
The audit report wasn’t made public until El Paso Matters obtained it earlier this month under the Texas Public Information Act.
The missing evaluations involved some of the district’s highest-ranking employees and represented a breakdown in a key accountability mechanism intended to document performance, identify concerns and guide personnel decisions.
According to the report by Chief Internal Auditor Mayra Martinez, the lapses occurred between 2013 and 2025 under two superintendents, suggesting a systemic problem.
The audit disclosure came as EPISD trustees and district administrators are facing questions about oversight and accountability following the discovery of a $50 million budget shortfall for the just-completed 2025-26 school year.
District leaders have said the financial crisis exposed weaknesses in internal controls and communication, prompting a broader examination of management practices throughout the organization. The budget problems led the school board to declare financial exigency, clearing the way for deep personnel cuts to prevent another $40 million deficit in the 2026-27 school year.
The post Socorro ISD failed to evaluate top administrators during teacher layoffs, district acknowledges appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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