A former Odessa High administrator who requested whistleblower protection now says she has little to do in her new position.

In May, Yolanda Carr was moved from her job as Odessa High’s instructional services director to a position in the testing department at the Ector County Independent School District administration building. The move came after Carr complained to administrators about “at risk” students being withdrawn from OHS the week before TAKS tests were taken, which could have impacted scores.

But while she shows up for work every day and continues to receive a paycheck, Carr said she does little in her new position.

“Every day I just look for things to do,” she said.

ECISD Superintendent Hector Mendez said Carr should be seeing plenty of work in her position.

“That’s one person’s opinion,” Mendez said of her claims. “We did make a change. We put her in a position where we did need help.”

Meanwhile, Carr said she has hired an attorney. She hears little from administration about the situation at OHS that she complained about.

“There’s no communication line about it at all,” she said. “I know about as much as I did on May 9 when I was re-assigned.”

After an investigation into Carr’s charges, ECISD instructional services director Tommie Robinson determined that the actions of moving the students were within board policy because of reasons including students moving to another school, enrolling in private school or returning to their home country. Robinson did say that withdrawing students the week before a state assessment can be poor timing and create challenges for campus testing coordinators.”

ECISD officials have said that it could have hurt the school’s testing performance to wait until after TAKS to drop students who hadn’t been attending school.

In state accountability ratings released this week, Odessa High received a rating of academically acceptable for the 2010-11 school year, the same rating the school had the year before. Cross-town Permian dropped to unacceptable. TAKS scores are a large factor in the ratings.

Mendez said Thursday that ECISD has addressed the complaints and is moving forward.

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