El Paso

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The El Paso Division honors Patricia Scott, an educator and community activist whose tenacity exposed illegal activity within the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD).

For 16 years, Ms. Scott was a counselor at Bowie High School in El Paso’s Segundo Barrio, just across the border from Juarez, Mexico. As a high school special education transition specialist, Ms. Scott worked to implement a transition process for students with disabilities to acclimate to work and community living. She furthered the effort by providing work experience skills and facilitating community travel needs and agency referral needs of special education students.

In 2009, she was surprised to find that dozens of students who should have become sophomores were being retained in the ninth grade after course credits they had earned the year before had been removed from their transcripts. Ms. Scott ultimately uncovered that EPISD officials were illegally manipulating enrollment in the district’s limited English proficiency program. As a result of her actions, individuals involved in the illegal activity were held accountable.

Ms. Scott has received many accolades for her work and dedication to students in the EPISD.