ECISD’s superintendent on Tuesday reversed a ban denying district employees access to a union website following a Texas State Teachers Association email asking employees to take a survey to gauge their morale.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Hector Mendez, superintendent of Ector County Independent School District, told the IT department to remove a controversial filter that had blocked all employees from the Texas State Teachers Association website.

But the almost four day block of the website had already made an impact and left association members disappointed in the district.

“I thought it was juvenile,” Chuck Isner said of the fact that the website was ever banned. Isner, regional president for the TSTA, later added, “Someone apparently wanted to send us a message.”

However, Isner said he was pleased that the block was lifted.

Last Thursday, TSTA sent an employee morale survey to all district employees via their district email accounts. The email informed them of a confidential survey to be completed by Friday and tabulated by the National Educators Association office in Washington, D.C.

Clay Robison, spokesman with the TSTA based in Austin, said the state association was reviewing the legalities of a district blocking a teachers union. And while Robison did not know all of the details, he said his initial reaction is that paranoia must be rising and the district might be afraid of survey results.

“They must be worried about something out there,” Robison said.

Robison said he has not heard of a district blocking a teacher union site before and thought it was “pretty silly.”

Association members in Odessa, however, said the blockage was more than silly and violates freedom of speech rights.

Isner said the action by ECISD shows the district is afraid of seeing the results.

“It is conformation to me that they are not interested in knowing what employees think,” Isner said.

Mendez, however, said he did not realize that a block or filter had been taken and upon reviewing the decision he said he gave direction to have the block removed. Mendez said the block was made with good intentions because TSTA did not follow protocol and seek approval before an email was sent.

“It was an unfortunate decision made because protocol was not followed,” Mendez said.

Brian Moersch, assistant superintendent of human resources of ECISD, said one of the district’s policies requires the district to block any domain that sends emails to all district employees. He said emails sent to all employees need to receive administrative approval first.

“It’s not about the site, it’s about a deviation of policy,” Moersch said.

The district policy vaguely states in several ways that the district has authority to monitor use of district emails to ensure it is used appropriately.

Moersch said the district initiated an administrative investigation of the site Friday afternoon.

Mendez said on Tuesday evening this is a little different, and that it was unfortunate that protocol was not followed and this happened. He said he has no problem with the survey and would be interested in the results. Likewise, Mendez said he is in the process of working with organizations to create an online survey, which he hopes to have in the fall.

But for association members, that is too late.

Isner has spoken publicly at the past several board meetings about low teacher morale in the district and the need for a survey to be conducted to measure the issue.

At the May 8 special board meeting, which was held specifically to address the district’s processes for addressing teacher morale, several board members expressed an interest for the district to conduct a survey.

Isner said they had wanted to work with the district, and he even handed a copy of the survey to the superintendent several days before the survey was sent. He said when he was told the survey would be “taken under advisement” Isner said he knew he would have to send the survey.

“We’re too close to the end of the school year,” Isner said. “This has to be done.”

Mendez said he did see the survey from Isner, but he was not aware that Isner would send it out and thought it was only an example of a survey.

By Monday, Isner said there had already been 400 employees who had completed the survey. He said if they have to go with those results they will, but would like to have even more feedback.

Earlier on Tuesday, prior to Mendez lifting the block, Moersch said once the investigation on the domain concluded it will be determined either to remove the restrictions from the site or leave the filter on the site.

Damon Jackson, chief technology officer for ECISD, said all districts are federally required to have a filter under the Child Internet Protection Act. He said districts must at the minimum filter sites which are unsafe for minors.

“We have to have a filter in place,” Jackson said.

Jackson said some administrators can require additional sites placed on the blocked filter or if a domain goes against district policy it would also be blocked. Administrators said that was the reason for blocking TSTA.

Mike Adkins, communications director with ECISD, said TSTA spammed ECISD employees by sending emails to everyone and the district would not allow that to happen from any business. He said this was first time, to his knowledge, that any entity had sent unapproved emails to all employees in the district.

Donna Smith, board member position 3, said she was very surprised the district blocked the site at all. Smith said she has been asking for employee feedback and would be very interested in seeing the results of the survey.

“I’m disappointed,” Smith said.

Ray Beaty, board member vice president of position 6, said he did not know anything about the survey or the site being blocked so he declined to comment on the issue.

However, Beaty said there is a specific way of doing things and “apparently this may not have been done the right way.”

@OAschools

The email sent to employees of the survey:

“Dear ECISD employee:

Just a follow up on Friday's e-mail concerning the Staff Satisfaction survey. The link below will take you to the survey on staff satisfaction in ECISD. It is being distributed to all ECISD employees with a valid ECISD e-mail address. You do not need to be a member to participate. It is in everyone's best interests that the survey represent the views of as wide a segment of employees as possible.

There have been some employees expressing fear that the district will somehow access their survey despite the safeguards we have taken. If that is a concern to you, please do the following: copy the link and password below, then take the survey at home. Since the response is linked only to TSTA, the district absolutely can not see it if you follow these directions.

REMEMBER: THE GREATER THE NUMBER OF RESPONSES, THE HIGHER THE RELIABILITY OF THE RESULTS. If we are right about the morale in ECISD, this survey will show that. If we are wrong, we will back off. We don't believe we are, but only if you speak up can we know for sure.

All responses will be disaggragated by our NEA Research department and returned to your local TSTA officers. The deadline to respond is midnight on Friday, May 25, 2012. We will make the results available to all staff, including administration as well as the Board of Trustees the following week as soon as we receive the information back from NEA. It is our sincere desire that the information gathered will be utilized to improve working conditions in the district.

Please note that the request for your employee ID# is simply to maintain the integrity of the results by insuring that no one votes multiple times. If an ID participates more than once, only the first survey received will be counted. That information will only be available to the compilers in Washington, DC and will not be seen by anyone locally.

Finally, if you choose to make comments at the end of the survey, please keep them brief and respectful. We will delete any comments that contain profanity or otherwise inappropriate language. Be professional.

Here is your link and password:

Survey Link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Ector_2012

Password: Ector (not case sensitive).”