Convicted
She was accused of accepting a $10,000 bribe from a FBI undercover agent to place an item on the BISD board agenda and encourage the other board members to approve it.
A Feb. 9 sentencing date was set.
Atkinson was previously a superintendent in the Socorro, Santa Rosa and Los Fresnos ISDs, and had been an assistant superintendent of the Brownsville and Rio Hondo ISDs.
She declined to run for a new BISD board term in the Nov. 3 election.
A federal grand jury had indicted (press release) Atkinson in December 2019.
Resigned
El Paso media reported that El Paso ISD school board approved (Nov. 4) the resignation of EPISD Superintendent Juan Cabrera, who had more than three years left on his contract, and approved a separation agreement for him to be paid $558,917.54 in early 2021, and to fund Cabrera’s three supplemental retirement plans.
The board’s actions came after news surfaced three weeks earlier that he and a former EPISD school board president had been named in a civil lawsuit in California claiming they defrauded investors of an online school launched by the former board president and in which Cabrera was a consultant.
Cabrera and the former board president have denied the allegations in the lawsuit.