Mario Compean Oral History Transcript Steve Arionus: Edgewood walkouts in 1968 the Edgewood superintendent Bennie Steinhauser said that when the students walked out it was because of outside agitation. Did MAYO have any relationship to that walkout? Mario Compean: Well, we had a very close relationship with it was…. it was organized by outsiders yes, I came in from Saint Mary's although into my backyard but you know that's 68 that's only you know barely 8 years after I got out of high school the same high school by that it was you know dilapidated the physically had deteriorated. The five cofounders of Mayo included Willie Velasquez so he had the lead role in organizing students and and counseling the parents how how to go about doing it and we were part of that so so we myself is …. involved there's providing support to Willie and there was a small group of parents that supported their kids, and they they became known as the Edgewood Concerned Parents Association so we provided support back up to to the group to help them develop and so on and so that's you know very direct role and we you know I'm watching the student for whoever walked in out and we hang out there with that they they have support from two teachers they both fired but during the time that they're out they're teaching the kids on the sidewalk they have a cold class at the sidewalk so so that the the accusation couldn't be made against the kid that they wanted to get out of learning. That wasn't it there were issues in that school you know have to do with the quality of education the the qualifications of the teachers corps that was there and the physical condition of the facility. Those it wasn't that,… it was common knowledge that Edgewood had the lowest participation rate in terms of students who go to college. So those were issues that that that not enough emphasize was being placed on on the quality and results for learning and people. With just their …Steinhauser ran that place you know like like it was his own empire and literally you know he's his wife was staff, his daughter was staff and they had a dummy company that that provided contract services so I don't know too much too many of the details but they had a company one big issue was that in the books that was up and express for portable buildings that were never to be found anywhere and so if you ask Mr. Steinhauser for those bills whatever the money is so it was hard to prove where the money went but what he was obviously you have a line item and it's showing as an expense for thirty 40,000 bucks and you can show what it went for that that there's a question. Steve Arionus: Yeah I know initially the Edward concerned parents association when they approached lawyers they thought there was a lot of like political or financial mismanagement Mario Compean: right Steve Arionus: within the districts. So why why did why did you all decide that because I know Mayo helped conduct walkouts throughout Texas why was walkouts the strategy that you wanted to pursue? Mario Compean: Well that strategy was was was necessary to be able to expose the power you know that if you look at the literature on school reform, you see how many times Ludlack has litigated against the school system in particular while in the one in Rio [unintelligible]and if you look at those cases you'll see the school boards and the state authorities that even though large one cases in court those guys just said no we we're going to do whatever we want so by the time that we were active I said well you know historical level has been one part missing - where is the community in all this picture so that's why it was necessary we knew that the the older people were going to do it because you know they they're they're already you know the working class too busy like where about how do we're going to put a meal in the next the next meal on the table so they don't have time to be involved in politics and then you know having no experience make it made it more difficult for them so then our first task was to show one that that we were not afraid of the system we would confront the system secondly that the way we could illustrate our communities is by confronting the representatives of the system the individuals that run things you know in this Edgewood school walk outs it was there was a Superintendent because he owned and ran the whole thing like Steinhauser so there was tight houses all over South Texas so that historically the role of the the Texas Rangers had played in the community was was very oppressive so we have to also demonstrate that while we respected that authority to some degree you know there are some things that couldn't you know that shouldn't be tolerated so we were we needed to show that we were not afraid to confront even the police force especially it was easier in the formula Texas Rangers because the guys were well known and they were the bad guys so he resonated he said yeah yeah these guys I remember when blah blah blah so you know so that's why I don't go back to your earlier question that's why we had to to build that base and show by example that while we knew what we were doing #2 that we were not afraid even if the rest it wasn't easy but it was you know fell into place and so that's that's why the the the crystal city experience was so effective you know in terms of results that's why la solida was able to take complete political control first the school district second the city government and thirdly the county