SAN ANTONIO – The Bexar County District Attorney’s office said Friday that it has dropped the charges against a woman arrested earlier this week at an Edgewood ISD board meeting.
Edgewood ISD police arrested Maribel Gardea, who’s the executive director of MindShiftED Parent Institute, on Friday after she spoke past her allotted time during public comments, footage from the meeting shows.
Gardea was charged with criminal trespass, resisting arrest and interrupting a meeting or procession, records indicate.
Edgewood ISD “bullied me into going into jail and saying I did all these things, and I don’t believe that’s true,” Gardea told KSAT on Thursday.
Eduardo Hernández, the superintendent of Edgewood ISD, defended the district’s handling of the situation in an emailed statement to KSAT sent on Thursday.
“The individual’s actions were not in alignment with the EISD Board Operations Procedures and Code of Ethics, necessitating their removal,” he said in part. “To ensure productive dialogue, we ask all participants to adhere to the established procedures and decorum that guide our board meetings.”
KSAT reached out to Edgewood ISD and Gardea on Friday for comment on the DA’s decision to dismiss charges. We will update this story once we receive a response.
MindShiftED is calling for three things from Edgewood ISD:
- An immediate independent investigation into what happened
- A formal meeting between the district, MindShiftED and Edgewood ISD parents
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