Regular School Board Meeting January 17, 2012

The podcast for last night's meeting is posted at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

Among the items discussed were the rules for public input at board meetings. The board decided that their existing policy was sufficient, as it gave the board president broad latitude in placing rules on public input at board meetings.

I did ask about the ability for parents or community members to be placed on the agenda if they provided their topic ahead of time. Doug Porch said he did not think that it was necessary to place them on the agenda. Instead, he is going to have a "special place" on the school's website where he will personally place any visitor's topic ahead of time. So I guess if you want to address the board and have the topic of your discussion known ahead of time, you will have to talk to Doug Porch.

The superintendent's report addressed the new grading system that PED has in place. As you know from previous posts, the High School and Middle School got Bs, while the elementary got a C. He expressed his frustration with the fact that PED is not disclosing what their expectations are or how they are coming up with the grades.

Fred Wright reported on the results of the poll sent out last week regarding the 4 day week. He said that of the surveys returned, 71% were in favor of the 4 day week. He said that 100% of the teachers and staff were in favor of the 4 day week. Only 25 surveys were returned by high schoolers, with 188 returned by middle schoolers and elementary students.

There was no mention of the superintendent search at this meeting. With the next regular meeting scheduled for February 21st, I would start visiting the school's window on a regular basis, as I bet there is a special meeting before that.

Agenda for Regular School Board Meeting January 17, 2012

Here is the Agenda for the next board meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, January 17 at 6 p.m.

Local Schools Get Their Grades

I saw this in the Alamogordo Daily News so thought I would share. There is also an article in there where the Alamogordo Superintendent is asking PED to clarify their grading system. I poked around on the PED website and found nothing that explained it. Kinda sad if the "students" (i.e. the school district) can't figure out why the "teacher" (i.e. the Public Education Department) gave them the grade that they got.

Alamogordo Daily News article on local school grades
Cloudcroft Elementary School Grade
Cloudcroft Middle School Grade
Cloudcroft High School Grade

Offer of Website to School Board

After the school board meeting Thursday night, when everyone else had left, there was some discussion from the superintendent that he thought the school board should go through the school's website instead of form its own blog. He said something about the school's lawyer would probably prefer that. Some school board members indicated that they didn't think they could post something to a blog or it would be taken as speaking for the entire board.

That discussion prompted me to send the following email to every school board member yesterday:

Hello Arlan and all-

I have the domain name www.cmsbears.info paid up through May 2012. Using MyDomain.com, I can have it forwarded to whatever blog name you come up with at no cost. You can even set up email addresses via the domain, and it will forward to you. For example, if someone emailed "dougporch@cmsbears.info" I could have that forwarded to Doug's forest service email address.  Also, I looked into the Policy Manual, and there is specific wording that if a board member speaks about something or voices his/her opinion, he/she is NOT speaking for the entire board but for him/herself. I'm pretty sure I found that in Section B.

I see no reason why an elected official cannot voice his/her opinion on a blog or website outside of the school's website. That's just another way of communicating with your constituents.

I never got a chance to sign up my email address last night, however I, too, would like to put my name in the hat as an interested parent willing to serve on the search committee and help in any way possible to assure we have a vast array of qualified and capable candidates from which to choose.

Arlan, let me know what I can do to help with the blog...

Margo


The policies that I'm referring to are:
Board Member Authority and Responsibilities
Board Powers and Responsibilities
Board Member Ethics

Cloudcroft's Policy Manual as it Relates to the Superintendent

At last night's meeting, there was discussion as to developing a rubric with which to evaluate Superintendent candidates. Here is what currently exists in the Cloudcroft School Board Policy Manual with regards to the Superintendent and his/her evaluation:

Qualifications and Duties of the Superintendent
Superintendent
Evaluation of Superintendent

An important thing to remember is that there is room for the policy manual to be changed to suit the needs and desires of the specific school board as long as it doesn't violate state law. For example, teachers and staff used to submit their own evaluation of the superintendent. The school board would thus have input as to how everyone else in the school felt about how the superintendent does his or her job. This has been done away with, meaning that the school board is evaluating the superintendent based upon very limited knowledge and input. I don't know whether the parents and community have ever been asked to submit their evaluations or opinions.

Special Meeting of School Board Held

The podcast for this meeting is available at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

There were probably 20 people in attendance, despite the lack of a robo call or the existence of any agenda or notice on the school's website. When people complained about the lack of notification, Superintendent Hancock told them that the information was posted on the window and if they wanted to know about meetings they could take the time to stop and read the window.

The board unanimously accepted Hancock's retirement, effective July 1, 2012. They then discussed beginning the procedure to search for a new superintendent.

Here is the article from the Alamogordo Daily News.

Special School Board Meeting Thursday Jan. 5 at 6 pm

This is reposted from Arlan Ponder's Facebook page, since nothing is posted on the school's official website....

Special school board meeting on Thursday at 6 pm. Two items on agenda - 1) accept superintendent's letter of intent to retire and 2) discuss plans on new superintendent search.

Rather than waiting until we're way into the process ... Speak up now if you'd like to see us focus on a specific area of expertise. The board will be listening.

Too bad the school blocks Facebook, as it sometimes has very useful content! Thanks for the heads up Arlan.

Regular School Board Meeting December 20, 2011

Here is the podcast for the December 20, 2011 meeting. Most of the meeting was a discussion about any possible changes to the public input section of the current board policy. The current policy can be found at:
http://lp.ctspublish.com/nm/public/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=main-h.htm

In the end, the action item was tabled in hopes of more input at the January meeting. There were only 4 people attending the December 20 meeting, but all of us had something to say about the policy.