Superintendent's Weekly Report for August 24 2012

Here is the Superintendent's Weekly Report. Superintendent Dempsey also sent a copy of his forthcoming Superintendent's Corner that will appear in the Mountain Monthly, and a spec sheet for the activity bus that was at the last school board meeting.

Regular School Board Meeting of August 21, 2012

The podcast is finally up for last week's meeting. Superintendent Dempsey used a slide presentation during his portion of the meeting. Those slides can be seen here.

I, along with several folks from the meeting, took a ride on a "demo" activity bus that was provided by Zia. Apparently, there is a mandate that a school must retire its activity bus after 20 years. I don't know how long this requirement has been around, but it didn't sound like something recent. Cloudcroft's activity bus is now 20 years old, so must be replaced at the end of this school year. A new bus cost around $172,000. Over the past 20 years, it sounds like our school has set aside roughly $42,000 to purchase a new bus.

The Superintendent has rescheduled his community meetings to Saturday, September 8. If you look at his slide presentation you will see the times and locations of those meetings.

There was one visitor asking what the school was going to do about AP courses, since Ms. Carter was the only teacher certified to teach AP in the high school. While the superintendent discussed AP in his presentation, visitors are allowed to speak only at the end of the meeting, so no one answered her question. I haven't heard what the school is doing about the students that were signed up for AP classes with Ms. Carter.

Here is the agenda for this meeting.

There were also some handouts at the meeting: The NMSBA Training Report and Article 22, School Election Law.

August 25 Community Meetings to be Rescheduled

Due to a conflict with a football scrimmage that has been scheduled for August 25, Superintendent Dempsey has cancelled his planned community meetings and will announce a new date as soon as he can find a time that doesn't conflict with something else.

Weekly Summary from Superintendent

As stated previously, I did formally request the Superintendent's weekly summary which he said he was going to start providing to the school board members each Friday. Below is his most recent summary, which I received today...

1.        History Position:  As you know we have had a resignation and been advertising for a history teacher.  Kelly Goss was interviewed, offered the position, and has accepted.  She comes to us from Quemado .  She has 15 years of teaching experience and is endorsed in history, Health, and PE.  She plans on being here beginning on Friday August 24 to start preparing her classroom and will more than likely begin instruction on Tuesday August 28.  Mrs. Morales and Mr. Renteria have been working on the impact this will have on the master schedule and they have a plan that I believe will ensure students needs are being addressed and the fewest overall changes will have to be made to student schedules.

2.       Staff Evaluation Training:  Robyn, Roman, and I will be headed to Ruidoso on Monday August 20 where Carol Helms will be training us on the most up-to-date methods of evaluating staff.  Carol is our school attorney and since we was already in Ruidoso with Region IX staff we are able to join in.

3.       Meet the Bears:  I know many of you we able to attend the event which raised over $1,000 for Sidelines.  With this money and a donation from Dr. Dan Jones and Dr. Suzanne Schmidt the Sideliners were able to reduce the “Participation Fee” from $50 per athlete to $25 per athlete.  Along these lines you all should have received an robo call concerning the reduction in the participation fee on the evening of Thursday August 16.  Earlier that day I was contacted by Margo Manford who confirmed that Sideliners were going to be able to make this possible in part due to the hamburger fundraiser and in part to the $1,000 donation.  She had included a message that she had drafted and wanted to be used for the call.  I did not see the attached message so Mr. Ward drafted the one that you did get.  Margo left me a message that she was upset of the message and was concerned that the individuals who had donated the funds would be offended since they were not recognized in the robo call.  You will be receiving a second message that does recognize these individuals.  I want each of you to be clear that this was an error on MY part and not Mr. Wards or Mrs. Dalton.  As far is next year we might need to have a discussion about the “participation fee” sometime before the next budget is passed, March and April, to see if this is something we want to continue or if it is something we can eliminate. 

4.       Activity Bus:  The tentative plan right now is that Zia Bus company will have an activity bus here on Tuesday August 21 in the afternoon and evening.  This will be an example of what is available since at the end of this school year we will be in the market for an activity bus since ours will be 20 years old and due to state law after 20 years will no longer be able to be used.

5.       Regular Board Meeting: Tuesday August 21: action items that are on the agenda

a.       Approval of IHBC-E (Principles of Restraint and Seclusion):  This basically a recommendation and an update from the New Mexico School Boards Association.  It is a state wide update and I will be recommending that we adapt this policy.  This is the second time we have visited it.

b.      Kindergarten Waiver:  State law requires schools  who have kindergarten classes that are over 20 students to apply for a waiver if they do not have the funds to hire a second Kindergarten teacher.  We had anticipated 16 students and currently have 22 with one teacher’s aide in the room to help.  We currently have a teacher’s aide position open which will be used in a manner that supports both the Kindergarten class as well as other larger classes.  Mr. Cook will include some of this information in her principal’s report.

c.       You will also see find that under the section “Superintendent’s Report” I added the section “Board Members Input”.  This would give each of you a opportunity to bring up ideas or concerns that you have or that have been brought to you.

6.        Update on SPED:  I have now had two meetings with the SPED staff and we are beginning to start the process of making some changes as to the options students with IEPs (Individual Educational Plans) have especially in terms of gifted education.  Right now we have several students who qualify for gifted and being served by a pull-out program. Historically, here in Cloudcroft this has been the model used, what we are going to start is allowing those students and parents with additional options for addressing these IEPs.  These options will include dual credit classes as well as Advanced Placement courses.  DonaKay has been asked to schedule a meeting with the parents of students who are gifted where I plan on offering those options to them. 

7.       Community Meetings:  I am planning on having the community meetings in Mayhill, Weed, Timberon, and Cloudcroft in Saturday August 25.  You can expect a couple of robo calls next week about these and you might see flyers.  The idea is for me to meet with people out in the surrounding communities share with them some school information such as testing data, student activities, and academic opportunities.  They then would have an opportunity to discuss with me concerns they have.

Finally Posting the Podcast for School Board Workshop

As I mentioned in my posting back on July 8, the school board and the new superintendent had a workshop to discuss policies and goals.

I have finally posted the podcast for this workshop at http://cmsbears.podbean.com. It is broken into 3 parts which conveniently coincide with dead batteries or other technical difficulties. Also, the whole thing lasts about 4 hours.

I have listened to the whole thing. There's a lot of talk...talk...talk. It remains to be seen how much "do" happens. However, some of the key points that I took away were:

1. The "grades" had just come out from PED. LOTS of talk about this. As we have seen in the past, it seems like no one really knows how these grades are set. There was some talk of PED "sandbagging" so they can hold up future grades and tout the amazing progress in New Mexico education. (Part 1, approx. time code 46 minutes). Seems like a plausible conspiracy theory to me.

2. One component of the "grade" is a survey that students take. Our schools failed the question "do you have an opportunity to learn." (Part 1 approx. timecode 49 minutes). So there was discussion on how to "explain" to our students how to answer those questions...someone even used the term "coaching." That makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

3. There was talk about opening the school on Mondays for teachers to access their classrooms, and even setting aside a place for students to get tutoring. In fact, opening the school on Mondays would even allow the school to use some of the expensive ITV equipment that it hasn't been able to use because our 4 day week schedule did not jive with other schools (Part 1, timecode 1hr 28 min).

4. There was discussion about how the school needed some positive PR, especially since they don't want people blaming the poor grades on the 4 day week. (throughout Part 1, and at timecode 1 hr. 38 minutes)

5. New superintendent Travis Dempsey asked the school board to give him their goals for him (part 2 timecode 12 minutes). Some of the conversation included: communication and exposure with the community and the teachers, getting to know the teachers and drop into classrooms, build a team mentality. At 19 minutes into part 2, and again at 1 hr. 2 minutes, Dempsey says he will start providing a Friday update to the leadership team and the school board. Sounds like a public document to me, so you can expect me to be asking for it.

6. Arlan Ponder wanted the superintendent to be evaluated by teachers, principals and parents (part 2, timecode 38 minutes). Jackie Cates Doyle was against this. (For what it's worth, I'm FOR it.)

7. Some board members want the school to start requiring new teachers to coach (part 3, timecode 1 minute). This makes me wonder what the priority is, coaching or teaching.

8. Board members wanted to know how teacher evaluations are being handled (part 3 timecode 17 minutes). If you listen to the podcast and hear a real answer, please let me know.

9. Dempsey says he wants teachers to teach "from bell to bell" (part 3 timecode 25 minutes). He is not in favor of kids lining up to leave 4 minutes before the bell rings, and says he will convey that to teachers.

Maybe you can listen to all of this during your commute or your next long car trip. For me, it was lots of talk, platitudes and "kumbaya" moments. However, there were a few commitments made and agreed to that we will just have to wait and see if they come to fruition.

I remain hopeful, but also realize that hope is not a strategy.

Mandatory Athletics Meeting Tuesday

This coming Tuesday at 6 pm there will be a mandatory athletics meeting for students participating in athletics. The meeting will be in the High School. There will also be hamburger, chips and sodas for sale by Sideliners.

School Looking for New High School History/English Teacher

Just heard today that Carol Carter has resigned. The school is looking for someone to replace her. I don't have the job posting, but Carol taught History and English at the High School. If anyone knows of a qualified person, have them contact the school's admin office ASAP.

Still Pursuing Information from PED

As you will note from my last post, I am still trying to find out why PED is refusing our school's request to have "athletics" count towards the states mandate that students have a PE credit to graduate.

They did not answer the FOIA request that I sent, so I re-sent it and clarified that I wanted to know about all waivers...not just PE/Athletics. They are now telling me that I will have the information in November.

Again, if any of ya'll know about other small school districts in New Mexico that have "athletics" counting as PE, let me know!