PED Apologizes to Cloudcroft Schools and School Board

After the Public Information Officer for PED stated that PED had made no mistakes with regards to Cloudcroft's budget, he has now issued an apology for his mistake.

Cloudcroft's Business Manager sent me the data after last week's Alamogordo Daily News article. I'm attaching those documents here, along with the apology issued by PED.

Margo,

This is a misunderstanding on my part and I owe you an apology. When you wrote about a “PED error” and when I gave you the quote I was referring to a widely reported, but inaccurate, story about an alleged PED error around state-wide unit numbers. In fact, the article I sent you as part of the response was printed on April 8^th, before Cloudcroft schools received their initial 910B5. The state-wide unit numbers was the error I was referring to when I made my comments. It’s now clear this was not the error you (or the school board member) were talking about. I was unaware of the situation around the incorrect 910B5.

I apologize to you for the mixed signals and I will e-mail an apology to Ms. Lund as well.

As for your question, it appears Cloudcroft Schools received the initial (incorrect) 910B5 on April 15^th, the correct form was sent exactly two weeks later.  So, it appears that the Cloudcroft School district had inaccurate information from PED for only 2 weeks.

Despite what may be voiced at school board meetings, PED is in constant contact with the Cloudcroft Superintendent in an effort to help with the budgetary process. All the while, PED has received at least 24 letters from residents raising serious concerns about administrative spending at Cloudcroft Schools.

We believe Cloudcroft Schools can and should deal with any budget cuts at the administrative level. The single biggest priority for every school should be the students. School districts across the state have made cuts without hurting the classroom, Cloudcroft Schools should do the same.

Larry

From: Margo Whitt [mailto:sendmargomail@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2011 8:19 PM
To: Behrens, Larry, PED
Subject: Response to error?

Hi Larry,

Please review the attached documents from the Cloudcroft Schools and let me know your response. The way I'm reading them, PED did make a mistake, did notify Cloudcroft Schools of this mistake at the end of April, and did make a mistake that caused the school to have to cut an additional $160,000 from their budget. It would appear that the Cloudcroft school board member who made that comment was correct.

Margo Whitt

Letter to Secretary of Education Skandera

A parent has asked me to distribute this information. It is a letter that parents or the community can sign and forward to Secretary Skandera:

Letter to Secretary of Education

Meeting Scheduled for Concerned Parents and Community Members

To all concerned parents and community members:

If you would like to discuss the recent decisions made by the Cloudcroft Municipal Schools Board of Education on Monday May 9th, 2011, please join us:

Where:                 Big Daddy’s Diner on Highway 82

When:                  Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Time:                   6:00 PM

We will be discussing how to organize our efforts to ensure the quality of education that is offered in Cloudcroft Schools. 

If you are worried about the future of our school, please come and help us with your ideas for improvements.

Please share this information with anyone you feel would be interested in attending this gathering. 

See you there!

Cloudcroft Concerned Citizens

Letter To School Board and Superintendent From Parent

Dear School Board Members,
Dear Mr. Hancock,

Have you considered the NM supreme court decision No. 29190:  AUGILERA vs. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF HATCH VALLEY?  In that case the board of education was allowed to terminate even tenured teachers without offering incentives.  This opportunity to get rid of ineffective teachers at a low cost should not be overlooked.  The current policy of reorganizing teachers to positions they do not want to be in is not going to improve the education offered in Cloudcroft.  Those teachers will be overstretched and forcing them to cover positions they do not wish to cannot be positive for the school as a whole.

I, and many other members of the community believe that the changes and decisions currently being proposed are not in the best interest of our kids.  We would like to help in brainstorming long term solutions that will help support our school now and in the future.

Please see the attached document that covers your proposed cuts.  This document shows that the proposed cuts only hurt our kids and may eventually cause the closure of our school. (CMS Budget Cuts, Recommendation for RIF)

It isn't too late to change things, as far as I am informed, the school board still must approve the final budget at the next meeting.

Sincerely,
Amanda Woeger

cc:  Hanna Skandera, NM Secretary of Education,
Paul J. Aguilar, Deputy Secretary, Finance and Operations NM-PED,Bernadette Tennyson, Executive Secretary, Finance and Operations NM-PED,
Yvette Herrell, New Mexico State Representative District 51,
Nora Espinoza, New Mexico State Representative District 59,
Vernon D. Asbill, New Mexico State Senator District 34

School Board Meeting May 9, 2011

Over 62 people attended last night's meeting, where the 4-day school week was approved, along with a RIF (reduction in force) plan. The meeting lasted almost 5 hours! Here is the Alamogordo Daily News article.

There were numerous handouts at the meeting:
New School Calendar
Recommendation to Implement RIF for the 2011-2012 Budget Year
Proposed Changes to Offset 2011-2012 Deficit
Changes in the Administrative Staff 2006 - 2011

A podcast of the meeting is available at http://cmsbears.podbean.com

Special School Board Meeting Held May 5, 2011

A podcast of the entire meeting is available at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

There were multiple issues discussed at this meeting, all of which revolved around how to reduce $407, 000 from the school's budget...or about 11% of the budget.

The most heavily discussed issues were a RIF (reduction in force) and bringing the transportation in-house. Both of these issues will be addressed at Monday's regular meeting, along with approval of the school's calendar which reflects a 4-day school week.

I will post the Alamogordo Daily News articles as they are published. The first one is here. The second article, covering the 4-day school week and transportation is here.

I strongly suggest that you listen to the podcasts!

Regular School Board Meeting May 9, 2011

Here is the agenda for the upcoming regular school board meeting. I'm assuming that "RIF" means Reduction in Force and the rumors have it that the calendar will include a 4-day school week.

SPECIAL Board Meeting Scheduled for Tomorrow

There is a Special School Board meeting scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday, May 5, 2011) at 1 p.m. Sounds like they will be discussing budget issues and resignation incentives.
Here is the agenda.

School Board Meeting April 11, 2011

To hear a podcast of this meeting, visit http://cmsbears.podbean.com

The agenda for the meeting is here.

The Green Energy Works brochure and the Bring Energy Improvements to Your Schools brochure were handed out during the visitor's portion of the meeting.

Here is the article that I wrote for the Daily News.

Podcast for School Board Meeting of February 14, 2011

Sorry this is late, but the podcast for the February 14, 2011 school board meeting can be heard at http://cmsbears.podbean.com

School Board Meeting February 14, 2011 - Agenda

Here is the agenda for Monday night's meeting. I am out of town so there may not be a podcast or newspaper coverage unless I can find someone to cover for me...any volunteers?

New School Board Members

Congratulations to the new School Board Members voted in on Tuesday. And kudos to all of those who braved the nasty weather to vote!
Doug Porch will return to the school board, along with new members Arlan Ponder and Gerold Green.
Here is the article from the Alamogordo Daily News.

Meet the School Board Candidates

You can listen to a podcast of Thursday night's "meet the candidates" forum at http://cmsbears.podbean.com or search for the podcast on ITunes.

Here is the article covering the meeting which ran in the Alamogordo Daily News.

School Board Elections

There are three school board seats open in the upcoming election:
1) the seat currently held by Doug Porch...Doug will be running again and is unopposed.
2)The seat currently held by Terry Butram...Terry has opted not to run again. There are three candidates running for this position: Dulaney Barrett, Gerald Green, and Denny Schilling
3)The seat currently held by Ed Woten...Ed will be running again. Arlan Ponder is also running for this position.

There are several opportunities for you to meet the candidates, ask them questions and become an educated voter:
January 11 at 7pm at the Mayhill Community Center
January 12 at 7pm at the Weed School Gym Kitchen
January 13 at 7pm at the Pinon Extension Building
January 18 at 7pm at the Timberon Community Center
January 20 at 6:30pm at the Cloudcroft High School Commons

I am truly impressed and appreciative that the candidates are making such a concerted effort to appear throughout the district. It's a lot of driving and and a lot of time, and shows a lot of commitment on their part. I might add that these dates were not set at the last school board meeting. In fact, it was one of the candidates, Dulaney Barrett, who set up all but the January 20th meeting and had the information published in the Mountain Monthly. There was some discussion about this at last night's meeting, (you can listen on the podcast, http://cmsbears.podbean.com, under the Superintendent's Report section). The school board, after this discussion, set up the meeting at the school on January 20th.

So, the candidates are out there. If you have an interest in Cloudcroft Schools, surely you can make the time to visit with all of them, ask them their position on key issues, and make an educated choice in the upcoming election.

Early voting has already started, or you can vote in person on February 1, 2011.

Regular School Board Meeting January 10, 2011

Here is the agenda for this meeting. Sorry this didn't get loaded last week, but life got in the way!
Please listen to the podcast of this meeting at http://cmsbears.podbean.com/
The Alamogordo Daily News article covering this meeting.