School Board Workshop held Yesterday

The school board held it's meeting yesterday to discuss goals for the superintendent and evaluate and set board priorities. Sounds like pretty heavy stuff. It was attended by exactly ONE member of the public...my husband. Since I'm out of town, he took care of the recording of the meeting, which I will podcast when I return on Tuesday. The meeting went for about 4 hours, and I can already tell you there were some "technical difficulties" that will result in some of the meeting not being recorded.


Here is what school board member Arlan Ponder had to say:


REPOST from Arlan Ponder's School Board Member News Facebook account:


Just finished a VERY productive work session for the Cloudcroft School Board. I think people will be impressed with some of the changes coming in the next year.

Look for more community input and board meetings IN communities like Weed or Timberon. Plus possibly a newsletter with updates from the superintendent.

I won't lie though ... We will have a few situations that not everyone is going to understand, but we have ALL committed to ensuring EVERYONE in the community understands the situations.

I think the days of "shut up and take it" are over. The age of transparency, respect AND teamwork should be the norm going forward.

In case you've forgotten the Cloudcroft School Board meets the third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. Come by and meet the new superintendent and see what good things are going on at YOUR schools.

School Board to Hold Workshop to Set Goals & Priorities

Per the "sacred window" the school board and superintendent will be meeting this Saturday, July 7, at 9 am at the Co-Op to discuss goals for the superintendent and evaluate and set board priorities. I don't know if any public input is invited or welcomed, but it is a public meeting.

Here is the Agenda for the workshop.

Regular School Board Meeting June 19, 2012

Sorry for the tardiness of this post, but the Little Bear fire took a big chunk of my time.

I did make it to the board meeting Tuesday evening, and have posted the podcast. Here is the Agenda.

It was also the official passing of the keys from outgoing Superintendent Tommy Hancock to incoming Superintendent Travis Dempsey. I believe Mr. Dempsey's first official day is July 1...but he can get into the building before that, so I imagine he'll be around once he gets moved into his new house, which he was hoping would happen this weekend.

No Funding in Budget for Middle School Sports AND Pay to Play next Year

As it stands right now, there is no funding for Middle School sports AND the school expects pay-to-play to be implemented. Those preparing and approving the budget apparently made the ASSUMPTION that the Sideliners Booster Club would pay to keep the Middle School sports program going AND offset the pay-to-play expenses. Unfortunately, they never asked or consulted anyone on the Sideliners board about this. I have heard "approximate" numbers from the school of $7000 for Middle School PLUS another $5000 for pay to play. Oh, and they want to add football to the Middle School next year, which will be about $2000 more. Does anyone have a CLUE how many corn dogs, cookie doughs, car washes, pizza coupons, gun raffles, pancake breakfasts, golf tournaments, t-shirts, root beer floats, hamburgers, etc. etc. Sideliners has to sell to raise $14,000?!

I don't think the majority of people know just how much work went into fundraising efforts during the entire summer last year to raise the funds to keep the sports program going in the Middle School while also funding many activities in High School sports. Unfortunately, most of that work was done by very few parents and students and a handful of very generous benefactors. To put it bluntly, those parents were "rode hard and put up wet." Many of them are burned out. All of us have jobs, family and commitments. Without some fresh faces and enthusiastic Middle School parents/students, there will either be no Middle School sports, or a hefty pay-to-play per athlete. We simply do not have enough people volunteering, and I find any PRESUMPTION that those same parents can bust butt this summer to bail out Middle School sports and pay-to-play insulting.

Sideliners has asked the school for an accounting of where the money we donated last year was spent and how much, if any, is left. We have yet to receive that information.

The robo call that the school put out Sunday evening said athletics was "heavily affected" in the new budget. Unless the school can scrounge around in its budget and find $14,000 or so, I'd say heavily affected is optimistic. But who knows, they found $10,000 to pay a consultant when they supposedly didn't have that money either.

I'm not going to post the phone number for the Sideliner's president on a public forum. His number was given in the robo call. But if you want to volunteer or get involved I'd be glad to email it to you. I spoke to him yesterday, four days after the robo call. Want to guess how many people had called him to volunteer their services? None.

Is Middle School Sports being Cut?

I just listened to the podcast of the May 15 school board meeting. I have posted it at http://cmsbears.podbean.com and to iTunes. I'm sorry to say that the batteries must have died towards the end, so it stopped during the principal's report.

One thing I noticed in the review and approval of the 2012-2013 budget, was the lack of any mention of cutting Middle School sports. However, when I spoke to Superintendent Hancock yesterday, I was left with the impression that he expected the Sideliner's Booster Club to pay like we did last year if Middle School sports was going to be saved.

Right now, I can't say what the school has planned for Middle School sports. I can say that I'm the treasurer for Sideliner's, so I hope to find out soon what is going on, as the Superintendent was kicking around numbers in the $7000 range to keep the Middle School sports program.

Mark Alvord to be on School Board

I'll update this post as soon as the podcast is ready, since I wasn't at the meeting last night.

The school board considered at least 3 candidates to fill the position vacated by Doug Porch. Those candidates were Ed Wooten, Dulaney Barrett and Mark Alvord. The board selected Mark Alvord to fill the vacant slot.

School Board Meeting Scheduled for Tuesday May 15, 2012

Here is the Agenda for Tuesday night's meeting. The meetings start at 6 p.m.

Interested in Being on the School Board?

If you are interested in filling the new vacancy on the school board, you are supposed to contact Bill Denney at 575-491-5734 or Tommy Hancock at 575-601-4416. The deadline for submitting names is May 15th before 3:30 p.m.

I believe that the board will be filling the position at the May 15th meeting...but things are always subject to change. As we have discovered in the past, to conform to the Open Meetings Act, the discussion and selection of the new school board member must be conducted in an open meeting.

School Board Member Doug Porch Resigning

There will be a special school board meeting in the morning at 7:30 am to accept his resignation. Here is the agenda.

School Board Meeting April 24, 2012

You can find a podcast of the meeting on iTunes, or at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

After the meeting was over the new Superintendent, Travis Dempsey, was introduced and allowed to address those in attendance. This introduction is included in the podcast.

As to the audit item on the agenda, that was just to announce that De'Aun Willoughby was selected again to be the auditor. I did ask if she was on the list of approved auditors, since she was on probation with the state auditor a couple of years ago when I served on the audit committee. Business manager Sharlotte Lund said she did not know, but that is why they have to get their auditor approved by PED and they would be the ones to decide if the auditor met their qualifications.

I will attempt to get a copy of the open meetings resolution that was approved at the meeting.

Fred Wright Retiring

Middle school and elementary school principal Fred Wright will be retiring at the end of this school year.

Agenda For Regular School Board Meeting April 24, 2012

Here is the agenda for this meeting. I hear that the new superintendent, Travis Dempsey, will also be present.

There is also a meeting for the parents of gifted students that will begin at 5:00 pm the same day as the school board meeting. They are always over by 6 pm.

Special School Board Meeting for April 11 CANCELLED

I wandered by the sacred window to see if the special school board meeting that was scheduled for April 11 at the last public meeting was still on. Since there was no notice of the meeting, I wandered inside to inquire. I guess that is the procedure for finding out that a scheduled meeting has been cancelled.

New Superintendent Selected

Per Arlan Ponder's Facebook posting, sounds like we have a new Superintendent. After interviewing candidates yesterday, the board selected Travis Dempsey from Mountainair and he has accepted.

Special School Board Meeting of April 3, 2012

The podcast of this 8-minute meeting can be found at http://cmsbears.podbean.com or on iTunes.

Basically, back on March 21 the board said that they would be conducting their interviews in public, while the "advisory" committees would conduct their interviews in closed sessions.

Now, the board has discovered that they are not required to conduct their interviews in public, therefore they will not conduct their interviews in public. According to board president Bill Denney “In my opinion we are going to have closed interviews. I think it would be better for the candidates and for the school board. We can ask better questions. Unless I’m getting voted down here, I think it’s the best all around."


But there was no vote, and it did not appear that anyone on the board was questioning this decision. This meeting was simply to inform the public that the April 7 meeting will be an Executive Session.


So those of you who are not on the hand-picked advisory boards will not have an opportunity to hear what questions the board thinks are important, or hear what the candidates have to say in response to those questions. Everything will be conducted behind closed doors and you will find out who they have selected either on the 7th, or the 11th or the 24th of this month.