Special School Board Meeting Scheduled for June 20, 2011 (and me venting about it!)

The school board has decided to hold a special meeting this Monday to get additional input from the community regarding the 4-day school week. The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in the High School commons. There are no action items, and I don't know if there is even going to be an agenda.

There was a lot of talk from the School Board at the last meeting about getting everyone's feedback (on something the board has already voted to approve.) But when it was suggested by a community member that the Board take a show of hands to see how many of the roughly 60 people present were for or against the 4-day week, they wouldn't even call for that show of hands. What is that saying to the people who have been showing up at these meetings trying to be heard? Personally, I think that is demeaning to them and someone, ANYONE, on that Board should have at LEAST respected those present enough to call for that show of hands.

When one parent noted that he had emailed the individual Board members repeatedly and never gotten a response from any of them, there were just mealy mouthed excuses..and that was just from the few Board members who at least have the gumption to open their mouths at these meetings.

I'm starting to get the impression that the only "feedback" that is going to be considered is that which agrees with what the Board has already voted to do. Each Board member was given copies of the petitions that have been circulating to remove the Superintendent (100 signatures) and reject the 4-day week (86 signatures). Does that count as "feedback?"

School Board Meeting June 13, 2011

The podcast is finally up for this meeting. You can listen at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

Here is the Alamogordo News article when it is published.

There was a lot of discussion at this meeting, so I once again urge you to listen to the podcast.

Freedom of Information/Public's Right to Know

In perusing the School Board Policy, available on the school's website www.cmsbears.org, I found the form that a member of the public can use to request information from the Superintendent's Office. This is a link to that form. However, the Superintendent has also told me that he'd take a written request on any piece of paper and no one had to use a special form.

You can also find information about what is and is not public at this same website.

Specific Questions Regarding Sex Offender Notification

After doing some research, today I addressed the following email to High School Principal Roman Renteria. I have cc'd Superintendent Hancock and the entire school board, as I would like to see all of them in the loop on this issue:

I have done some research with regards to sex offenders/registration and found the following:

NMSA 1978, Section 29-11A-7 Notice to Sex Offenders of Duty to Register

(8)     disclose his status as a sex offender in writing to his employer, supervisor or other person similarly situated, when he begins employment, begins a vocation or volunteers his services, regardless of whether the sex offender receives payment or other compensation, pursuant to the provisions of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act;

Since it sounds like the cheerleading coach knew that he was a registered sex offender, some notification must have been given. My questions are:

1. How many times has he been at the school or with the cheerleading squad?

2. Did he volunteer his services?

3. Did he provide written notification of his status? If he did, who did he give it to and when?

There should be simple, quantifiable answers to these questions. I would appreciate knowing them.


****UPDATE**** I heard from Mr. Renteria this afternoon. He said that the man had only been at the school twice, once last year and once this year. He said the man had provided written notification of his status last year. He is still reviewing who got this notification and when. He also said that as soon as this issue came to his and Mr. Hancock's attention that the man was notified in writing that he is not to come onto school property.

Letter from Parent re: Registered Sex Offender on Campus

The following letter was sent by parent Jennifer Smith to Superintendent Tommy Hancock and High School Principal Roman Renteria. Every member of the school board was cc'd.

Hello,

It has come to my attention that there was a known sex offender working with the cheerleaders.

I dont know if he happens to have the same name or if he is the same felon listed on the NM state Web site or not.

Either way, the issue has been brought to light that there are absolutely  no background checks done on the people who interact with our children.

As a university professor, I was told by our administration at NMSU-A, that everyone who steps foot on the Alamogordo school campuses are required to have a background check. I also have a student who is not allowed to substitute teach because of a 20 year old misdemeanor charge of possession of less than 1/4 ounce of marijuana.

If the Alamo school are implementing these types of protective measures, why are we not protecting our children as diligently? Yes, they have had their share of personnel sexually assaulting minors. Cloudcroft has it's own history of the same.

Are we going to wait until one of our kids get hurt before we do something? I personally do not want to sacrifice any of our mountain kids before the  policy is put in place.

I know many parents, including myself, will not put this to rest until a preventive policy is put in place. In Alamo, the folks who want to help on campus pay for their own background checks. I know I would.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Summary of School Board Meeting from Alamogordo Daily News

Here is a summary from the Alamogordo Daily News of Monday's school board meeting.

Cloudcroft Schools looking at Solar Energy

Among other issues that the school board will be discussing at its November 9 meeting will be the approval  of the application for a grant for a 100 KW PV Solar system (to put it mildly, this is a BIG solar system). If you would like to check out this program, you can visit the PED memo or the Governor's press release.

Cloudcroft Schools also received a grant for $150,000 for energy efficient lighting. The Governor has publicized this information here.

Yet another energy-related grant for Cloudcroft Schools was received from British Petroleum. Since I was involved in the writing of this grant, I know a little more about it. The school was awarded a $10,000 grant for a greenhouse, powered by solar photovoltaic and heated by solar thermal. This program will be used by science and agriculture students across the district to study botany and plant biology, as well as to learn about alternative energy sources. To help track the progress of the Greenhouse project, along with other "green" projects around Cloudcroft, I have established www.cloudcroftgreen.com. I'm very much looking forward to tracking the "green" efforts of our community.

Should We Be Looking to Save Money at the Top?

I heard that comments were made by the public at the last School Board meeting along the lines of saving money by eliminating administrative positions instead of student activities. I did some research on the PED website and was pretty surprised to find that our school's teacher-to-administrator ratio is 9-to-1, while other schools our size are anywhere from 17-to-1 all the way up to 48-to-1!

So I decided to call around to these schools and see how their administrative positions stacked up to ours. Clearly, the norm at small schools is for administrators to multi-task. You can view the results of my research at the following links and draw your own conclusions.

Administrative Positions for Schools with 400-500 Students Enrolled
Statistics for Schools with 400-500 Students Enrolled

Cloudcroft Parents Worried

Yes, parents are getting more concerned about Cloudcroft Schools. This article was in the Alamogordo Daily News today:

http://www.alamogordonews.com/news/ci_13556096

As the article states, there are budget cuts rumbling around the legislature. As we have seen, our schools are sometimes quick to cut and restrict student programs. Every parent needs to pay attention to what is going on and try to come up with creative ways that the school can save money. And every parent needs to be active in these school board meetings.

CMS to Implement Random Drug Testing for Students in Extracurricular Activities

It was an interesting athletics meeting this evening. Parents of students in all sports, plus other activities considered extracurricular, such as Band and Science Olympiad, are being asked to sign a permission slip so their student could be radomly drug tested. It sounds like if this form isn't signed, the student won't be allowed to participate.

There were a lot of questions from the parents in attendance. My sense was that this blindsided most of them, even though the school board had apparently addressed the issue back in October 2008. This seems like another example of poor communication between parents and administrators, and yet another reason to get this blog up and running.

Some of the points that I could hear that sounded interesting included one asking whether or not coaches, teachers or administrators would also be randomly drug tested. (The answer was "no.") Other comments were along the lines of why not randomly test from the entire student population, not just kids involved in extracurricular activities. (I didn't really hear an answer to that question.) It was also pointed out that in such a small community people had a pretty good idea of who was doing what, yet those kids were not tested unless a teacher actually saw them doing drugs. My brief Google search found this site: http://www.drugabuse.gov/drugpages/testingfaqs.html which says that if a student "exhibits physical symptoms of being under the influence, and has patterns of abnormal or erratic behavior" testing could be implemented. So my question would be is the school actually applying a more limited interpretation of drug testing than they have to?

Community Members Donate Money to School

At the school board meeting of June 8, 2009, the board accepted the following donations from community members:

Madison Everett donated $1,000 to the High School. According to Mr. Hancock, this money will be put into direct instruction to be used for the benefit of students.

Martin & Diane Stewart donated $350 to be spent on German books for the High School's German language class.

Why Is This Blog Here?

There are A LOT of teachers, administrators, board members, et al, who truly seem to care about the educational opportunities available to Cloudcroft students.

The goal of this blog is to support those who are dedicated to bringing our childrent the best possible education by reinforcing the fact that we, as parents and the community, are watching...and talking...and participating...and WE CARE.