Regular School Board Meeting October 16, 2012

The podcast has been posted.

Here is the article from the Mountain Monthly.

Along the lines of "your tax dollars at work," it turns out that the Socorro school district is willing to GIVE us a retired route bus (they have a mandated life of 12 years) which we could use as an activity bus (they have a mandated life of 20 years), but the Public Education Department in Santa Fe won't let them transfer it. Nor will PED let them sell it. So, the ever helpful PED has apparently told Cloudcroft that if we want a bus we have to buy it from a contractor.

Further along the lines of "your tax dollars at work," every 5 years the school is mandated (there's that word again...as in UNFUNDED mandate) that we hire a contractor to do a Facilities Master Plan. Our last plan was done in 2007. The cost to hire said contractor and put together said plan is said to run around $30,000.

And speaking of tax dollars, the other thing that was discussed was adding a 2 mil levy to the ballot this February.

Regular School Board Meeting September 18, 2012

Here is the agenda for the meeting. The podcast is uploaded at http://cmsbears.podbean.com

The superintendent gave a presentation, and I will upload a copy when I get them.

The new school newsletter was also handed out.

A trial version of a new school website was shown. This was created by community member Mike Beckler, of www.cloudcroftwebcam.com renown. They are asking folks to check it out and offer any feedback or comments. I'd address those to Mike or superintendent Dempsey.

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.

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.

School Board Meeting Held February 21, 2012

Here is the article from the Alamogordo Daily News.

Here is a copy of the Technology Plan that the board approved. It must be approved by PED before it can be sent on to E-Rate in an effort to qualify for more technology funding. Interestingly, the school's technology plan was not presented (or apparently drafted) by the school's IT manager, but rather by teacher Sam Snoddy. No acknowledgement of this was made at the meeting. In fact, the 12-page document was not even included in the school board's packet (though it was on the agenda), so they were given about 10 minutes to scan it, but they unanimously voted to adopt it.

Right now they are talking about the "committees" having a meeting with the consultant on March 14, 2012. They are talking like this is a public meeting, but then they are also talking like it will be "executive session." I'm not sure how the Open Meetings Act can allow an executive session to take place with 12 or so hand picked community members allowed to attend and everyone else excluded. My understanding is that for an executive session to be warranted under personnel matters, you have to be talking about a specific school employee. Since potential employees don't fall into this category, per the Attorney General's office interpretation of the OMA, I'll be most interested in seeing how much the community and public are allowed to see.

The other dates discussed include a tentative date of April 9 for the committees to interview candidates (again, I don't know if this is public or not), and the regular school board meeting, which has been rescheduled to April 24, where the school board will announce who the new superintendent will be.

The podcast can be heard at http://cmsbears.podbean.com. You can also find all of the podcasts on iTunes by searching "Cloudcroft" in the podcast section.

School Board Meeting September 20, 2011

The podcast is available for last night's meeting.

The board approved the bid for a retaining wall to run in front of the school along the west side where the flooding occurs.

There was some discussion about the closing of the campus. (under the principal's report). There was also discussion about the grass at the football field (under superintendent's report).

Enrollment at the school has risen to 408 students. Since each student is worth about $8K to the school, that's an extra $160K that the school didn't think it had at the end of the last school year.

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 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.

Regular School Board Meeting December 13, 2010

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

The article covering this meeting can be found here.

School Board Meeting November 8, 2010 *Updated with Article*

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

Among the items discussed were proposed policy changes to the discipline policy. I have included a link to the documents that were provided to the Board members.

Here is a summary of the meeting from the Alamogordo Daily News.

School Board Meeting October 11, 2010

The podcast of this meeting is available at www.cmsbears.podbean.com. During the meeting, Superintendent Tommy Hancock gave a presentation he called "school finance 101" where he outlined how the state allocates money and some of the constraints that are placed on the school as to how they can spend the money. Part of this presentation included copies of the financial overhead presentation that he gave last month with the source of the funds noted.

Also discussed at the meeting was the upcoming school board election. There are three four-year terms up for grabs. Those positions are currently held by Doug Porch, Ed Woten and Terry Butram. Doug Porch mentioned that he would run again. I did not hear Ed Woten or Terry Butram declare their intentions.

If anyone is interested in running for the school board, they must declare their candidacy on December 21, 2010 between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. at the Otero County Clerk's Office. There is only one day to get on the ballot. If you miss this date, then you have until December 28, 2010 to be a write-in candidate. The election will be held on February 1, 2011.

Business Manager Sharlotte Lund mentioned that most of the 3.2% operational budget cut was being covered with Federal stimulus money from the Educational Job Fund. After those monies are applied to salaries, the school is left with a $17,000 budget cut.

Regular School Board Meeting of August 9, 2010

The podcast is loaded for tonight's meeting. Visit http://cmsbears.podbean.com to hear the entire meeting, or download it from ITunes. Board Member Doug Porch was not present due to illness.

The financial portion of the agenda was not addressed, as Sharlotte was out. Under Action Items, there was a handout outlining how the school would cut $122,400 from the budget. (These changes were approved).  There was considerable discussion about student travel, and some discussion as to the potential revenue gained by closing the High School campus.

Under the Assistant Superintendent's Report there was discussion as to Cloudcroft Schools meeting AYP and how to interpret the results. Visit the New Mexico Public Education Department's website to see the detailed AYP reports.

The Superintendent's Report covered disabling computer downloads for students. (I had some questions about that.)

School Board Meeting June 14, 2010

The Alamogordo Daily News coverage of the meeting can be found here.

The podcast of the meeting can be found at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

Regular School Board Meeting of May 10, 2010

First, mea culpa for not posting the agenda last week! But I did make it to the board meeting and you can find a complete podcast of the meeting at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

There were 2 visitors at the meeting. Mary Lutz spoke to her concern that the budget restrictions could remove teachers from the younger children. She wanted to see the classroom sizes kept small in the K-3 ages and, if teachers had to be moved and class sizes increased, have that done with the older grades.

The second visitor was Steve O'Connor. He spoke about the 5th and 6th graders going to Honor Band in T or C and how well they did. He also cautioned that 2011 and 2012 budgets could be worse than this years and that everyone should plan appropriately and get input from the community. He said he would like to hear some kind of summary of the budget committee meetings at the school board meetings.

In action items, the board appointed an Audit Advisory Committee as required by HB227. Board President Buttram received two letters of interest...one from me and one from Denny Schilling. He asked if anyone else would be interested and Jim Maynard threw his name into the hat as well. So all three of us will serve with board members Doug Porch and Bill Denny on this committee.

In other action items, the board approved the Elementary Art Program Application (the program will pretty much be the same as it was this year) and the Title I and Title II Applications.

The board also approved the 2010-2011 Budget. In the podcast, you will hear Sharlotte refer to a phone review with PED where they went over "the analysis." She also provided handouts of the budget.

The board approved the transportation contracts for Mr. Taylor in the amount of $35,960 and Mr. Swope in the amount of $202,617.

With school drawing to a close, there were numerous upcoming events announced in the information items.

Podcasting School Board Meetings

I am now able to podcast the school board meetings! The new podcast site is http://cmsbears.podbean.com/. Today's special meeting was my first attempt, but hopefully I will be able to publish the audio from all future board meetings.

I know it is difficult to get to the board meetings sometimes, so now the technology is bringing the meetings to you. It is up to you, as a person concerned about Cloudcroft Schools, to listen.

Summary of Special School Board Meeting of March 22, 2010

A complete podcast of the meeting can be found at http://cmsbears.podbean.com/ (podcasting is a new thing for me, so please leave me input if you have any problems with it!)

Being a "special meeting," business was conducted a bit differently. Board president Terry Butram read a statement, which can be found here. The statement/script of the meeting refers to the following documents:

Section II Open Meetings Act
V. Section 10-15-3 Invalid Actions; Standing
Local School Board Vacancies

To summarize the whole thing, the Board (through the script) acknowledged that they should not have discussed the board appointment/applicants in an executive session. They summarized what took place in the executive sessions and re-voted to appoint Ed Woten to the school board.

The Alamogordo Daily News covered the meeting in this article.