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.

Agenda for School Board Meeting to be held December 13, 2010

Here is the agenda for Monday's meeting.

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 Tonight

Tonight's agenda.

Alamogordo Daily News article covering School Board Meeting

Here is the article from the Alamogordo Daily News covering Monday's School Board Meeting.

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 Tonight

Here is the agenda for tonight's meeting.

Regular School Board Meeting September 13, 2010

The podcast is posted for tonight's meeting. This posting has been updated to include copies of the overhead presentation given by the Superintendent.

As you will hear in the podcast, most of the meeting was routine, with the exception of the Superintendent's presentation, which lasted about 30 minutes. During this presentation, the Superintendent covered the various improvements that have been made to the schools over the past three years, and the improvements that the school cannot afford to make. He used a "to do" list developed three years ago and blocked out the columns where the architect had estimated the cost of the proposed projects. (These were also blocked out in the copies he provided to me.) He started with a summary for the elementary and middle school. (overhead 1) He gave me some additional information to pass along that wasn't provided at the meeting. (overhead 1A). Then he discussed improvements made at the high school and what the school could not afford to do. (overhead 2).

In the second half of his presentation, the Superintendent addressed some public input (complaints?) that he has received along the lines of the organization being top-heavy. He used this overhead as a visual aid. He also gave me a summary to pass along that was not used at the meeting. (overhead 3A).

Again, all of these overheads will be much more useful if you look at them while listening to the podcast.

There was some discussion during the Financial presentation as to whether or not the closing of the campus will translate into cafeteria profits. The jury seems to still be out on that one.

Agenda for September 13, 2010 School Board Meeting

Here is the agenda for the regular meeting scheduled for Monday, September 13, 2010 at 6 p.m.

Alamogordo Daily News Article Covering School Board Meeting of Aug. 10th

The Alamogordo Daily News covered the August 8th meeting. The article can be found here.

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.)

Agenda for August 9, 2010 School Board Meeting

Here is the agenda for tonight's meeting. I'm interested in hearing about those budget changes.

Mr. Hancock Responds

In my prior posting I included a copy of a letter that I sent to Mr. Hancock and the School Board Members. In it I offered some suggestions as to ways that the school could better inform the public of upcoming special meetings. Here is Mr. Hancock's response to that letter:

Great minds travel the same path.  Number 1 would only notify parents and to add others would be at an expense that we just cannot take on, Number 3 we have those blocked on our network, number 2 is the one that I have already started Joel working on.  It is my thinking that this will work if Joel can overcome some issues caused by our network software.  He has been working on that and thinks that it can be done but still not sure (it is a network software issue).  If this will eventually work then we will have a list that one could sign up for to receive an e-mail about special meeting that are convened on short notice such as the one last Monday night.  This will require that one contact Joel to be added to the list.  This is not in place yet but I hope that it will be soon.  You can see that we were thinking alike on number two.  If this gets up and running I will let you know.

Special School Board Meeting Held Last Night

I discovered today that there was a special school board meeting held last night. It sounds like the topic of discussion was further budget cuts. Unfortunately, I didn't know about the meeting, so there is no podcast available.  I have long had a problem with the way that the school notifies the public of special meetings. Below is the letter I sent to Mr. Hancock and every member of the school board outlining my concerns and possible solutions:

Dear Tommy,

I discovered today that there was a special board meeting last night. I wish I had known about it ahead of time so I could have included its podcast on my blog, but I don’t routinely stop by the school to read the window. I realize that the school does the minimum which is required by law as to posting notification of public meetings when someone tapes the notice to the window by the gym and gives the notices to the post offices in hopes that they will post them. I am fully aware that you are loath to start an email list to notify people such as myself (People Concerned About Cloudcroft Schools blog) or Jennifer Smith (the Alamogordo Daily News) of special meetings out of fear that “everyone else” will want to be included in that notification, thus taking too much of your or your staff’s time. However, I think that you need to be open to alternative methods of communication if you are sincerely interested in having the public participate in public meetings.

The school has made significant investments in technology, so I assume that means that you and the school board recognize that it is an important tool in the educational process. Unfortunately, when it comes to public meeting notification no one wants to use the technology that you have readily available. I would suggest that the following notification methods could easily be employed by the school with minimal time and effort. I only suggest that these methods be used when it comes to special public meetings that are convened at the last minute...such as the one that you had last night.

1. Use the phone notification system that the school has in place.
2. Establish an email list and allow members of the public who want to be on that list to add their email addresses.
3. Set up a Twitter or Facebook account that can be updated, then anyone who wants notification can sign up for text or email notification.

If you are truly interested in encouraging public participation, then any of these methods could be implemented quickly and at no cost to the school. Expecting people to stop by the school on a daily basis to see if anything has been taped to the window is not reasonable. It is a waste of time, fuel and energy. It is, however, ideal if you want to do the absolute minimum.

School Board Meeting July 12, 2010

I was out of town for the meeting, but someone did record it. You can find the podcast here. You can find the agenda here.