Save Cloudcroft Middle School Sports Meeting

There is a parent's meeting scheduled for May 26th at 6 p.m. in the High School Commons. Here is the flyer.

Budget Committee Meeting Set

There will be a Budget Committee meeting on Thursday, May 26th at 9:00 a.m.

Parents Circulate Petitions

Last night's meeting of people concerned about the direction Cloudcroft Schools are taking produced two petitions. One to oust Superintendent Tommy Hancock, and a second that rejects the four day school week.

Here is an agenda of last night's meeting.
Other handouts at the meeting included a list of contacts at the state level, an alternative calendar to the 4-day week, and an estimate as to the utility savings from a 4-day week.

Parents were also very upset that longtime kindergarten teacher Sarah Welch, and longtime science teacher Jean Davis, were being removed from their classrooms to do Special Education.

Here is the Alamogordo News Article covering the meeting.

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.