High School Parent Advisory Committee met Wednesday

The parent advisory committee for the High School met yesterday. Those present included yours truly, the  Hales, Ms. Gillespie, Ms. Provencher, Ms. Carter, Mr. Snoddy, Ms. Barrett, and the principal Roman Renteria. Items discussed included:

school safety: Mr. Renteria said we don't have any major problems

survey: to determine a baseline for students, teachers and parents as to their level of satisfaction with various aspects of the school, the group decided to formulate surveys for each group

communication: The group agreed that communication could be improved through the use of email for parents. When the surveys are sent out they will also make an effort to gather email addresses from those parents interested in that form of communication. The committee also noted that more use of the school's automated phone system would improve communication. The group recommended that things like the survey and various statistics that are maintained by the school be posted to the school's website.

enhancing curriculum: There was discussion about adding aspects to the curriculum that would help students develop themselves as community members.

Parent Advisory Committee meetings are held on the 2nd Wednesday of each month.

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

Senior Parent's Night (but Juniors can come, too)

Senior Parent's night will be held at Cloudcroft High School on Monday, November 16th at 6 p.m. There will be college representatives and financial aid advisors on hand to guide parents and students through the application process and to answer questions. Juniors and their parents who want to get a jump on next year are also welcome to attend. Anyone wanting more information should contact Mrs. Provencher.

AP Classes Up and Running

AP classes are finally up and running! Now students will have to be up and running if they are going to make up for the 8 WEEKS of classes that they are behind. Again, this delay had NOTHING to do with Cloudcroft Schools...it falls squarely in the lap of PED and Aventa Learning. I am very disappointed that our State school officials didn't do a better job of getting a contract in place BEFORE school started. It is not like online AP classes are something new.

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.

UNM-PNM Statewide Math Contest

This contest is open to all New Mexico students.
Round 1 is Saturday, November 7, 2009, 9am-12pm at your local school (that is what the flyer says...I don't know if this is all grade levels or what!)

If you want more information you are to contact your math teacher or call (505) 277-5240

http://www.math.unm.edu/math_contest/contest.html

Parent Advisory Committee Meeting

Where: Cloudcroft High School, Library Media Room
When: October 14, 2009 at 4:00 pm

Opening for a School Board Member

The School Board has posted a notice asking for Letters of Intent from anyone interested in filling the board position being vacated by D'dre Brock. The letters are due by November 2nd. If you are interested in filling the position, you can see the details on the posting outside the Administration office.

School Board Member Resigning

I have heard that D'dre Brock will be resigning from the school board. She and her family will be moving to Texas to help care for elderly family members. We wish her the best of luck. The students of Cloudcroft Schools are losing a valuable advocate.

Agenda for October 12 Board Meeting

Click on the title above to view the Agenda as a pdf file.

AP Classes Still on Hold

Students signed up for AP classes across the state of New Mexico are still waiting for classes to start! I spoke to Carolann Gutierrez at PED (New Mexico's Public Education Department) yesterday. She said the contract between PED and Aventa Learning, who provides the online courses, is still under review. They are also waiting for the State of New Mexico to issue Aventa Learning a tax ID. No one I spoke with could give me any sense of when the contract would be finalized. Nor could anyone tell me how kids are supposed to make up for over six weeks of missed classes!

Getting to be PSAT Time **REVISED**

The PSAT will be given at Alamogordo High School on Saturday, October 17th AND at Cloudcroft on Wednesday, October 14th.

This test is for Juniors and is used to practice for the SAT, determine National Merit Scholarship eligibility, and get your student's scores in front of various universities.

www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/psat/about.html

In Cloudcroft, both Sophomores and Juniors can take the test. There will be no charge for Sophomores, and a $13 charge for Juniors. There is a sign-up sheet in the Cloudcroft High School office, with space limited to 10 students per grade level. If Cloudcroft's spaces fill up, students can sign up at the Alamogordo High School Bookstore where the fee is $15.

Congratulations to D'dre Brock

Pressing out of town business forced me to miss the last school board meeting where D'dre Brock was elected to fill the position vacated by Terry Winkles. Congratulations to D'dre!

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.