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.

Agenda for Regular School Board Meeting February 21, 2012

Here is the agenda for Tuesday night's meeting. Sorry for the crummy image, but I had to take a picture of it taped to the window, as once again it is not on the website.

The link under the "superintendent's corner" that dealt with the policy changes would never open for me, so I don't have a copy to supply here.

I have also included a link to the "Help Wanted" ad for a new superintendent. I don't know if this was created by the school or the consultant.

School Board Decides to Hire Consultant

At last night's special school board meeting, the board unanimously voted to hire consultant Dr. Dan Patterson to assist in the superintendent search.

Here is the Alamogordo Daily News Article

Here is some information taken from the New Mexico School Board Association's website regarding Dr. Patterson's service.

The podcast for this meeting is available at http://cmsbears.podbean.com

Special School Board Meeting Scheduled for Tomorrow Night

Here is the Agenda for the Special School Board Meeting scheduled for tomorrow night, Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 6 p.m.

Thanks for the heads up from someone who must press their nose to the window on a regular basis. I'll just take this moment to point out that (1) I have received no "personal notification" from Arlan Ponder, as was promised in a previous blog comment, (2) there is no "special place" on the school's website where Doug Porch said he would PERSONALLY keep the community updated about these meetings, and I have yet to receive a robocall notification of this meeting, which Bill Denney said he would PERSONALLY make sure happened from here on out.

Just one action item...Superintendent Search.

Regular School Board Meeting January 17, 2012

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

Among the items discussed were the rules for public input at board meetings. The board decided that their existing policy was sufficient, as it gave the board president broad latitude in placing rules on public input at board meetings.

I did ask about the ability for parents or community members to be placed on the agenda if they provided their topic ahead of time. Doug Porch said he did not think that it was necessary to place them on the agenda. Instead, he is going to have a "special place" on the school's website where he will personally place any visitor's topic ahead of time. So I guess if you want to address the board and have the topic of your discussion known ahead of time, you will have to talk to Doug Porch.

The superintendent's report addressed the new grading system that PED has in place. As you know from previous posts, the High School and Middle School got Bs, while the elementary got a C. He expressed his frustration with the fact that PED is not disclosing what their expectations are or how they are coming up with the grades.

Fred Wright reported on the results of the poll sent out last week regarding the 4 day week. He said that of the surveys returned, 71% were in favor of the 4 day week. He said that 100% of the teachers and staff were in favor of the 4 day week. Only 25 surveys were returned by high schoolers, with 188 returned by middle schoolers and elementary students.

There was no mention of the superintendent search at this meeting. With the next regular meeting scheduled for February 21st, I would start visiting the school's window on a regular basis, as I bet there is a special meeting before that.

Agenda for Regular School Board Meeting January 17, 2012

Here is the Agenda for the next board meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, January 17 at 6 p.m.

Local Schools Get Their Grades

I saw this in the Alamogordo Daily News so thought I would share. There is also an article in there where the Alamogordo Superintendent is asking PED to clarify their grading system. I poked around on the PED website and found nothing that explained it. Kinda sad if the "students" (i.e. the school district) can't figure out why the "teacher" (i.e. the Public Education Department) gave them the grade that they got.

Alamogordo Daily News article on local school grades
Cloudcroft Elementary School Grade
Cloudcroft Middle School Grade
Cloudcroft High School Grade

Offer of Website to School Board

After the school board meeting Thursday night, when everyone else had left, there was some discussion from the superintendent that he thought the school board should go through the school's website instead of form its own blog. He said something about the school's lawyer would probably prefer that. Some school board members indicated that they didn't think they could post something to a blog or it would be taken as speaking for the entire board.

That discussion prompted me to send the following email to every school board member yesterday:

Hello Arlan and all-

I have the domain name www.cmsbears.info paid up through May 2012. Using MyDomain.com, I can have it forwarded to whatever blog name you come up with at no cost. You can even set up email addresses via the domain, and it will forward to you. For example, if someone emailed "dougporch@cmsbears.info" I could have that forwarded to Doug's forest service email address.  Also, I looked into the Policy Manual, and there is specific wording that if a board member speaks about something or voices his/her opinion, he/she is NOT speaking for the entire board but for him/herself. I'm pretty sure I found that in Section B.

I see no reason why an elected official cannot voice his/her opinion on a blog or website outside of the school's website. That's just another way of communicating with your constituents.

I never got a chance to sign up my email address last night, however I, too, would like to put my name in the hat as an interested parent willing to serve on the search committee and help in any way possible to assure we have a vast array of qualified and capable candidates from which to choose.

Arlan, let me know what I can do to help with the blog...

Margo


The policies that I'm referring to are:
Board Member Authority and Responsibilities
Board Powers and Responsibilities
Board Member Ethics

Cloudcroft's Policy Manual as it Relates to the Superintendent

At last night's meeting, there was discussion as to developing a rubric with which to evaluate Superintendent candidates. Here is what currently exists in the Cloudcroft School Board Policy Manual with regards to the Superintendent and his/her evaluation:

Qualifications and Duties of the Superintendent
Superintendent
Evaluation of Superintendent

An important thing to remember is that there is room for the policy manual to be changed to suit the needs and desires of the specific school board as long as it doesn't violate state law. For example, teachers and staff used to submit their own evaluation of the superintendent. The school board would thus have input as to how everyone else in the school felt about how the superintendent does his or her job. This has been done away with, meaning that the school board is evaluating the superintendent based upon very limited knowledge and input. I don't know whether the parents and community have ever been asked to submit their evaluations or opinions.

Special Meeting of School Board Held

The podcast for this meeting is available at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

There were probably 20 people in attendance, despite the lack of a robo call or the existence of any agenda or notice on the school's website. When people complained about the lack of notification, Superintendent Hancock told them that the information was posted on the window and if they wanted to know about meetings they could take the time to stop and read the window.

The board unanimously accepted Hancock's retirement, effective July 1, 2012. They then discussed beginning the procedure to search for a new superintendent.

Here is the article from the Alamogordo Daily News.

Special School Board Meeting Thursday Jan. 5 at 6 pm

This is reposted from Arlan Ponder's Facebook page, since nothing is posted on the school's official website....

Special school board meeting on Thursday at 6 pm. Two items on agenda - 1) accept superintendent's letter of intent to retire and 2) discuss plans on new superintendent search.

Rather than waiting until we're way into the process ... Speak up now if you'd like to see us focus on a specific area of expertise. The board will be listening.

Too bad the school blocks Facebook, as it sometimes has very useful content! Thanks for the heads up Arlan.

Regular School Board Meeting December 20, 2011

Here is the podcast for the December 20, 2011 meeting. Most of the meeting was a discussion about any possible changes to the public input section of the current board policy. The current policy can be found at:
http://lp.ctspublish.com/nm/public/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=main-h.htm

In the end, the action item was tabled in hopes of more input at the January meeting. There were only 4 people attending the December 20 meeting, but all of us had something to say about the policy.

Hancock Resigning Effective July 1

There has been a rumor going around for several weeks that Superintendent Hancock was retiring. On Tuesday night the school board went into an executive session to discuss "limited personnel matters." They said they would be adjourning after the executive session, so the 4 of us that attended the meeting went home.

I can only assume that the executive session was to discuss this resignation/retirement. However, it seems to be official. I have heard that a search for a new superintendent will begin after the first of the year.

Agenda for December Board Meeting 2011

Here is the agenda for the meeting scheduled for December 20, 2011 at 6 p.m.

I asked for a copy of the proposed policy change, buy Mr. Hancock said that this was something that the board was formulating so he had no wording. Wouldn't it be exciting if the board decided to let visitors put something on the agenda, so the rest of us could have a "heads up" of what was going to be discussed!

Math/Science Tutoring Help is Available

Below is an email discussion I have had with Tom Krajci. It is posted with his permission. He is interested in providing tutoring in the math/science area. As I have said before, there are a lot of local resources that our schools could be tapping into, but no one seems to know how to take advantage of them! If any of you have suggestions, how about letting Tom or me know.

On 11/9/2011 6:44 PM, Margo Whitt wrote:

Hi Tom,

There is definitely a need for tutoring in upper level math. I don't know of any formal tutoring list, however, I do know that Debbie Rabon tutored some kids to help them do better on the ACT and it was somehow done at the school during class time. I think that's something that you would need to work out with Roman. Debbie only had a few kids that showed up, but I think she made a big difference to those few kids.

That's just my observation. I'd be glad to post something on the blog. It would be most productive if you first had something worked out with the school so there could be definite times, topics, etc.

Tom's reply today: 

Two weeks ago I called the high school and left a message on Debbie Dalton's machine...offering tutoring help as a volunteer in math/science...asking that she please spread the word far and wide.

Nothing happened.

Last week I spoke with Roman Renteria and told him I was a volunteer tutor, flexible as to time, location, group size, topic, etc.  Roman sounded happy to hear what I had to say.

Nothing happened.

I have wasted two weeks by attempting things through official channels.  Lesson learned for me.

Please tell me of students that need help.  Or tell students about me.  Or tell parents of students about me.  Or get me plugged into the local parents/student network.

Home phone:  575-682-2028

Cell:  575-921-1335

primary email:  tom_krajci@tularosa.net

secondary email:  tom.krajci@gmail.com

Thanks in advance,

Tom Krajci