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.

Mark Alvord to be on School Board

I'll update this post as soon as the podcast is ready, since I wasn't at the meeting last night.

The school board considered at least 3 candidates to fill the position vacated by Doug Porch. Those candidates were Ed Wooten, Dulaney Barrett and Mark Alvord. The board selected Mark Alvord to fill the vacant slot.

School Board Meeting Scheduled for Tuesday May 15, 2012

Here is the Agenda for Tuesday night's meeting. The meetings start at 6 p.m.

Interested in Being on the School Board?

If you are interested in filling the new vacancy on the school board, you are supposed to contact Bill Denney at 575-491-5734 or Tommy Hancock at 575-601-4416. The deadline for submitting names is May 15th before 3:30 p.m.

I believe that the board will be filling the position at the May 15th meeting...but things are always subject to change. As we have discovered in the past, to conform to the Open Meetings Act, the discussion and selection of the new school board member must be conducted in an open meeting.

School Board Member Doug Porch Resigning

There will be a special school board meeting in the morning at 7:30 am to accept his resignation. Here is the agenda.

School Board Meeting April 24, 2012

You can find a podcast of the meeting on iTunes, or at http://cmsbears.podbean.com.

After the meeting was over the new Superintendent, Travis Dempsey, was introduced and allowed to address those in attendance. This introduction is included in the podcast.

As to the audit item on the agenda, that was just to announce that De'Aun Willoughby was selected again to be the auditor. I did ask if she was on the list of approved auditors, since she was on probation with the state auditor a couple of years ago when I served on the audit committee. Business manager Sharlotte Lund said she did not know, but that is why they have to get their auditor approved by PED and they would be the ones to decide if the auditor met their qualifications.

I will attempt to get a copy of the open meetings resolution that was approved at the meeting.

Fred Wright Retiring

Middle school and elementary school principal Fred Wright will be retiring at the end of this school year.

Agenda For Regular School Board Meeting April 24, 2012

Here is the agenda for this meeting. I hear that the new superintendent, Travis Dempsey, will also be present.

There is also a meeting for the parents of gifted students that will begin at 5:00 pm the same day as the school board meeting. They are always over by 6 pm.

Special School Board Meeting for April 11 CANCELLED

I wandered by the sacred window to see if the special school board meeting that was scheduled for April 11 at the last public meeting was still on. Since there was no notice of the meeting, I wandered inside to inquire. I guess that is the procedure for finding out that a scheduled meeting has been cancelled.

New Superintendent Selected

Per Arlan Ponder's Facebook posting, sounds like we have a new Superintendent. After interviewing candidates yesterday, the board selected Travis Dempsey from Mountainair and he has accepted.

Special School Board Meeting of April 3, 2012

The podcast of this 8-minute meeting can be found at http://cmsbears.podbean.com or on iTunes.

Basically, back on March 21 the board said that they would be conducting their interviews in public, while the "advisory" committees would conduct their interviews in closed sessions.

Now, the board has discovered that they are not required to conduct their interviews in public, therefore they will not conduct their interviews in public. According to board president Bill Denney “In my opinion we are going to have closed interviews. I think it would be better for the candidates and for the school board. We can ask better questions. Unless I’m getting voted down here, I think it’s the best all around."


But there was no vote, and it did not appear that anyone on the board was questioning this decision. This meeting was simply to inform the public that the April 7 meeting will be an Executive Session.


So those of you who are not on the hand-picked advisory boards will not have an opportunity to hear what questions the board thinks are important, or hear what the candidates have to say in response to those questions. Everything will be conducted behind closed doors and you will find out who they have selected either on the 7th, or the 11th or the 24th of this month.

Surprise: Special School Board Meeting April 3

Imagine my surprise when I happened by the "sacred window" and noticed that the School Board has scheduled a Special Meeting to discuss the Superintendent search with consultant Dr. Dan Patterson. Here is the Agenda for that meeting. Interestingly, this agenda was taped to the outside of said sacred window, probably since the Administrative offices have been closed since Wednesday. I don't know when the meeting was set, since it would appear that Mr. Hancock dated the notice of this meeting back in December! (I wonder how valid an unsigned notice of a meeting is...)

Also, here is the Notice of the meeting that the board has been talking about, scheduled for April 7.

For the past month the board has been talking about and setting meeting dates. Never was there any mention of an April 3 meeting. I have sent the following email to board President Bill Denney and Superintendent Hancock (and cc'd all of the Board members) formally asking for a robo-call to give the public a heads-up on this Special April 3 meeting.

Hello Bill and Tommy,

Since this April 3 meeting has never been addressed in a public forum, and since it is for the discussion of the Superintendent search with the Board's consultant, would you please issue a robo-call to inform the parents that it is going to take place?

Thank you
Margo

Resumes of Superintendent Candidates

I have received the resumes of the six candidates for Cloudcroft Superintendent. One of the candidates, Audie Brown, has taken another position so James "Scott" Sparks is filling that slot. Some of these resumes were faxed, so the best I could get was a fax of a fax...therefore the quality is poor.
Travis Dempsey
James "Scott" Sparks
Kenneth Lyon
Bobbie Gutierrez
Adan Estrada
LeAnne Ellis

I decided to do a little Googling to see what info was out there on each candidate. The higher the profile of the candidate, the more that was out there. I'm including links to what I came across in my searches:
"School Board Opts to Buy Out Superintendent's Contract" the Santa Fe New Mexican
Capitol Report, New Mexico - Editorial Talking About the Santa Fe School Board
"A Week of Bobbie Gutierrez' Emails" - The Santa Fe Reporter
Harper vs. Lyon (and others) in US District Court
"Leadership Changes in the Aztec School District" March 2007
"Differentiating the Norm to Reach the Unteachable" a presentation by Sparks at the 2010 New Mexico Summer Institute

School Board Meeting of March 20, 2012

The podcast of the meeting is available at http://cmsbears.podbean.com or via the iTunes store (it's a free podcast).

One change from my last posting. The Superintendent interviews that are to be conducted by the various committees appointed by the board will NOT be open to the public as previously stated. While they certainly could be open to the public, the Open Meetings Act does not require that they be open to the public, therefore our school board has somehow decided (since there was no vote or open discussion about this) that they will not be open to the public. However, the school board IS required to conduct their interviews in a public setting, therefore the public can watch those interviews on April 7.

Since I'm not feeling the transparency here, I might also point out that while the Bernalillo school board gets dinged by the Attorney General's Office for discussing the job description for a new superintendent in an executive session versus an open meeting (see March 8, 2012 posting of the news article), our school board somehow managed to develop our superintendent's job description/criteria without any meeting at all. According to Dr. Patterson, the Board's consultant, the criteria for the job description were developed via emails between him and board members.

My understanding from Dr. Patterson is that the resumes for the candidates are public information. Therefore I have officially asked for them pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

In other Board matters, Superintendent Hancock discussed the latest buzz word that we will all be hearing more and more. New Mexico is now one of 46 states that have adopted the "Common Core" standards. According to Mr. Hancock, this is basically a retooling of what was going on in the 70s, only now it has a new name. Anyway, our students will be required to go to these standards starting this August for the elementary students and next August in the high school (this according to the Special Education Director). I didn't catch where the middle school falls in the adoption of the standards.

School Board Meeting Tomorrow Night

Here is the agenda for tomorrow night's regular school board meeting.

Also, the school board has released the names of the six finalists and three alternates for the position of superintendent. They are (in no particular order): Audie Brown, Travis Dempsey, Leann Ellis, Bobbie Gutierrez, Adan Estrada and Ken Lyon. The three alternates (in the event one of the six isn't available) are 1. James Sparks, 2. Amy Lane and 3. Jeff Gorum. Although I saw on Arlan Ponder's Facebook account that Amy Lane has asked that her name be withdrawn. (Actually, when I say this information has been "released" I mean that Arlan Ponder emailed the info...I don't know whether it is taped to the window of the school or anything like that.

The interviews will be at a public work session on April 7. If it is anything like the last work session, they will break into three different rooms so each candidate is essentially interviewed three times...once by the board and once by each community/teacher committee.