I would like to begin by thanking the publishers of the Thunder for giving me the opportunity to say a few words about my candidacy, as well as the accomplishments of your school district over the last few years. When Chris Montoya resigned before the end of his term on the school board, the remaining members of that board selected me to fill the remaining year of that term. I filed for the next election, and was elected to a four year term that expires this February. I have been selected by the other four members as school board president for each of the last four years. This year I am running unopposed. Before my retirement, I worked primarily as the city attorney for a Minneapolis suburb. I have found that experience has been an excellent preparation for my duties as a school board member. Serving the community as a school board member has been both exhilarating and exhausting. It is not uncommon to have 400 pages or more of written reports to review each meeting. As budgets have tightened, the legislature has required our schools to do more with less. The responsibilities required of school board members increase every few months.
In addition, our district is wonderfully multicultural. We have a district comprised of three sovereign nations. There are challenges and opportunities in our district that simply don’t exist anywhere else.
There are two contested seats in this election. As you consider your vote, I believe it would be helpful to provide some information about the “state of the school district”. For many years there were many different definitions of “successful” schools, and rightly so. However, for the past several years, schools have been required to assess and report the progress of their students in specific, measurable scores for core subjects. All schools have worked hard to achieve a new standard, commonly referred to as adequate yearly progress, or AYP. Success by this measure is determined by test scores of our students on standardized tests. The decision to include these test results as a vital measurement of success for our schools is not optional, but required by Federal Law. This is the essence of the Federal Law often referred to as “No Child Left Behind”.
As the reporting periods for the new law came into effect, the Jemez Valley Schools simply were not able to show that they were making the improvements necessary to satisfy the requirements of the law. You should be proud to know that your elementary school has satisfied these requirements for the last three years. These requirements were first met in the 2007 to 2008 school year. The requirements were met again the next year, and the elementary school was one of thirteen schools across the state to be designated as “Schools on the Rise.” The teachers, administration and school board members were invited to a presentation at the state capital, and the school received a special $4,000.00 dollar grant to purchase educational materials, and encourage continued success. So far that success has continued for each year, including the most recent testing period.
According to statistics published by the New Mexico Education Department, only 23.3% of our New Mexico schools achieved AYP in the last testing cycle. For the elementary school to met this goal for the last three consecutive years is a remarkable achievement. The mid-high and senior high schools have had more difficulty showing sufficient progress on the tests. However, I believe the achievements of the elementary school will send better prepared students to our mid-high and high schools, and we will build on a better foundation because of the success at the elementary level.
We have seen successes at the mid-high and senior high schools as well. Mr. Jeremy Marley was selected as science teacher of the year at his grade level for the State of New Mexico. In addition to that excellent work in the classroom, Mr. Marley prepared a grant application that was successful in securing a $10,000.00 grant for the benefit of the school. At the beginning of the school year the superintendent made significant changes in the administration of the middle school. The school board receives reports each month from the principals of each school, and we are already seeing improvements at the middle school. Middle School is a challenge across the board for school districts. In the last testing cycle, only 6.4% of our state’s middle-schools achieved their AYP goals.
Good things are also happening at the high school. For two consecutive years the school has been able to have meetings with a responsible adult for every single one of our high school students. This is an amazing and encouraging statistic. Educational research has continually shown that the active interest of a responsible parent or caring adult is crucial for success at this level. Our high school has the highest percentage of graduation for Native American students of any school in New Mexico. We have been encouraged by the progress in our high schools, and expect things to get even better as the advantages of this hard work continues to show itself through greater student success.
Working in combination with the school board, the superintendant is closing in on several projects to enhance the safety of our students. We have recently installed video cameras in our school buses. The bus drivers have always had a difficult job as they are simultaneously responsible to watch the road through their windshield and supervise the students behind them. Knowing that misconduct on the bus may be subject to review should help discourage poor behavior on the bus.
The “pick up/drop off” location at the elementary school has been difficult to supervise, and potentially dangerous. The school board and administration are in the final stages of establishing a much safer physical layout.
In the coming days the school will finish a very substantial project to make the schools “smart buildings”. This means computerized controls for heating and air conditioning that will realize substantial savings on utilities in the years to come. In addition to these savings, the exterior doors to the school can be locked down in a moment. Instead of a proliferation of keys over the years, the administration will be able to issue the same kind of control key cards that you may have seen in hotels. This is a much better system from a building safety perspective.
Finally, the school board has tried hard to make proceedings before the school board as transparent as possible. Of course the public is invited to all school board meetings. We know it is difficult to attend these meetings. If you are not able to attend the meetings, the principals reports to the school board are available to anyone at the school website. There is a lot of good information in these reports.
Your school board members have made a huge personal investment in the school district over the last four years. I appreciate their efforts, and am proud of their achievements. The February meeting will be the first meeting following the current election. All of those willing to signup for such a difficult and time consuming job are to be commended. Thank you all for your interest and investment in the education of our children.
