GRANTS, N.M. – The Grants Cibola County School Board convened on February 4th to discuss a number of problems that have arisen recently due to the weather, and successes in Grants High School. The school board convened for over four hours and 55 minutes that Tuesday.
Laguna Acoma Hawks
This year, the Laguna Acoma Hawks have a strong academic focus in their dash plan.
The approach, consistency, and outcome should be positively affected by this preparation.
The Laguna Acoma High School currently has 200 students, six of whom have joined since January, while the junior high has a total of 38 students.
The goal is to have an 85 percent graduation rate, which they are currently on schedule for.
They received a 98 percent Winter Academic eligibility, in which one student was unable to participate. They had the same percentage in the spring academic eligibility, only including those who had signed up. This means that the students are academically allowed to participate at college level sports.
Their volleyball team was one of the top four teams at State, losing to the team who took state champions. The boys’ cross-country team took third place as a team at state. A girl was able to become district and state champion.
The school often conducts surveys, hoping to ensure that students are learning and attending enough. They constantly work to keep the school efficient and continuously stand by their motto, “We are Hawks. We honor those we have lost, keeping them with us as we continue to soar, through diversity and challenges, unwavering and strong.”
School Heating Issues
This Winter, multiple schools have been experiencing cold temperatures. Some school days have been delayed due to this, and the issue only continues to progress as it gets colder.
They intend to partner with PSFA to acquire the funds necessary for the updating of the heating system in Grants High School.
GHS has seen half of the classrooms being too cold to enter and stay in for the duration of a lesson. For eight school days, the teachers and students were rewired to do synchronous learning. Fortunately, school faculty were able to create a schedule in which classrooms will have to be shared. With this compromise, students will be able to return full-time and no longer need to do online classes.
Los Alamitos Middle School is facing a similar issue. Recently, pipes burst in the seventh grade hall, causing it to flood. This has caused problems with the heating system, leaving many of the classrooms cold. A new boiler has been purchased, as well as a second one to be used as a backup.
Plans are currently in the works to update the heating systems in numerous schools.
Angry Jack Productions
Two weeks ago, Grants High School Angry Jack Productions won the New Mexico Activities Association state championship in scholastic publications.
Ron Gonzales started teaching Career Technical Education and a full media program, which in 2021, became the most popular program in GHS.
Many of the students have won first or second place medals in competitions.
Several students attended the meeting and thanked him, the administrative team, the board, and everyone in their team.
This group expressed their enjoyment of these competitions, as well as the different ways being part of Angry Jack Productions has helped them.
Asynchronous and Synchronous Learning
Due to the heating issues in various schools, many students have needed to do asynchronous or synchronous learning. These forms of online learning are very different from each other.
They both started being used during COVID and helped the schools to follow its 180-day calendar.
Asynchronous learning allows the students to go at their own pace and is the most flexible of the two. The students are given their assignments, which aren’t required to be worked on at a certain time. Students still get the opportunity to interact with each other, by commenting on each other’s online work, which is posted in order to complete assignments. The posts can only be seen by the teacher and students.
Synchronous learning involves live online lectures. This allows the students to be taught as if they were at school. All of the discussions are live and there can still be group activities, such as doing a project together. With this immediate feedback and live interaction, administrators argued it’s not that different from attending class.
Upcoming
Two employees from the Grants Cibola County School District have been offered an opportunity to attend an HMH Leadership Summit. This meeting will go over the curriculum and assessments for schools.
A total of 90 districts will be going, Santa Fe Public Schools was the only other district in New Mexico to be invited. This event will take place in Nashville, during March, for a span of three days.
The next board meeting will take place on February 18 and there will be a special executive session board meeting February 21.