GRANTS, N.M. – On October 4 at the Regular Grants/Cibola County School Board Meeting, three presentations were scheduled originally. The presentation on '24/7 Tobacco Free Campus' was unable to take place due to the presenters not making the meeting.
The first presentation was 'School Site Presentation – Mesa View Elementary'. Presenters began by overviewing the school. Mesa View currently has 479 students, their first-grade class is larger than usual this year, so they made the addition of a fourth classroom for them. The staff currently consists of 30 certified teachers, nine educational assistants, five ESS longterm subs, and two EWS staff. Teachers spoke about an anti-bullying fun walk. Third grade teachers Ms. Barela and Ms. Henderson spoke about Social Emotional Learning in the classroom and some initiatives they have started; the instructional coach and testing coordinator Amy Cameron went over student data; sixth grade teachers Ms. Bodley and Ms. Ratliff spoke about strategies they use to educate their students; and two sixth grade students read their anti-bullying essays.
-Mesa View's first anti-bullying fun walk was a success. It happened at their campus and involved all students from 3Y to sixth grade. They are planning towards having a bigger area to work with next year. -Ms. Barela and Ms. Henderson are working on a program to help students using yellow and blue folders to silently communicate with other staff in the program about a student's learning needs without singling the student out in front of their class. The yellow folder is 'Social Emotional' and the blue folder is 'skills'. Ms. Barela gave an example of how the blue folders would be used. She said, 'The blue folder is what we are going to use for skills, like more of a fluency practice of skills. So inside, what it is, we will place any skills that the child may need, let's say that they struggle with their sight words a bit. We'll tuck some sight words in here, we'll have a sticky note on the inside letting that teacher or librarian or custodian, whoever is involved in our program, which we have a list of people that we went over and we talked to and they agreed, they thought it was great and they want to be a part of it. And we will put it in here, and what will happen is, I will be like, ‘Hey, can you take this to our librarian for me? I need some help with it.’ So that way, again, we are not singling anybody out and they don't really know why they are going, but they are taking this. And then, when the librarian gets this, she's going to open it up, and since we've had previous conversations, she's going to know, okay, this student needs help on some sight word practice. This should take approximately five to 10 minutes. Kind of something skills, but also to give them a bit of a break. If they're really very overwhelmed, it could lead into a social emotional and we want to catch it before it gets there.' She also said conversations will be tailored to the student needs.
Ms. Henderson then explained the yellow folders. Saying, 'She mentioned we want to stop it before it gets to the social emotional. That doesn't always happen, okay, everything is way outside of our classroom that we can't control, so that kid could be upset before they even get there in the morning, or something could have happened at lunch, or something could have happened between them and this kid that they are sitting next to, so that's when the social emotional one comes in. So, this one, we don't really – we don't put skills in this one. This one has a note tucked inside, and it's for whoever, from the teacher that's sending the kid to whoever we are sending them to whether it be the principal, our instructional coach, another teacher since all of third grade is involved, the librarian, custodians, again, we have this whole list of people that's involved, and they'll know when they get this yellow folder; this is a social emotional. Let me check in here. And the little kid that's going out doesn't, again, know why they are going out and neither does anybody else in the class. Because they don't know, ‘oh yellow folder means this’ the kids don't know that. So, then they get there, and this could be something as simple as they just need a break. Ms. Barela has used it several times with a particular student that gets very overwhelmed very easily, and he starts, when he gets overwhelmed, he starts kind of acting out and distracting others. So, she sends him with his folder, he has no idea why he's coming, he comes to my class, he brings some of his work with him, he sits down, he calms down. So, it gives not only Ms. Barela and her class a break, but it also gives the student a break. A change of environment. Sometimes that is all they need in order to go back to class in five or ten minutes and focus. Or if a student is very upset, we all have students who come in very upset sometimes – we are all human. They had a bad morning; they are very upset and they just need a minute. They can go talk to their favorite custodian or the librarian or [Principal Amy] Arkie or whoever they might have that bond with, because maybe, even though they are in my class, I might not be the best person to try and help them through their situation. They are in my class and yes, I try to have bonds with all of my students, but there might be somebody else in the school that just has a better bond with that student that might be able to help them through and they can take this yellow folder, and there is no communication, nobody is being singled out, but the staff know, and now this student can go over there, they can get their break, they can take a minute, and then come back into class ready to learn. So instead of ignoring the situation and leaving them crying in the back of the classroom, they still aren't learning anything that way, we give them a break. Let them go out for five or ten minutes, they come back, and now they are okay. They are recentered. They can come back in and they are ready to learn. So, we are addressing the situation without taking too much time away.'
Superintendent Max Perez thanked the teachers for their work and called the program, “authentic and creative.”