Updates on Elementary Schools

GRANTS, N.M. – The regular school board meeting began with Superintendent Max Perez giving recognition to the student athletes who will be competing at the state level. He looks forward to seeing how well they perform in the weeks that follow.

There were three presentations to be done before the School Board. The first was a school site presentation, the second was a district enrollment and attendance update, and the third was a discussion on the superintendent complaint process.

The first presentation before the board was a school site presentation for Bluewater and San Rafael Elementary done by staff and a few students. The presentation started with praise for each of the school's attendance rates and for the teachers who are meeting expectations. The presentation continued with student council representatives from each school going over the names and positions of staff at the schools for the School Board. After this, it was shown in the presentation that on Personal Development days, the staff from both schools collaborate to do ALICE training, discuss safety plans, and learn the new Synergy gradebook program together. Following this, they discussed the contrast between last year's scheduling compared to this year. The schools presented how they are attempting to sync up their scheduling systems and student work standards in order to create a better means to collaborate as a team. Planning and teaching from the District Learning Plan was addressed next. The DLP was praised for being a guide for pinpointing teaching. It was explained that the DLP breaks down standards into four quarters so that the teachers know exactly what they need to teach each quarter without guesswork. It was then stated that everyone has their personal choice on curriculum from options given by the school board president. A concern that was voiced about this is that there are many standards to go through each day and it can be overwhelming for some teachers. It was advised that spiraling the review and practice of standards may be a way around the issue. The next part of the presentation covered data analysis on the correlation between Accelerated Reading scores and test scores. Their analysis showed that of all the students who did not meet their AR goals, none of them scored proficient on their quarter one Illuminate tests. Some students even showed decreases in their scores. They concluded that students who do not read consistently are not able to read the material that is tested with fluency, speed, accuracy. The presentation then went into Bully Prevention for both schools. The student council representatives talked a bit about the work the student council did for spreading awareness to primary and intermediate grade classes with Bully Prevention and will also help to plan the next Bully Prevention events. They also highlighted various other activities and the events of Red Ribbon Week, where students wrote essays for the theme of 'Celebrate a Drug Free Life', listened to guest speakers, and participated in an Awareness and in Honor Walk. The next part of the presentation was to cover student learning data for the School Board. This gave them an overall view to how each grade level is doing so far at both schools at the end of the first quarter.

The second presentation for the District Enrollment and Attendance Update showed that as of October 31 there were 3,225 students enrolled in the school district. Superintendent Max Perez stated that, 'We've been up and down in our attendance rates, but right now we are at a little bit of a dip.' The overall attendance rate for the district was reported at 93.6 percent.

The third presentation was the Discussion on Superintendent Complaint Process. This was simply to discuss more of the process of submitting complaints and how best to handle them until they can be addressed.