Saturday, March 22, 2008

Year-round classes explored by LL Schools

Kenn Rodriguez News-Bulletin Staff Writer; krodriguez@news-bulletin.com

Los Lunas Year-round schools may be coming to Los Lunas in the coming years.

The Los Lunas School Board approved a measure allowing the district to look into a "balanced calendar" for Desert View Elementary School for the 2008-09 school year and possibly for some or all of the district's other schools.

The board unanimously voted to allow Superintendent Walter Gibson to study the idea. Gibson proposed a pilot program at Desert View Elementary (DVE) School in the next calendar year, but board member Maria Marez expressed interest in exploring making the change school-wide as soon as possible. Another proposal was made to make the changes only at Eastside schools next school year.

"We've been talking about this off and on ever since I've been here," Gibson said. "Jeanie Moore at DVE has been the advocate. She really thinks that it'll make an impact on her kids and their achievement - not having nine weeks off in the summer. So we're going to explore it. The board really encouraged us to explore it with some other schools as well, so we'll do that."

Gibson said he and district staff will research the ideas and present the information they come up at the next school board meeting. He said he hoped the board would be able to make a decision on the program during April.

Gibson said he'd had some discussions with the district's school principals in recent meetings and said, "There was some pretty strong support.

"The principals themselves would be interested," Gibson said. "But Mr. (Art) Castillo (a school board member) raised the point that there was a community-wide discussion about the balanced schedule 10 years ago. There needs to be some discussion. But I'd like to try it in some schools and see if we can make a difference."

The board also unanimously approved its district policy on textbooks but tabled a third reading on its general school administration policies until some language could be cleaned up within the policies.

The board had to briefly suspend its policy on adoption of policy in order to OK the textbook policy due to a mix-up regarding a new law passed by the New Mexico State Legislature regarding textbook availability for students.

"It was just a little catch-up," Gibson said. "It's actually something that slipped off my radar screen. I'd seen the legislation, and I probably got an e-mail from PED (Public Education Department) saying you need to adopt a policy. I just didn't pay much attention to it.

"When they sent us a follow-up e-mail and said, 'If you don't pass the policy you can't get your money,' it got my attention," he said.

Gibson said the law came about because some smaller school districts couldn't afford to buy textbooks for all their students.

Gibson said the tabling of the policy reading was not "a big deal at all."

"We're just starting on this whole policy thing," he said. "We need to get a rhythm, a momentum, going. Once we get that going, we'll continue to move forward. We haven't done the overview of all our policies in a while, and it takes time.

"Once we get the rhythm and protocol down, it'll start moving," he said. "But it's going to be a year-long process."

The board also approved by a 4-0 vote approval of a resolution for the district's School Paving Improvement Co-op Program, which will allow it to go forward on projects, including repaving parking lots at Los Lunas High School.

The board also heard a report from Bosque Farms Elementary School principal Ron Hendrix and recognized outgoing board president Art Castillo for his year of service as president. He was recently succeeded in that capacity by board member Frank Otero.

Board member Ed Hernandez was unable to attend the meeting due to travel but arrived in time to participate in the board's executive session of limited personnel matters. The board was to hear Gibson's report on administrative assignments for the 2008-09 school year.

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