Editor's Note: The Beat suspects that there will be more forums for candidates for Silver and Cobre school boards, but none has been announced as of this date. Early voting began on Friday, Jan. 9 at the Grant County Clerk's office.The election will take place Feb. 3.
By Margaret Hopper
Two school board candidates spoke at the January 8 Republican meeting on their plans to run for the next term. Frances Gonzalez is running at large against Frank Cordova, experienced incumbent of Cobre Consolidated District, and Trent Petty of Silver Consolidated Schools is running for a second term in District 3. Gonzalez elected to be the second speaker.
Petty listed his board credentials, saying training goes with the job and that the community may not understand that things change when you become a board member. He had a lot to learn and has worked hard to learn the rules. Among his awards is Master Boardsman, which is about servant leadership. He still needs to teach a class to other board members to finish that requirement.
Petty also said he was a community worker, on the board of CATS TV for 3 years, serving Chamber of Commerce for a year, a Mounted Patrolman as law enforcement, and New Mexico Leadership Coalition. When he ran for the board the first time, his stated aims were to reduce bullying for students and give them a Vo Tech, because he knew from sending all five of his children to local schools that they needed both. He believes that progress is being made on those fronts, but neither is fully established. This second run is to see them finished.
A number of changes have resulted, and some are very good. In Vo Tech, math and English grades are improving, but in more practical ways than the regular college prep classes. The overall rating for the schools has gone up, from rather low placements to 11th in the state this year. Academics are up, and he insists Silver can become 1st in New Mexico.
How does he figure that? He learned that the new superintendent of two years, Lon Streib, understands educational directions in depth and he had engineered two districts to first in Wyoming. Streib says it can be done in New Mexico, too. By watching Streib's priorities, Petty thinks it will happen here.
(In a later call to Streib, he said it had taken five years to bring DuBois District to first in Wyoming, and two years later he went to Sundance to be nearer family. It took another five years to be first there. DuBois is still in the first ten ranking, but districts have to keep working to stay in first place.)
Petty said technology was a major weakness for Silver Consolidated Schools and that is being addressed. Some in the community have said too much was being spent on computer upgrades, but without that help, the students couldn't go as far in their classes, and they certainly couldn't compete beyond the boundaries. "We have handicapped them," he said, "and those hurt the worst were low-income kids, because they couldn't go home and get better technology to help them there." These technology upgrades are critical for helping the poorest children, and they are the ones holding the district to lower ratings. The school has to supply it for kids who don't have it.
In pushing the upgrades to help kids, the board approved extra spending on computer parts and pieces and bandwidth to give students not only enough computers to use in classwork, but the ability to use better programs that made their work meaningful. Failing equipment and outdated software were frustrating. Grades are improving and students know they are doing better, says Petty.
Helping with technology used all the available cash to do it, but Streib taught the board another lesson: shorting students to keep a larger cash reserve at the end of the year actually lost money and helped nobody. Only $400,000 of reserves could be rolled over into the next year. Everything above that went back to the government and the district lost it. If a real crisis developed, the district could call for emergency funds from the state, and keep on going. He says other districts are already doing this.
Another lesson for the board, Streib taught them reverse engineering. Start at the point where you need to be, figure why you aren't there, and make new requirements for each grade, all the way back to first and kindergarten. The whole school district has to have higher standards, and meet them, grade by grade. This is now in process. Petty mentioned other needs and changes, telling how they were met.
Frances Gonzalez told of her goals for changes at Cobre and asked for help from others with her campaign. Since Cobre doesn't vote by districts, but as a whole, she has a huge area to cover, as Cobre District is also the largest in square miles in the entire state.
She voiced concern that the school's food service and maintenance departments were outsourced, when they could be done by locals. It was possible that there were not enough computers with the qualities needed for Cobre to successfully do the PARCC test next month, and yet, she had respect for the old methods and equipment; typewriters could come in handy when computers didn't work.
Her other concerns were that students with disabilities had standards too hard for them; perhaps people could lobby for lower standards. The local school board had a high budget for its activities, perhaps $40,000 a year. And the superintendent was discouraging teachers from going to the board members with their concerns. She could see the need for change.
One comment offered was that perhaps Superintendent Mendoza knew boards had no authority to solve teacher problems; it was hard to tell people that state law wouldn't permit this, but many state laws should be changed and couldn't be, as Santa Fe hadn't provided easy ways to do this.
School board elections will be Tuesday, February 3, all over the county. Learn ahead of time where your precinct is, and if there will be voting in your district. Not all board positions are voted on at the same time. Usually, half are staggered and voted on at two-year intervals, but the office is for four years. Early voting has started, as of Friday, January 9.