NM Public Education Dept. gives memo to Las Cruces schools

las cruces has the public school district and the state butting heads. now, the state putting an end to it … saying do as we say, or else. ABC-7’s josie ortegon is live from our new mexico mobile newsroom. josie? rick… this is a copy of the memo from secretary hanna skandera to the school board. the point is simple. the district has no choice: sot- stan rounds “the board didn’t take an action, but realized the effiicacy of backing away from the resolution and directing me to submit the original data.” at evaluation time—the public education department considers 0-2 absences “highl exemplary” the las cruces schoo board, wanting to stand by the teachers–proposed reporting absences after the 12th, so that teachers wouldn’t feel they were being penalized. the problem? the district chose to include teacher attendance in their evaluations. in a memo to the board, secretary hanna skandera stated: “The Las Cruce School Board has overstepped its legal authority in directing the Superintendent to not comply with the approved plan. As public officials you owe a duty to the public and have taken an oath to uphold the laws of the state. Your claim that a collective bargaing agreement “trumps” New Mexic Administrative Code is misleading and false.” th national education alliance represents teachers in the district: stand-up “The nea say teachers are under a lot of pressure. Their evaluations are also tied to student’s test scores, so a decision like this, affects the morale.” sot–sanchez “we don’ feel that we should get punished for using them by getting a bad evaluation.” th likelihood of anything changing soon–is unlikely–the policy is in its first year of a three-year agreement sot-mary SANCHEZ”They’re not listening. they’re not listening to the professionals that are in the classrooms and they’re going to need to start, because the student protests were probably just the beginning, probably not the end.” rounds and school board president maria flores say they’ll re-evaluate what’s included in future teacher evaluations. live in lc, jo, abc7. back outside where our exclusive