SPEAK OUT, GET ACTIVE!

Española School District
Will Not Deal with Union
By Charles Goodmacher [Note from CG - The submission did not have my name on it - the editor added this - it does list the signatures of local Officers at the bottom ]
Published:
Thursday, December 29, 2011 10:07 AM MST
Espańola Public Schools employees are deeply concerned about the state of affairs in our district. We are the backbone and life-blood of our schools, working directly with the students, and we are consistently mistreated by this district. Our Union calls for true “reform” of education here and we invite the community to work with us.

The Espańola-NEA wants to work together with parents, social service groups and others concerned about the state of our schools. Perhaps, working together we can overcome the current obstacles to progress.

We understand that true reform must come from the bottom-up. It will not come if the community simply replaces one school board member with another, though that may help. Without ongoing community and parent involvement and an active Union, meaningful changes are impossible.

Superintendent Evelyn Maruska’s disastrous policies show a complete disregard for the what is best for the students and those who directly serve them. The superintendent refuses to meet with our Union. The administration refuses the public the information which is the public’s, and then spends money it doesn’t have to produce a horribly written, ill-conceived advertisement. What an embarrassing attempt to make itself look good.

The community complains and some on the Board say “it’s not our fault,” come to the Board meetings to find out what’s happening. If the Board wants to find out what’s happening, listen to our Union, the students and the parents. The community wants more from our schools, and so do we.

One way in which the District mistreats the staff is in the dishonoring of contracts they signed for the ill-conceived and incompetently managed Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF). Teachers and other staff signed up for extra work, hoping to improve student performance. Then the District does not pay us for our extra work. Our Union presented information about this directly to the Board (and through the media). The silence of the Board and administration compounds the real damage done. Our Union is forced to prepare a law-suit to recover the pay that is rightfully owed our members.

Despite all of this, many of us attend workshops to remain current with the latest and best practices. Many give up unpaid half-hour lunches to help students progress. Teachers spend “vacation” time writing required dossiers and other requirements of the profession.

Couple years of no raises with increased insurance and retirement costs, and school employee take-home pay has gone down. Students also suffer: teachers used to spend lots of their own money for supplies the District fails to provide.

It is our hope that the new year will bring with it a revitalized community interest in working together for meaningful change in the schools. The courage of the high school students who marched against misguided discipline policies gives us hope. The many letters to the editor from concerned community members also give rise to hope. Working together, this community can do great things for our Espańola students.

This commentary was signed by the following officers of the Union's executive committee:

Charles Goodmacher

Lille Martinez-Holguin

Tina Talachy

Michael Lapoevic

Dolores Salazar

Patti Thomas



Town Hall Targets Superintendent

By Michael Maresh
SUN Staff Writer
Published:
Thursday, December 22, 2011 10:08 AM MST

Española School District parents convened a town hall meeting Dec. 14 to discuss a wide array of problems — and possible solutions — facing the District since Superintendent Evelyn Maruska took over in May.

Maruska was invited but did not attend the meeting, saying later she was meeting with principals. About 50 people, including one of Maruska’s bosses on the Española School Board, did attend the meeting.

Parents first wanted to know why the District does not make more of an effort to let them know when the Board meets. Many also questioned the Board's 5 p.m. meeting time because this makes it extremely hard for working parents to attend.

Parents, teachers and former students also criticized the integrated math program students are mandated to take to graduate. Some parents said they believe this course does not prepare students for college.

Parents also lashed out at comments made by Curriculum and Instruction Director Christiana Blea-Valdez about how the District’s low test scores could not be compared to La Cueva High School or the Los Alamos School District because the ethnic makeup of those two populations is mostly Caucasian, while 90 percent of Española’s students are Hispanic.

Many parents shouted for Blea-Valdez to resign or be fired for making these comments.

Jeremy Maestas, who helped organize the meeting, said comments like Blea-Valdez’s hurt the community, especially since many people in the state already consider Española to be a city of dumb people.

Judith Trujillo, who helped Maestas run the meeting, said she was shocked when she heard what Blea-Valdez said at the Dec. 7 Board meeting.

“That kind of negativity just doesn’t fly,” she said.

Parent Calvin Smith, an African-American, said these types of comments are similar to statements made in the South in the 1960s that prevented certain ethnic groups from taking the bus or eating at certain restaurants. He added the Board does not have the final say on issues like this.

“The School Board reports to us,” he said. “We are the boss. We call the shots.”

Safety

The meeting also touched on safety concerns, including a Nov. 9 BB gun incident in which a Mountain View Elementary fifth-grader pointed a BB gun at a fourth-grader.

Angelo Sandoval said comments that BB guns are only a toy and not a real weapon was disturbing to him since his cousin died 19 years ago after being shot with a BB gun.

“A weapon is a weapon,” he said. “If you are going to hurt someone — there should be a zero tolerance for any type of weapon.”

High school student body president Steven Gonzales said the District’s new code of conduct allows misbehavior to escalate. He also said Principal Theresa Flores shares these same beliefs.

Española Middle School teacher Patti Thomas said the student code of conduct gives students eight or nine chances to be disruptive before consequences can be implemented.

“That whole student code of conduct is a big safety concern because things are allowed to escalate,” she said.

Sandoval wanted to know why security officers were not stationed at the elementary schools, saying just their presence could be a deterrent against inappropriate behavior.



Walkout

Maestas wanted to know the reasons for the high school walkout on Dec. 2, and Gonzales said those students did not give a real reason why they staged the protest.

Trujillo said some of the concerns are students not being allowed to park on school grounds unless they play sports or have an after-school job and maintain at least a 2.0 grade-point average, as well as new rules governing tardiness.

Brandon Aragon said if he was still a student at the high school he would have joined the walkout.

“It’s obvious to see the problem is Maruska and Flores,” he said. “Maruska makes redundant comments. She makes horrible comments about (her being the boss).”

Communication

Freshman class president Nicole Romero said the athletes are upset because they cannot get their games or photos published in the newspaper, so they should have been the students walking out of class.

She said she and a friend tried to meet with Flores and were totally shut out for two months for an issue that needed to be dealt with in one month. The issue was applying in time so Española could have been picked as the location for an educational conference that could attract up to 3,000 people to the community.

She said the meeting with Flores finally took place and the District applied to host the conference, but the late application date will hurt the District during the selection process.

She said the new tardy policies are not a bad idea and she likes the reward incentive plan that came with them.

Trujillo said the administration is not on the same page, as the public receives different answers depending on which administrator speaks.

The meeting also discussed Maruska’s policy that does not allow Rio Grande SUN reporters on school grounds unless questions are submitted to her beforehand, which would then be forwarded to the principal.

“We disagree with a lot of what the SUN does, but they a1so do something good,” Sandoval said.

He said the SUN publishes honor rolls, students of the month and classroom pictures. These are free services for schools.

“To deny someone their First Amendment rights where they say, ‘I am the boss and you can’t come here’ (is wrong),” Sandoval said.

He also said it is hard to understand why Maruska thinks District officials should have questions in advance, as this would allow the person being interviewed a chance to skew the answers. Sandoval said the questions should be answered without the person knowing what is going to be asked so the correct answers will be given. Doing anything less, he said, is censorship.

Maestas asked parents how they felt about a six-page advertisement the District paid to insert in the Dec. 8 edition of the SUN with Maruska and other administrators being the focus of the piece, especially since it was paid for with public tax dollars. Trujillo mentioned the exact amount of almost $2,200 that it cost the District to publish the insert.

Regina Martinez, a parent and a District employee, said she was at the Dec. 7 Board meeting and there was a performance of students the Board attended that the SUN ignored. She said she had a big problem with that.

She also said it is her opinion that no media outlet should be allowed on school grounds during the school day because students are there to be instructed. And she said she would never allow her daughter to be photographed or interviewed at the school unless it was done while her daughter played basketball.

Maestas also asked the parents in attendance if they read the honor rolls that the SUN once published, and almost all parents at the meeting raised their hands to signify they did.

“They took that away from us,” said parent Bill Katen. “That is not the SUN’s fault.”

He said he believes the fault lies with the superintendent.

Josh Martinez, a member of the high school basketball team, said he was not for or against the student walkout, but said if there were issues they need to sit down and address the concerns formally.

Martinez then complained that the SUN was not covering Española Valley basketball games and said the paper is picking and choosing what it wants to report.

“We all know Española basketball is the heart of Española,” he said. “It’s a little bit depressing. We are the Española Sundevils. A lot of people buy the paper for the sports.”

Martinez’s coach, Richard Martinez, told the Board on Dec. 15 he supported Maruska’s policy banning reporters from campus (see related story on page A8).

Board President Coco Archuleta asked the parents to formalize their concerns in a parent-advisory committee and then present them to the entire Board.

When Lopez asked Archuleta how she could get in contact with Maruska since she was ignoring her calls, Archuleta asked her to send him an email so he could address it formally.

Parents decided to hold a special parent-advisory committee meeting on Monday to get their concerns finalized before presenting them to the Board in January.

Maestas said it appears the District has no one who knows how to deal with the media and suggested the District hire someone to be a single point of contact for the media.




Low Test Scores? Blame Race
Administrator pins Española's failing classrooms on high percentage of Hispanic students
By Michael Maresh
SUN Staff Writer
Published:
Thursday, December 15, 2011 10:06 AM MST
An Española School District administrator is blaming the District’s low test scores on the high number of Hispanics who attend the high school in comparison with other nearby school districts.

In a PowerPoint presentation to the Española School Board Dec. 7, Curriculum and Instruction Director Christiana Blea-Valdez said Española’s ACT scores cannot be compared to Los Alamos or La Cueva High School because of differences in the racial makeup of the districts.

She said 69 percent of students at Los Alamos are Caucasian while 24 percent are Hispanic. At La Cueva almost 68 percent of the students are Caucasian, while 29 percent are Hispanic.

Nearly 90 percent of Española’s students are Hispanic, according to state Education Department data.

According to information Blea-Valdez provided to the Board on Dec. 2, Española’s students had the lowest 2009 ACT scores in English, math and reading and tied for last in science when compared with the school districts of Gadsen, Moriarty, Pojoaque and Rio Grande.

“It’s unfair to compare any school district in the state to Los Alamos,” she said.

She also said Los Alamos has the state’s highest percentage of residents per-capita who have doctorate degrees.

Blea-Valdez, who makes $75,500 a year, said a better comparison for Esapñola would be school districts with similar demographics. She said the Pojoaque School District would be a good gauge because Española loses many students to this neighboring district every year. She also said Española needs to convince its students to take the test more than once, adding students almost always do better on subsequent tests.

School Board President Coco Archuleta was upset with Blea-Valdez’s assertion that Española’s students score low on tests because a majority of them are Hispanic.

“I do not see how being poor or Hispanic has anything to do with learning,” he said.

Archuleta said his daughter earned a doctorate degree and his son is a mechanical engineer with a master’s degree. Both graduated from Española before attending college, he said. Archuleta said his children are proof that Hispanic students can learn just as well as those from any other ethnic background.

Archuleta called Blea-Valdez’s comments a poor example and a bad excuse, saying all school districts can be compared with each other. He said the expectations could be higher at other school districts but scores have nothing to do with race.

Blea-Valdez tried to backtrack at the meeting, saying in no way did she mean poor or Hispanic students cannot learn, and explained afterward, on Dec. 9, that she was trying to tell the Board the reasons Española’s schools cannot be compared to schools with different demographics.

She also said she did not think Archuleta understood the comparisons that she presented to the Board.

But Archuleta argued Española’s students need to compete against Los Alamos because both sets of students someday will be competing against each other for jobs.

Board member Floyd Archuleta also did not buy Blea-Valdez’s explanation that the high number of Hispanic students is the primary reason why Española’s test scores are low.

“A lot of our students who have come out of our schools are doing well,” he said.

After being called on the carpet by the Board, whose five members are all Hispanic, Blea-Valdez said another reason Los Alamos’ test scores are higher than Española is because Los Alamos will not hire first-year teachers.

“How do we provide these same opportunities with what we have?” she asked.

Coco Archuleta said a majority of teachers at the high school have been teaching there for three to four years.

Blea-Valdez replied that she was talking about the teachers at the middle school.

“It is that constant turnover we have,” she said.

Floyd Archuleta said the Board is trying to figure out where it is and the news from Blea-Valdez was alarming.

“Apparently, we are headed for failure,” he said. “I am not hearing solutions.”

Blea-Valdez said the only way scores will improve is for the entire community to come together with the focus being to give students the same opportunities as what students receive in other school districts.

Floyd Archuleta said the Board had taken action in the past against low test scores, and one such action was hiring Blea-Valdez's boss, Superintendent Evelyn Maruska, who makes $120,000 a year.

“I would love to see a set plan and not waver from that,” he said.

Board Secretary Ralph Medina said teachers, parents and students need to come together to be a united team, and added he wished these people would come to Board meetings to learn what is happening in the District.

“They should all be listening to this,” he said.

Española Valley High School student body president J.R. Vigil said Blea-Valdez’s remarks that Espanola’s students cannot compare with Los Alamos students because of the racial makeup of the community are insane.

“What does it matter if you are Hispanic?” he asked.

Vigil said a better argument for why Española’s students cannot be compared with schools like Los Alamos is because of the qualified staff those schools hire; meanwhile, Española is stuck with an athletic director for a principal, he said