Official hopeful on in-person learning

Tucumcari Public Schools’ superintendent told board members last week the state likely will bring back in-person teaching for middle-school students by late January or early February.

Superintendent Aaron McKinney said he was “more hopeful” middle-school students would return to in-person classes in “the next two to three weeks” after the New Mexico Public Education Department recently surveyed districts on that very issue.

McKinney said if middle schools reopen to in-person classes, it’s likely the state will require a higher percentage of teachers to undergo weekly COVID-19 surveillance testing.

He said the home-delivered Vault saliva tests for the virus originally promised results within 24 to 48 hours but actual results weren’t returned for five to six days and as long as two weeks.

Tucumcari had been scheduled to resume a hybrid model of in-person and online classes for elementary students Jan. 18, but McKinney said he held off a week so more of those teachers could get their COVID-19 vaccines at Trigg Memorial Hospital or the Quay County Family Health Center.

In the meantime, principals at Tucumcari’s elementary, middle and high schools reported gradual improvement of achievement by students using remote learning.

Middle-school principal Lendall Borden said 37% of his students made the honor roll during the second half of the semester. He said that was not as high as last year, but that number rose in the second half of the just-completed semester. Borden also said 91% of students attended classes in the online setting; the state wants 90% or higher.

Elementary principal Tonya Hodges said her school added five to six new students over the semester. She said technologist Patrick Benavidez had solved internet connectivity issues with two or three remaining families.

Hodges said online learning was “extremely hard” for many kindergarten and first-grade students who often require more hands-on instruction.

“I’m not going to lie. Some of them are still struggling,” she said.

High school principal Nicole Bright-Lesly reported 54% of the freshmen, 57% of sophomores, 50% of juniors and almost 66% of seniors were passing all their classes in remote settings. She said students are failing more often in elective classes than required core classes. Bright-Lesly said some of those students became too ambitious with elective classes in remote settings.

She said parents and students reported positive feedback about the Google Meets videoconference classes and that 89% of students there had logged on during those sessions.

Bright-Lesly reported an enrollment increase of four students, to 233, during the just completed semester.

She said all of Tucumcari’s seniors are “on track” to graduate in 2021.

“I hope to don’t do this for much longer,” she said of online learning, “but we’re getting a little better at it.”

Benavidez said a recent survey of parents gave a 95% positive rating for Google Meets and other online classes.

He said the only significant problem reported with Google Meets videoconferences occurred when two or three siblings meet online with teachers simultaneously, straining their internet speeds.

Benavidez said he’s addressed some internet-access issues by installing T-Mobile hotspots for $20 a month. He also said Plateau has extended its $20-a-month special to TPS families to June 1.

In other business:

• The board approved its 2020 audit report, presented by Terry Ogle of Accounting & Financial Solutions in Farmington. The summary page states the district is “low risk.”

The report detailed just two findings over budgetary expenditures. The district overspent by $940 in one of its support-services budgets. The district responded the budget fund was authorized but not properly recorded.

In the other, one of the cash receipt books from February could not be found until July. That oversight was listed as “extraneous circumstances” where the receipt books weren’t returned in a timely manner due to the public schools being shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Athletic Director Wayne Ferguson said the resumption of middle-school and high-school sports in New Mexico remain in “a holding pattern” until such activities are cleared by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. The state is scheduled to begin football and other sports Feb. 1.

Ferguson acknowledged that scheduled football start “is probably fiction” when asked by board member Heather Gonzales.