Logan board extends contract

The Logan Board of Education last week unanimously voted to extend the school district superintendent’s contract to June 2023.

The action by the board followed a nearly 90-minute closed session to discuss limited personnel issues, including superintendent Dennis Roch’s quarterly evaluation, according to the board’s agenda for its regular July 12 meeting.

The board gave Roch a 1.5% pay increase, to $108,450 a year, with the contract extension that expires June 30, 2023.

“I am pleased to have the full confidence of the board, and I welcome the opportunity to continue to serve the students and families of the Logan School community,” Roch wrote in an email Wednesday to the Quay County Sun when asked to comment about his extension. “Logan Schools is blessed to have an amazing faculty and staff, and I compliment each of them on their ability to remain focused on our students and their education despite the restrictions placed upon us in the pandemic.”

Roch has been Logan’s superintendent since 2013.

In other board business:

• Board members discussed possible COVID-19 guidelines for the upcoming school year. Roch said the New Mexico Public Education Department hadn’t yet announced its rules for 2021-2022 but stated several weeks ago it would align closely to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

Those CDC guidelines recommend three feet of social distancing instead of six. It also recommends mask for students and staff who are unvaccinated, though people who are vaccinated can be unmasked. Children under age 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccine.

Several board members grumbled at the continuation of mask mandates for some students.

Board member Kyle Perez, a previous critic of COVID-19 safeguards, said: “Who do they think they’re protecting at this point?” He also said the PED’s lack of an announcement gives districts little time to prepare.

Board President Scott Osborn said the possible mask mandate for unvaccinated people was “ridiculous.”

• The board approved a resolution opposing the federal government’s “30x30” land preservation goal. President Joe Biden issued an executive order in January directing the Secretary of the Interior to develop a program to conserve at least 30% of land and water in the U.S. by 2030. Such a move, the resolution stated, “will cause dramatic and irreversible farm to the economies of may states, including New Mexico, and in particular rural counties such as ours whose citizens depend on private land for their livelihoods.”

• The board approved a comment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding proposed efforts to list the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened or endangered species. It stated such an action would have “significant adverse effects” on the population and economy of Quay County, including limits on agricultural activity, grasslands management and use of the Ute Reservoir.

• Roch said a state law that took effect July 1 regarding per diem and milage payments for school board members could have an impact of thousands of dollars to the district.

He said board members now are required to be paid $45 for each meeting that lasts under four hours and $95 for each meeting over four hours. He said federal mileage-reimbursement standards, which is 56 cents a mile, for travel also would apply.

Roch suggested if board members did not want to pocket the per diem and mileage checks, they could donate those back to the district’s scholarship funds. Several indicated they would do so.

The policy was one of several changes in second readings approved by the board. Other policy changes dealt with background checks, guidelines on investigating wrongdoing and sharing background data with other school districts.

• Roch said three recent storms caused damage to school facilities, including flipping a rooftop climate-control unit onto its side and causing leaks. He said insurance would mostly cover the repairs.

• Technology coordinator Billy Burns gave a brief demonstration of one of the district’s 25 new Promethean interactive boards, which he described as a large iPad. He said faculty training for the boards will be offered in the coming weeks.