News from the Superintendent: November 17, 2008

November 16, 2008

Dear APS Community Member,

This week we plead the district’s case for a change in the funding formula. The leadership team, Board of Education members and I are going to Santa Fe on Wednesday to present to the Legislative Education Study Committee (LESC), made up of state legislators. We will be presenting a report based on a series of questions the committee asked of districts around New Mexico regarding the use of additional funds. A revised funding formula would likely mean about $57 million more for Albuquerque Public Schools.

If the legislature were to pass the proposed funding formula, there are five areas we would target for use of the funds:  

1. Reduce class sizes.
2. Provide additional professional development days.
3. Provide additional support for education programs and schools.
4. Provide for compensation equity.
5. Provide additional support for the maintenance and operations of our schools.

There are specific ways we might use additional funding, such as to hire enough teachers that elementary students could have art and music classes every year.

It has been suggested that, as a result of a revised funding formula, programs for “gifted” students would be removed from oversight by the APS Special Education Department. Only four states put their gifted programs under the special ed umbrella, including New Mexico and my home state of Kansas, and our plan would leave that situation the same. We will work to continue the same protection and services that are currently given to gifted students.

However, we are looking at redesigning the process of how students are identified as gifted, such as screening at the end of second grade. We would also like to look at changing to a simpler Individualized Gifted Plan. Our proposal includes creating a team of teachers of gifted students from all school levels to look at a number of other issues such as caseload and class sizes. After this week’s presentation, I will be able to tell you more about where we go from here.

I had the privilege of meeting with employees of PNM during their lunch hour today to answer questions from parents and others interested in APS who might not have had the opportunity to make it to a community meeting. We talked about smaller schools, achievement targets and misconceptions about how many principals schools have, among other things. I’m grateful for their hospitality and any opportunity to meet the public to hear their concerns.

I also attended the student roundtable early this morning, with about 40 students involved in the leadership of their high schools. It turns out some are in favor of block schedules and some are not, but either way they are passionate about the subject. They seem more comfortable with what they know. I hope we can achieve a consistency in scheduling and curriculum in order to balance some of the inequities between schools that I’ve been hearing about. It was a lively discussion. Students are stakeholders, too, and I appreciate hearing their concerns.

We are holding one more community meeting to talk about student achievement and district goals, this time getting the perspective of the parents of Native American students. We’ll be meeting from 6-8 p.m. next Monday, Nov. 24, at the Pueblo of Isleta Conference Center, 11000 Broadway SE.

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Winston Brooks, Superintendent
Albuquerque Public Schools