
Help Us Decide What We Should Be Prioritizing
In her weekly message, Superintendent Blakey invites staff and the community to participate in upcoming public meetings on next year's budget.
Welcome back! I hope you had a good break.
When I was named APS superintendent, I promised to lay the groundwork for your success. As a leader, I know I must ensure you, and every member of our staff, have the foundation and conditions to carry out our ambitious strategic plan to improve outcomes for all students.
To accomplish that, we need to make smart investments and align our resources with our goals and guardrails.
That’s where our budget comes in.
Each year, we estimate money coming in from the state, the federal government, and other sources. Then we look at expenditures. Many of those are out of our direct control. We have to pay PNM to keep the lights on, school staff to serve our students, and fuel companies to power the buses that bring our kids to school.
After we’ve covered all of our mandatory expenses, we’re left with a relatively small pool of discretionary money and begin thinking about where we can make strategic investments.
Can we fund more reading interventionists at schools? Can we continue our TOPS model, a program we started to help students in struggling schools by increasing instructional time and collaboration time among teachers? Can we launch Genius Hour at all elementary schools, a program that allows students to explore their interests, boosting engagement?
These are real questions we face every year, and we want you to help us answer them.
The APS Board of Education is hosting two listening tour sessions on the budget later this month, and I hope you’ll attend. The first one will be from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24, at Berna Facio Professional Development Complex, 3315 Louisiana Blvd. NE. If you can’t make it, the session will be livestreamed on the district’s YouTube channel. The second one will be from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 28, at Jimmy Carter Middle School, 8901 Bluewater NW.
This is your opportunity to offer input on next year’s budget. I hope to see you there!
You can also provide input by taking our Budget and Instructional Calendar Survey.
You’re probably wondering why we’re talking about the budget in October. Yes, we’re doing this four months earlier than last year. That’s intentional.
I’ve been at APS for more than 20 years, and I can tell you the budget process always feels like a sprint – rushing to get it all done to meet the state deadline. A lot of that is inevitable, given that so much of the budget is contingent on what state lawmakers decide during legislative sessions that end in February or March, depending on whether it’s a 30- or 60-day session.
We’re hosting the budget listening sessions early this year because we want to hear from you and the rest of the APS community about what we should prioritize and because we want to give that input the serious deliberation it deserves.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean we’re going to be able to execute every priority we come up with. We have to live within the resources we’re allocated. What it does mean is that we want to have plenty of time to consider our options, to make thoughtful decisions on how we’re investing available resources, and, most importantly, to ensure our decisions are being driven by what’s best for kids.
As I said earlier, I want to make sure the budget we come up with sets you and our students up for success, and I know every APS Board of Education member feels the same way. So, please join us and provide your input to me and the Board.
Have a good weekend.