Education

When Carolyn Torres, a math and science teacher at Chamisa Elementary School, won the Teacher of the Year Award for Los Alamos earlier this year, she automatically became a finalist for the state title — just like the 89 other teachers that won for their districts throughout the state.

Tuesday, it was announced she won the state title.

To put that in perspective, there are roughly 860 public and charter schools throughout the state, each staffed by an average of 20 teachers.

Chamisa Elementary celebrated the day with a school assembly, where staff and her peers congratulated Torres as she sat where she seemed to be the most comfortable — right in the middle of her third grade class.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gene Schmidt highlighted this fact during a special school assembly honoring Torres’s accomplishment.

“I think of all of the schools, of which there are more than 800,” he said to the students, “I think of all the teachers in those schools of which there are more than 16,000, and here in Chamisa, you have the very best one.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sometimes the best isn't good enough: Most American fourth- and eighth-graders still lack basic skills in math and reading despite record high scores on a national exam.

Yes, today's students are doing better than those who came before them. But the improvements have come at a snail's pace.

The 2013 Nation's Report Card released Thursday finds that the vast majority of the students still are not demonstrating solid academic performance in either math or reading. Stubborn gaps persist between the performances of white children and their Hispanic and African-American counterparts, who scored much lower.

Overall, just 42 percent of fourth-graders and 35 percent of eighth-graders scored at or above the proficient level in math. In reading, 35 percent of fourth graders and 36 percent of eighth graders hit that mark.

Still, as state and federal policies evolve in the post-No Child Left Behind era, the nation's school kids are doing better today on the test than they did in the early 1990s, when such tracking started, with more improvement in math than in reading. Students of all races have shown improvement over the years.

In an effort to reduce costs and make things more efficient, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gene Schmidt told the Los Alamos Board of Education he’s looking to streamline the structure of his administration.

Already, he’s made the former head of human resources, Gerry Washburn, assistant superintendent, and put human resources under Washburn’s watch. At a recent work session with the board, Schmidt proposed even more changes.

One of the more notable moves is his request would put the technology department under the curriculum department.

“There are a lot of drivers behind this,” he told the board. “One of those is that increasingly, technology should be a support mechanism for curriculum.” Schmidt also said that by putting technology under another department, there will be much more transparency in the department as far as procurement and use of technology is concerned.

“When technology was working as its own independent system, there weren’t really checks, oversights and balances, Schmidt said. “By putting the technology department under the auspices of director of curriculum and instruction, I believe we would have an oversight mechanism to make sure that the technology purchases and the infrastructure are used to benefit overall student achievement.”

Though officials have taken a very conservative approach with the numbers, the Los Alamos Public School District is projecting a $2.9 million deficit in fiscal year 2015.

The Los Alamos Board of Education conducted a work session Thursday to discuss the issue.

Factors district officials included in their projections included hikes in health care costs, and increases in utility rates, along with regular salary increases.

“Utility rate increases are budgeted as per discussion with Los Alamos County as follows: electric reflects a 6 percent (increase) for FY15, gas reflects a 5 percent increase in FY15 and a 10 percent increase in FY18, water reflects a 5 percent increase in FY15 and FY16,” according to a statement in a worksheet on the session.
While a reduction in teaching staff was included in the district’s projections. Possible school closings or support staff reductions were not.

“No cuts for classified staff are addressed in this analysis; classified staffing levels will still be required to support school sites at their levels,” read the statement, which included teacher assistants, secretaries, clerks and custodians in the analysis.

Driving the deficit is also a projected steady decline in enrollment, which is where a reduction in teacher positions came from.