Education

Just like the song that never ends, call the work being done at Los Alamos High School the project that never ends.  Another deadline has been pushed out a week and now the administration department, Family and Consumer Science and nurse’s office will have to wait until Nov. 21 to move into their new digs.

During Tuesday night’s school board meeting at Los Alamos High School, David Wharram, Gerald Martin owner’s representative for Gerald Martin construction, told board members that despite the schedule issued by Flintco, the move-in would have to be delayed a week.

“Flintco said the school facilities would be ready to move in on the 14th, but not all the systems may be working,” he said.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Educators are cautioning Gov. Susana Martinez's administration against rushing the implementation of a new law that will assign grades A to F to rate the performance of public schools.

Teachers, superintendents and others raised questions Monday about proposed rules by the Public Education Department for the school rating system enacted earlier this year.

Gloria Rendon of the Coalition of School Administrators suggested the new grading system initially be implemented in a few schools to serve as a pilot for working out potential problems.

Sruthi Garimella, a fourth grader in Jonathan Neal’s class at Barranca Mesa Elementary School, competed in her class’ spelling bee Monday and successfully qualified for the school spelling bee despite being in Paris, France.

She was able to compete in this intercontinental spelling bee through the magic of Internet video conference.  Along with Garimella, Eli Iramk-Bent, Isaac Ronning, and Kaylee Rogers also placed in the top four slots of Neal’s fourth grade class, qualifying all of them to compete in the school spelling bee.

Help is on the way for some children that attend Los Alamos Public Schools and qualify for free and reduced price lunches, but not everyone who qualifies will be able to take advantage of the program.

At least not yet.

During the Tuesday Los Alamos Board of Education meeting, and supported by Mountain Elementary Principal Gerry Washburn, board members voted 5-0 in favor of starting a free and reduced price lunch pilot program at Mountain.

The discussion originally focused on what it would take to bring the program to all LAPS schools; however Chief Financial Officer John Wolfe told board members that a lot of work would need to be done if they decided to roll out the program district-wide.