Clovis school board votes to extend Balch's contract

CLOVIS — The Clovis Municipal Schools Board of Education only hires one employee in the district: the superintendent.

After an hour of discussion, the board concluded it was satisfied with the one it had, and voted 4-0 to extend Jody Balch’s contract through the 2018-19 school year.

Balch will retain his current salary of $150,000 at his request. He has maintained he shouldn’t take a pay raise if teachers can’t receive one. Additionally, he will have 30 vacation days roll over into the following year.

“It was good,” Balch said of the conversation with school board members Cindy Osburn, Kyle Snider, Justin Howalt and Paul Cordova (board member Terry Martin was absent due to illness). “They were very supportive, and wanted to know how we can get better.”

Balch said the top area of improvement needs to be retention of teachers, plus do enough hiring to fill the 12 teachers the district is currently short.

Also at Tuesday's meeting:

• The board approved a trio of student travel requests.

The first was for up to a dozen students in the district's Upward Bound program to travel to Orlando for a cultural trip.

The trip will be paid for by Clovis Community College's federally funded Upward Bound Program. Lauren Eason, who oversees the program for CCC, said the trip includes accommodations at Disney World, educational programs from Disney and a college visit. Up to a dozen students in ninth and 10th grades could be eligible. Eason said many of the students are excited because they haven't been on a plane, let alone visited Disney World.

The trip will run March 28-31, coinciding with the district's spring break.

The other two were in-state trips — this weekend to Albuquerque for the Yucca Middle School Family Career and Community Leaders of America, and March

28-April 1 to Las Cruces for the high school and middle school Future Farmers of America programs.

• Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Joe Strickland told board members he would like to take advantage of the state providing free preliminary college entrance testing, noting it is a great opportunity for students.

The PSAT is optional for 10th-graders. Strickland, as a first-generation college student, said he had no plans for college and never would have taken the test if it were voluntary.

Students seem to have the same view now as Strickland did then. Nobody is signed up for the voluntary testing.

Osburn and Howalt asked if that was a result of not communicating the benefits of the test.

"There's always a way to communicate better," Strickland said. "That's a problem every organization has."

• The board approved an amended bus contract of $1.742 million with Adair, with rental rates changing due to Adair needing to buy five additional buses.

Howalt, harkening back to his days in the city's public works department figured out sanitation routes, asked if any studies have been conducted to create the most efficient routes possible. Deputy Superintendent of Operations Carrie Bunce said she didn't know of any, but said the philosophy is the bus company would seek efficiency on its own to maximize its contract.