Clovis school board approves policy, regulation changes

CLOVIS — The Clovis Municipal Schools Board of Education unanimously approved changes to six board policies and three board regulations during Tuesday’s meeting.

In part, the changes establish protocol for alerting parents of kindergarten through third-grade students if their child does not meet mid-year literacy benchmarks.

Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Kerry Parker previously said the edited policies were meant to align the district with changes to state law.

In other business at Tuesday’s meeting (all votes 5-0):

• Cameo Elementary Principal Mike Read provided an update on the school. With 310 children attending Cameo this year, Read said the number of students has increased by about 35 since the end of last school year.

Read said the school’s 90-day goals are to improve data-driven instruction and school culture, the latter has been accomplished in part by team-building activities and a “staff shout-out board” where staff members recognize positive achievements by fellow staff.

• The board approved an agreement with RBC Capital Markets to serve as the district’s financial advisor through 2022, including the assistance in selling general obligation bonds.

• The board approved the disposal of miscellaneous music items and band uniforms, as well as removing from the district’s inventory a stolen laptop, portables to be donated to the city of Clovis and Grady Municipal Schools and two storage trailers to be advertised for sealed bids.

• Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Joe Strickland provided an overview of the district’s participation with Pivot, a test bank program that provides CMS with over 200,000 language arts, math, social studies and science questions used as the district’s nine-weeks assessment for grades K through 12 at a cost of $49,200.

Strickland said the district is working to establish consistency in the grading of the assessments among teachers in the same grade and subject but different schools in the district.

• Board member Paul Cordova recognized CMS Director of Music Education Brandon Boerio and the Clovis High marching band for another award-winning performance earlier this month at the Zia Marching Fiesta, generally considered New Mexico’s state marching band championship.

“Mr. Boerio, I’d like to take a minute and thank you and your personnel in band and I think we owe them a round of applause for another great, successful championship,” Cordova said. “My daughter’s in band, they put in a lot of hours and sometimes I’ve questioned the hours, but when you see the show ... we are the best band here in the Southwest.”