Portales board approves schooling plan

PORTALES — The learn-at-home era is under way at Portales Municipal Schools.

School board members met virtually for about an hour Monday afternoon. They gave a positive review and a 4-0 approval of the plan Superintendent Johnnie Cain and the PMS staff created for the rest of the year with COVID-19 halting in-person instruction.

“We started working on it, really, when we came back from spring break anticipating this,” Cain said. “It’s not perfect, but it’s going to be better than nothing and I hope we can keep the kiddos ahead.”

Cain said the goal was to build a plan for distance education that could serve students who did have internet access and those who didn’t. For the families who are picking up printed materials at the school, Cain said, “we’ve been busy at all of the schools ... trying to work things out so there’s no contact.”

In the coming months, the district will have a pair of summer school sessions. The first is in June for the high school and junior high students who fell behind for whatever reason, and a July session is normally for grades K-3. Cain said the second session would be expanded to K-6 with the anticipation that there will be flaws in a quickly assembled system.

Board member Randy Rankin praised administration and teachers, and noted it’s a parental responsibility to ask for clarification on anything you don’t understand and not to expect the district to put things in your lap.

“I have a child in every school in the system,” Rankin said, “including in every grade in the system (through the New Mexico Baptist Children’s Home). Everybody’s been great helping my kids.”

Cain said for families without internet access, Plateau and Comcast were offering 60 free days of service but that certain infrastructure had to be in place at the homes.

The district has been issuing Chromebooks, and Cain said administration will explore the option of allowing families to have multiple Chromebooks if they have multiple children in school. However, there’s no specific time any child has to log on so siblings should be able to share devices.

In other business during the meeting:

• Going forward, Cain said the district will turn wi-fi on at all of its campuses so people can hopefully use it in the parking lot.

“I’m not sure how good it is,” Cain said, “but it might help some people get things done.”

• James Elementary was added as a grab-and-go meal service point. The district, through Friday, had served 10,397 meals since beginning March 17 at Portales High School and Lindsey-Steiner Elementary.

• Athletic Director Mark Gallegos said following the cancellation of spring sports, the biggest job for the department has been the cancellation of hundreds of purchase orders for the road trips the tennis, golf, track, baseball and softball teams would have used.

The New Mexico Activities Association will have a May 1 meeting, he said, with a key topic to be eligibility for fall sports.

• The board was notified the district completed a bond sale March 20 to secure the final $2 million of the 2017 bond cycle. The money is largely dedicated to ongoing renovations at Brown Early Child Education Center and roofing at Portales Junior High School.