Portales school board hears funding plan

PORTALES — The Portales Municipal Schools Board of Education heard during a Wednesday special meeting Superintendent Johnnie Cain’s plan for just over $900,000 in funding from the federal CARES Act to aid various entities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We've got a lot of flexibility,” Cain told board members. “With this particular grant, it's there to offset some of the costs that might be coming along or what we've already spent.

“We took on the idea that we will be able to start school in the fall, and a lot of this is directed toward that. We did cancel summer school, and that worries me because there are going to be some gaps and issues come fall.”

Cain plans to have an extra 90 minutes of instruction Monday through Thursday of the fall semester for 2020-21, with the goal to bring kids who fell behind back up to pace. He plans to continue the instruction in the spring semester but anticipates far fewer students will need it. The plan also budgets transportation money so the families of kids who take advantage of the instruction have transportation home.

Additionally, Cain said he was looking into purchasing enough Chromebooks to provide one to every student in the district as insurance in case another pandemic wave forces another round of school closures. A consideration to help families that don’t have internet access would be to purchase mobile hotspots, and Cain thought 100 would have the system ready.

“We had about 173 kids that didn't have connectivity,” Cain said, “but that didn't tell us how many families didn't have connectivity.”

The next meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. June 8.