Portales school officials note improvement since pandemic

In the first school year following COVID-19 restrictions like remote learning, Portales Municipal Schools students are regaining academic ground lost to pandemic restrictions at a pace that is about even with students in the rest of the state, Sara Hunton, the Portales schools’ coordinator of curriculum and instruction, on Tuesday told the district’s school board.

In all grade levels for which she analyzed data, Hunton said, the gap between top-performing students and bottom-performing students shrunk in the 2022-23 school year, which was mostly due to improved performance among the lower-ranked students once they returned to full-time classroom instruction.

Still, in the wake of remote learning and other restrictions made necessary by COVID-19 isolation requirements, only about a third of students in the state and in Portales schools are reading at grade level in early grades, she said.

The greatest rates of improvement, however, have been noted among the students who require the most added attention, she said.

One such group of elementary school students, she said, moved from an average of half-way through first grade to second-grade reading levels after a 20-week program.

Hunton noted improvements in high school mathematics achievement, but noted progress was slower in that category.

The school board on Tuesday approved a redistricting map, choosing an option that results in cleaner boundary lines and more equitable population shares than another option, which would have meant fewer changes in boundary lines and less equitable-20 population shares among the districts, according to Roosevelt County Clerk Mandi Park, who presented the options to the board.

Also on Tuesday, the board chose to provide free meals to all students, regardless of economic standing, for the 2022-2023 school year, under a Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) option offered to qualifying districts, like Portales’, rather than sticking to the standard National School Lunch Program, in which students paid for school-provided lunches.

To qualify for the CEP, at least 40% of a district’s students must come from families that meet low-income criteria. The Portales school district does qualify, Superintendent Johnnie Cain said.

Shaunna Smith, the district’s director of student nutrition, presented data that showed either option would result in year-end deficits in school food service budgets, but the free meal option would eliminate the problem of students who eat meals without paying for them.

Regulations prohibit enforcement of payment for lunches, anyway, and too many students took advantage of that provision, Cain said.

Cain said that school system cash reserves can cover any deficits for the first year of the free-meal option, and the district can revisit the decision next year.

In other matters Tuesday, the school board:

• Amended a fleet services contract for next year, adding more than $15,000 in federal Recovery Act funds to pay for expected increases in fuel costs, according to Sarah Stubbs, the district’s finance director.

• Awarded contacts for food for school cafeterias to Labatt Food Service of Albuquerque and to Gandy’s Dairy, a Texas firm, for dairy products.

• Approved adding a half-credit class in life skills to high-school graduation requirements, starting with the freshman class of 2022-2023. Cain said students who enroll in FFA or business-oriented classes may waive the requirements. The life skills class would teach students about workplace expectations, like arriving on time, working conscientiously, and customer service skills, along with job interviewing skills.

• Authorized the transfer of school bus acquisition and maintenance services to district personnel and terminating an agreement with Shearer Bus Co. after the retirement of the bus company’s owner.