Albuquerque Public Schools board members and community members met in a public community engagement session to discuss the district’s outcomes‑focused governance approach, the four community‑set goals that will guide APS through 2028, and how the board and district will monitor progress and share results with families and schools.

Board members framed the session around three questions — why APS exists, why a school board exists and how a board must act to be effective — and emphasized that the district’s primary purpose is improving student outcomes. “The school board’s job is not to run daily operations. We do not hire the teachers. We do not hire principals. We do not create lesson plans. We do not decide the color of fences. The superintendent and her team decide that,” Board member Courtney Jackson said, describing the board’s role in setting direction and accountability.

The board repeated that the district’s four outcome goals — early literacy, math proficiency, postsecondary readiness and skills, habits and mindsets for life — were developed through community engagement beginning in 2022 and are intended as five‑year goals running through 2028. Board members and staff said the district has held dozens of engagement events (the presentation referenced “about 53 or 55 community engagement events” to date) and that the goals and supporting materials are published on APS’s website. The board also said it has adopted five “guardrails” meant to constrain superintendent action within community values while pursuing the goals, and that it has committed to devote at least 50 percent of public meeting time to student outcomes and progress monitoring.

Community members and educators used the session to press for more transparent connections between those goals and day‑to‑day classroom practice. Several speakers urged APS to provide clearer information about which instructional materials and curricula schools use, how professional learning for teachers translates to classroom instruction, and whether successful approaches at individual schools are being replicated elsewhere. “If those things are being — when one school is succeeding, are those being then transferred to other schools?” a parent asked during public comment.

Speakers also raised technical and equity concerns: several commenters argued APS should emphasize growth measures (how much students progress) rather than status/proficiency alone; one former state official urged adoption of growth models and clearer, time‑bound targets. Dr. Barbara Medina, who identified herself as board president of Christine Duncan Heritage Academy, urged the board to adopt SMART goals and to measure growth, saying, “Make them smart. Make them specific. Make them measurable, make them attainable, and put a timeline on them.” Community members repeated requests for published, disaggregated data showing who participated in goal‑setting engagement and how strategies are reaching students with disabilities, English learners, Native American students and other subgroups.

District staff and board members said the district produces regular progress monitoring reports that include strategies, root‑cause analyses and next steps; those reports are available through the district’s Diligent site, they said, and board meetings include superintendent presentations on monitoring. Board members promised to share participation counts and the community engagement outreach list referenced during the session and pointed attendees to APS web pages where goal documents and engagement summaries are published.

Parents, teachers and a teacher‑union representative told the board that trust and relationships must be strengthened so families see how district goals become classroom practice. Teachers at the session described variation across years and classrooms — noting that learning is not always linear and that multiple instructional programs can coexist — and asked for clearer communication about which “high‑quality instructional materials” are in use at particular schools. Several teachers and principals said the district has begun sharing successful school strategies with other campuses but urged faster, district‑wide scaling of proven practices.

Board members closed the session by collecting written “three A” cards (one pressing question, one piece of advice and one way the card‑writer could partner with APS) and by reiterating that the outcomes approach is intended as a long‑term, five‑year effort requiring sustained community partnership.

The session recorded multiple specific community requests — including (1) publication of detailed community engagement participation counts and demographic breakdowns, (2) school‑level lists of adopted instructional materials and (3) clearer descriptions of how progress monitoring data inform school‑level coaching and resources. APS staff said those materials are available or forthcoming, and that the board will continue community engagement and monitoring work as the district implements the five‑year goals.