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Rio Rancho board approves class-size waivers to submit to state
Summary
The Rio Rancho Public Schools Board approved submitting class-size waiver requests to the New Mexico Public Education Department after a presentation showing a small number of classes exceed state caps; the district said it will add staff where possible and continue efforts to reduce overages.
The Rio Rancho Public Schools Board of Education voted Nov. 3 to approve submission of class-size waiver requests to the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) after a district presentation showing several isolated classes exceed state limits.
Renee Salcedo, the district’s secondary school improvement officer, told the board the waiver packet reflects a districtwide snapshot PED requires when classes are over capacity. "We basically get a report from PED that tells us which classes are overloaded," Salcedo said, describing elementary, middle- and high-school examples and the remedies the district is pursuing.
Salcedo said elementary kindergarten classes at Joe Harris had more than 20 students and the district plans to add another kindergarten teacher and an educational assistant to correct that imbalance. At the middle-school level, she said Lincoln Middle School and Mountain View Middle School each had one or two classes that were one or two students above the state cap of 27 for a single class; their full-day totals otherwise comply with state formulas.
At the high-school level, Salcedo said Cleveland High School and Rio Rancho High School each had two teachers whose schedules exceeded class-size limits in at least one section. Salcedo described a ninth-grade English teacher whose full-day total the transcript rendered as "01:60," which the presentation and discussion characterized as roughly 160 students — about 10 students over the formula used for waivers.
Board members asked about alternatives, including recruiting retired teachers and schedule reassignments, and the superintendent warned PED is "getting much tougher on approving the waivers." After discussion, Board member Jeff Morgan moved to approve submitting the waiver requests; Carrie Tripp seconded, the board voiced 'Aye' and the motion carried.
The district said that if PED denies any waiver it will need to reassign students and staff, but its immediate plan is to add personnel where possible and to adjust schedules in future terms to reduce overages.
What’s next: The district will file the waiver packet with PED and continue local scheduling and staffing adjustments while watching the state’s response.
