Clovis superintendent's input may have impacted state standards

Opinions from Clovis Municipal Schools Superintendent Renee Russ altered some of the statewide standards for teaching Social Studies in New Mexico schools.

During Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Clovis Municipal School Board, Russ, along with Mitzi Estes, deputy superintendent of academic services, outlined dealings with the state’s Public Education Department (PED) over the new standards, which were announced on Feb. 16.

While praising the standards for emphasizing the importance of personal finance lessons in the standards, Russ questioned various lessons at various grade levels that dealt with such things as gender roles, references to political climate, and guns and gun violence.

Russ reported to the board that she told the PED she believed some of the material was politically motivated.

In response to Russ’ feedback some items were removed from the statewide standards. Estes later clarified how Russ impacted the state standards.

“The PED received about 2000 pages of feedback from school districts all over the state,” Estes said. “Some of [Russ’] direct wording did impact changes in some of the standards for the entire state.”

Board member Cindy Osburn praised Russ for standing up for the area’s community standards.

Estes noted parental participation will be part of the textbook selection process which the state looks to finish with distribution of new books for the 2023-24 school year.

In a COVID-19 update, Loran Hill, Director of Operations for the school system, said, “Numbers continue to go down. Cases are down across the district.”

Area resident Sara Morris addressed the board during the meeting’s open forum portion praising the board “for all you have done this year.”

Morris thanked Russ for working to get pay raises for teachers. Morris also thanked the board for handling the restrictions and mandates that have come up during the pandemic.

Those who attended the meeting were greeted in the administration building’s foyer by music performed by a small group of students.

Brandon Boerio, Director of Music Education for Clovis Municipal Schools, explained the students are part of a class at Clovis High School performing chamber music. Boerio said the students will be playing at other events in the future.

All board members were in attendance for Tuesday’s session Tuesday: Cindy

Osburn, Shawn Hamilton, Paul Cordova, Terry Martin and Sharon Epps.

The next meeting of the Clovis Municipal School Board will be at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, March 15th, at the school administration building.