Dulce Schools Drop the Ball

    Dulce Independent School administration has continued to stand in the way of Dulce Elementary School becoming New Mexico’s first $100,000 teacher school, New Mexico Secretary of Education Christopher Ruszkowski said.

    “As we worked with Dulce, because you know that they have been eligible for $2 million, that is $2 million,” Ruszkowski said. “So we (the Department) said, many times, let’s make Dulce Elementary School the home of the $100,000 teacher. We said that many times over the past year, let’s make Dulce Elementary home of the 100,000 dollar teacher, because we understood the importance of teacher recruitment, elevating the profession, and getting some of our State’s best and brightest to come and serve our students that needed them the most.”

    The idea of creating the $100,000 Teacher came during the MRI (More Rigorous Intervention) planning between the New Mexico Public Education Department and District Superintendent Pamela “Pam” Montoya.

    “At every turn, the district resisted. At every turn they rebuked,” Ruszkowski said. “That is a question that has to be posed to the School Board and the Superintendent, why did they turn down the opportunity to make Dulce Elementary the home of the $100,000 Teacher?”

    On March 21, Montoya received a letter from Ruszkowski, informing her that the District’s initial application to receive Significantly Restructure & Redesign for the purposes of transforming the school and dramatically improving student achievement, was denied. The reasons for this initial denial, one of many denials given by the Department and numerous deadline extension requests made by Montoya since the school was determined to need an MRI Plan in early 2018, according to the Department’s website, was, as Ruszkowski wrote in his initial letter, that the request lacks the requisite urgency, clarity and cohesiveness to dramatically improve student achievement outcomes. 

    In the initial letter, which mimicked issues in the non-compliance sent to Montoya from Deputy Cabinet Secretary Debbie Rael on Aug. 8, Montoya was instructed by the Department to develop a comprehensive strategy addressing seven key issues:

    •Ensuring that every teacher at Dulce Elementary School has a track record of Highly Effective or Exemplary performance by the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year.

    •Ensuring that the school-based teacher compensation system proposed is designed as a means to recruit, champion, reward and retain teachers demonstrating substantial impact on student achievement growth. Teacher compensation should be dramatically higher at this school (Dulce Elementary School) than anywhere else in the District, in order to address the students’ unequal access to effective education.

    •Ensuring significantly more instructional time with the School’s highest performing teachers in core content areas.

    •Ensuring that the School principal has a multi-year track record of increasing student performance and is compensated at a higher salary than any other school principal in the district.

    •Ensuring that curriculum, instruction and assessment are evidence-based, vertically aligned and culturally relevant.

    •Clearly delineating the expected outcomes of any tribal and community partnerships, external resources and national partnerships that the District and the School plan to access and coordinate with, as well a direct connection to the root cause(s) of school under performance. 

    •Revise the budgetary request to not exceed $100,000 for the planning period $675,000 per implementation year for the school via this submission for supplemental funds and denoting all areas where state (SEG) funds, federal funds, grant funds and all other funds are being utilized to fill this plan.

    Part of this plan, as Rael pointed out in her letter to Montoya on Aug. 8, was to include an infusion of $2,000,000 to the District to use in bolstering the School’s ability to retain teachers and aid students by offering a competitive payment plan to entice and retain Highly Qualified or Exemplary teachers from around the state, hence the Department’s offer to use Dulce Elementary as the grounds for the State’s first $100,000 teacher school. 

    Had the district not stood in the way of this plan, they might not be facing the issues they are facing now, especially with five of the School’s seasoned teachers leaving at the end of last year. Montoya’s plan to recruit and retain Highly Qualified or Exemplary Teachers, according to her response asking to change the parameters of the Department’s originally approved MRI plan for the District sent to Rael by Montoya on Aug. 17, is as far off from the Department’s $100,000 Teacher plan as is possible. 

    Montoya, who according to her contract is making $85,000 a year as superintendent, has created a five-part incremental incentive plan made up of small annual bonuses to retain and entice would be teachers.

    •Two months of free rent in district housing for new Dulce Elementary School Teachers.

    •A $4,000 sign on incentive paid over three years: $1,000 in May of the first contract year, $1,000 in May of the second contract year, $1,000 in December of the third contract year and $1,000 in May of the third contract year.

    •Each Elementary School teacher with the rating of Highly Effective or Exemplary on the New Mexico Summative Evaluation will receive $2,000 every year that they maintain or improve this rating.

    •Each Elementary School teacher will receive a stipend of $300 per day for off contract days, up to five days per year.

    •For the School Year 2018-2019, the $2,000 individual award for teacher increase demonstrating substantial impact on student achievement growth. A teacher must demonstrate one year of growth each semester to demonstrate two years of growth annually to reach their incentive. 

    Essentially, Montoya’s plan is offering a little over $3,000 a year to attract Highly Qualified or Exemplary teachers. 

    This has not happened. 

    The District, given a lack of interested applicants state wide, given the poor performance of the school over the past six years, has had to hire international teachers from Jamaica and the Philippines, according to Montoya’s MRI response letter delivered to the Department on Aug. 17, to come in and fill spots at the School. 

    The issue of the School not having Highly Qualified or Exemplary teachers has caused parents in the District to pull their students and send them to nearby Chama Valley Independent Schools or to schools in Pagosa Springs Colorado, according to a past issue of The SUN.

     “This a dire situation for our parents and families as is demonstrated by the fact that over 100 parents and families, every single day, in my understanding, travel every day and are saying, ‘we want better for our kids’,” Ruszkowski said. “That is one of the positive impacts of identifying and ringing the bell that school has failed an entire generation of our students.”

    The District, as pointed out in various correspondence with the Department from the District and according to Ruszkowski, has denied help from the Department every step of the way. 

    “They had the opportunity to use the two million dollars to recruit New Mexico’s best and brightest and they resisted. They left it on the table. I’m sure that myself and many team member of the PED would have thought about joining that team. That would have at least been a groundbreaking move, instead of incremental-ism, which is what I would call their plan. We (the PED) are trying so hard to put that 2 million dollars to work, we have our kids, our students, up there every single day, and every single day is an opportunity,” Ruszkowski said. “If the district and the school don’t dramatically improve quickly, then all options are on the table.”

    Despite numerous attempts, Montoya and Dulce Independent School Board President and Jicarilla Tribal Chief Levi Pesata could not be reached for comment.