School board takes on personnel issues
Discussion of White's contract is postponed

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The Gallup-McKinley County School Board went into executive session Tuesday to discuss the superintendent's contract but ended up tabling the discussion until the next meeting.

There was no indication, however, that board members had concerns about Karen White's contract as superintendent, which still has more than a year to run.

In fact, said one of the board members, Bruce Tempest, the board never got around to discussing White's contract. Instead, much of the discussion centered around objectives and goals the board wanted her to concentrate on in the upcoming months.

Normally, the superintendent's performance is reviewed every year or two when contract talks come up, but White had asked for an evaluation every six months, in part to learn what areas the board felt needed a greater effort by her and her staff.

In other action, the board approved changes in its policy that will make board members more accountable if they fail to take trips that they have signed up to take.

Board president Mavis Price brought the subject up, saying that the board holds staff and personnel in the district accountable if they waste district funds; so, "it's only right that board members be held accountable as well," she commented.

She said that a board member who signs up for a conference and then backs out could wind up costing the district hundreds of dollars because of non-refundable plane tickets and registration fees.

Originally, she said, she thought to enact policy that if this happened, the board member would be required to reimburse the district for any funds that was lost, but thinking it over, she decided it wasn't fair since board members receive no compensation for being on the board.

So she decided that if this happens, those board members who cost the district to lose money in this way would be named in the district's annual report to the people of the district so they can take this into consideration come the next election.

She added that she checked with staff officials who handle travel and found that none of the current board members had backed out of a trip at the last minute, but it had happened to previous board members.

Board members who backed out because of a personal emergency, such as a death in the family, would be able to appeal and have the record cleared.

Board member Johnny R. Thompson was not happy with the subject coming out of the blue at last night's meeting. He tried unsuccessfully to get the board to table the matter for a meeting so he could think about it for awhile.

"I may want to change the policy," he said, adding that if the board was going to be held accountable, maybe the district should report how much the board members spend annually on out-of-state travel.

"I don't appreciate that something like this comes before me without anyone mentioning that it was going to come up," he said.

Price said the matter was discussed two meetings ago (when Thompson was absent) and was tabled to give board members time to respond. She also added that if Thompson was unhappy with the policy or wanted it changed, it could be amended at a future meeting.

After that, the board voted 4-1 to go with the change.

The board also changed its mission statement and goals to add on a phrase at the end of each goal that would require the board to accomplish the goal "while building upon the language and culture of the students."

Price said she was encouraging this change so that the board would take into consideration the "diverse population" that exists within the student body of the school district.

While this mainly reflects the ethnicity of the local Native American population, it would also include the Hispanic and Asian as well as other cultures that make up the student body, she said.

The board also received a report from district statistician David Oakes about the student enrollment for this year.

Oakes told the board that, for reasons that he couldn't explain at this time, the enrollment of the district on the 80th day of classes was less than it was on the 40th day.

Usually, the 80th day attendance is higher than the 40th day, but this time it was 215 students less (13,189 on the 40th day versus 12,974 on the 80th day.)

The board also agreed to hold its two meetings in February on Tuesday instead of the usual Monday because Feb. 7 is Gallup Day in the state legislature in Santa Fe and some school officials will be there for that. Feb. 21 is a holiday.