School board celebrates Vision 2024 conference organizers

It was a youthful evening at the July 23 school board meeting as Rio Rancho High School students filed into the conference room, followed by administrators and parents, to be celebrated for their efforts in making the Vision 2024 conference a success.

Vision 2024 — a gathering of student council leaders from 29 different states that came together to emphasize peer-to-peer learning through networking, student-led roundtables, school projects, motivational speakers, leadership skill training, hands-on community service and more — ran from June 21-23 at Rio Rancho High School. The three-day event, which occurs annually in a different US city every year,was supported by 558 students and 150 adult advisors on site.

First to speak was RRHS principal Millan Baca, who was quick to give credit to the student organizers, the grounds and facilities crews, the school board and, most especially, to RRHS activities director, Chris Salas.

“With every task that Chris is assigned, or the crazy ones like this that he volunteers for, I always have no stress,” Baca said in his statement to the board. “I know that [Salas] will put forth a great product when he dedicates himself to anything.”

For his part, Salas then passed the credit to the RRHS students who spearheaded the campaign to bring the national Vision 2024 conference to Rio Rancho. According to Salas, the event took efforts from both current and past RRHS student council leaders, many of whom returned to their alma mater after graduation to help with this year’s event.

The student contingent in attendance was led by student council president Anika Garduño, who attended Vision 2024 as one of RRHS’s two official delegates.

“I loved the experience. It was just so amazing seeing all these states come together as one,” Garduño told the board. “We were family, in a way, even though we just met.”

Rio Rancho Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Sue Cleveland concluded by praising the students for their work and vision.

“Thank you for your hard work. I really want to stress that the students, not everybody can pull something like this off. Not everybody can do it,” said Cleveland, addressing the RRHS students in attendance. “Obviously, you all had the leadership, but you also had the commitment [and] hard work to make it happen.”

After addressing several RFPs, the meeting concluded with board members retiring to a closed session to discuss the end-of-year 2023-24 evaluation for Cleveland.

Aug. 1: RRPS 30-Year video at Rio Rancho High School

Aug. 6: First day of school

Aug. 12: Finance Committee meeting

Aug. 12: Regular board meeting

Aug. 26: Audit Committee meeting