School board highlights busy summer as it celebrates staff, students

Summer break may be here for students, but the Rio Rancho Public Schools Board of Education is still hard at work.

The conversation at the June 3 school board meeting centered around updates and projects in the district.

RRPS will have districtwide network/fiber upgrades and an Wi-Fi assessment this summer to make sure the network is more resilient.

Maggie Cordova Elementary will have its intercom system refreshed, Ernest Stapleton Elementary will get a copper refresh and new wireless access points will be installed at several schools, including Rio Rancho and Cleveland High.

“This is also a very busy time of year for our IT and facilities departments. Some projects really work better when the students and staff are actually out of the buildings,” Cleveland said. “And what used to be three months is now two months, and there's a lot of work that has to be done in a very, very short period of time. So they are really hard at work trying to get some of those things done.”

The school board also recognized and congratulated three staff members for their positive impact on student performance and achievement.

Miriah Affentranger, the director of student services; Capt. Bruce Gustin, a 39-year Navy veteran and the Advancement Via Individual Determination teacher at Eagle Ridge Middle School and coordinator of the AVID program at Rio Rancho Elementary; and Jose Salazar, director of security, were each presented with NMSBA Student Achievement Awards.

The Excellence in Student Achievement Awards program seeks to promote student achievement in school districts and assist local school boards in recognizing school leaders, staff and other individuals who have played an important role in improving student achievement at the local level.

Rising Mountain View Middle School eighth grader Sophie Otero was also recognized for finishing in second place at the state Spanish Spelling Bee and earning a spot in the national competition this summer in Texas.

The state champion track and field teams from Rio Rancho and Cleveland high schools were also feted by the board. The girls team at RRHS brought home its first-ever state crown in May. It is the 50th state championship won by the Rams across all sports. Coach Michael Gonzales brought several athletes with him to accept the commendation and thanked each of them for their hard work in making history at the school.

The Cleveland High boys team won state for the eighth year in a row. It was Cleveland’s 11th state title in the past 12 seasons, excluding the pandemic season of 2020, when no state meet was held. It was the 49th overall state title for CHS and the 99th in RRPS’ 30-year history.

“Death, taxes and the Cleveland boys track and field program are something you can count on every time,” RRPS Executive Director of Athletics Todd Resch said.

The district is also exploring arts integration and heard a report from three educators who visited similar schools in Colorado in early May.

Janna Chenault, elementary school improvement officer; Dr. Kurt Schmidt, executive director of fine arts; and Kirk DeSoto, principal of Sandia Vista Elementary, presented their report to the board.

“Dr. Cleveland charged a group of us with coming up with some different ideas for our school district knowing that we have to compete,” Chenault said. “What are some things that we could think about for some of our schools that might be different? And so one of the ideas that we started tossing around was arts integration.”

Arts integration is an approach to teaching and learning through which content standards are taught and assessed equitably in and through the arts.

“We will be doing some additional work this summer to see if it really is a good fit for us. And we'll be bringing that information back to the district and also to the board,” Cleveland said. “They saw some really exciting things, and we certainly are looking more and more for more schools of choice within the district. And so this is just one of those areas that we are looking at. We're also looking at it and areas of STEAM and STEM and a couple other areas as well. But the feeling is that we want to offer some choices within our district if at all possible. And this is just a step in that direction.”