The end of an era: Cleveland looks back at tenure with RRPS

RIO RANCHO — Just days after announcing her retirement in the fall, Rio Rancho Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Sue Cleveland summed up the “why” in one simple phrase: “It’s just the time to do it.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. For a lot of people, it’s an event, but for me, it wasn’t an event. It was a combination of events,” she said.

That combination includes the birth of her grandson and general concerns about health.

Now, months later, Friday, March 27, marks the official last day for the woman who led the district through its founding in 1994 and the only superintendent RRPS has had — until now.

“It’s honestly a disbelief. After doing something for 32 years, it’s hard to fully wrap your head around the fact that it’s here,” she said. “I find myself asking, ‘Is this really happening?’”

After the announcement of Cleveland’s retirement was released in September, RRPS began a nationwide search for its second superintendent in just under 32 years. In December, Dr. Robert “Robby” Dodd was announced as Cleveland’s successor, and he officially began duties March 1, shadowing Cleveland for the past month.

Cleveland spoke to her longevity, saying, “It’s not something that would be easily replicated somewhere else. I think part of the uniqueness was the ability to start the district. … I had a chance to pick my entire team, and staying this long, you’ve developed a lot of relationships in the community. … When you have those relationships, when hard times come, those folks step up and help, and so I think it’s somewhat unique in that respect, and probably part of it is just due to the fact that I was here from the very beginning.

“A long tenure provides you a different perspective,” she added. “You have some institutional knowledge and memory of how you got to where you are.

During the reflection of her time at RRPS, Cleveland spoke a lot about those early days.

“I told my staff, I said, ‘It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start a new district, and you don’t want to do it more than once in a lifetime,’” she said. “It was an incredible opportunity to start a school district from scratch.”

However, Cleveland was quick to share the credit of building RRPS from the ground up with others.

“We all grew together in this community, and I think, especially in those early years, we all worked together really closely. The city and county were just absolutely instrumental,” Cleveland said. “I think partnerships are just the key to everything.”

Those partnerships included the construction of Rio Rancho High School by Intel or the donation of land from AMREP for Colinas del Norte Elementary.

“Everyone knew that if we could just all pull together, we could make this work, and everybody played a role in that,” she said.

She also credited the team that came over to RRPS from Albuquerque Public Schools, saying they had a bit of pioneer spirit. “They had to deal with a lot. They had to make a lot of personal sacrifices to help us get going. They left their seniority there. They left a lot of the things that they had built up and still, they came and helped us build this district.”

In the 30-plus years that Cleveland has been at the helm of RRPS, the district has built up a high reputation in the state. She credits the success to never being satisfied and a commitment to excellence and always improving.

“We talked among that first leadership team, ‘How do we immediately start showing progress?’ Because the community needs it. They need to see that their investment is going to pay off. But I think that the reputation was built just as a commitment to continuous improvement,” she said. “We have not reached where we need to be or want to be, but have have made huge progress from where we were initially.”

She also spoke about establishing a guaranteed viable curriculum where the curriculum is the same across all buildings in the district, even if methods of instruction differ. Citing the new integrative arts at two elementaries this year, she said, “It’s a different way of teaching, but the curriculum is the same.”

She also noted the increased diversity in the district over her tenure, noting there are 2,000 students with Native heritage, including 600 from the Navajo Nation and that “every Pueblo in New Mexico is represented in this school district.”

Cleveland also discussed how the number of children with disabilities has increased as well.

“I think that one of the things that has made us successful over time is our commitment that as our children change … that we adjust to try to meet their needs in a better way, so it’s just always looking to be better.”

Nonetheless, she credited her team credit for that success. “The thing I take the most credit for is having put together a good team … always being able to get the right team pulled together to get things done, and nobody does the job alone. If you’ve got good people, you can do anything,” she said. “It think that having that sense of teamwork and commitment has paid off for the district over time.”

That also feeds into the district’s reputation in athletics, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, which she stressed help serve the whole student.

“All ships rise together,” Cleveland said. “It’s just that over-reaching idea of excellence. And if you have that excellence in extra, co-curricular areas, that influences the academic tone of the school as well. And obviously, strong academics reach out into a lot of other areas, like student government. They are complimentary. They are not separate.”

She said that having students connected to their school through such activities has always been a top goal, though not all students have “connected.”

“Our goal has been to give them avenues, whether it is dance or whether it is cross-country or whatever, to have other avenues to show their abilities  and to provide other opportunities for being a member of a team,” she said. “I’m a really firm believer in extra, co-curricular activities as I think they just help the student be a well-balanced individual.”

She discussed RioTech, the Career Technical Education campus that opened in August, as an example of that, saying she would like to see a similar campus in the future geared toward the health care industry.

When it came to picking a favorite memory from her tenure at RRPS, Cleveland couldn’t pick just one. “It’s just impossible, because there were so many, a lot of peaks. There were valleys, too,” she said, though she spoke to some that stuck out to her.

“Every time we opened a new school was a joyous occasion, and that was always exciting,” she said, citing the opening of Cleveland High School and the building of Eagle Ridge and Mountain View middle schools, the first the district built at that level, as well was Colinas del Norte Elementary, noting Cleveland in particular was significant to address overcrowding at Rio Rancho High School.

Cleveland noted that over the years, the district has built three middle schools, two replacement elementary schools, six additional elementary schools and a pre-K along with Rio Rancho Cyber Academy and RioTech.

She did say, however, that she felt the most pivotal moment in the district’s history was building Rio Rancho High School. “UP until that time, we were K-8, and our high school kids were everywhere,” Cleveland said, including Del Norte, Cibola, Valley and Sandia high schools. Building RRHS, she said, “enabled us to bring our high school kids back … to our own community.”

“I remember when the community saw the first cheerleaders and the first band and the first team, and just a sense of pride,” she said. “I think that said, ‘We are a district, and we’re going to be OK. We’re going to make it here and we’re going to do well.’”

One of the most powerful moments, Cleveland said, was the ceremony for the opening of the new district at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary on July 1, 1994. “The most emotional moment was seeing the first school bus full of RRPS children arrive. When the covering came off the bus and it revealed ‘Rio Rancho Public Schools’ on the side, it truly felt real.”

And while not a happy memory, she said ‘navigating the COVID-19 pandemic stands out as a testament to the strength, resilience and teamwork of our district and community.”

“Overall, my greatest memory is how the community consistently came together to build and support something truly special,” she said.

Cleveland takes pride in is attending every graduation ceremony in the district and “seeing every senior graduate.”

“It’s been wonderful to see the students graduate and the smiles and the cheers,” she said.

Cleveland also left some advice for her successor.

“Listen to your staff and your community. Truly. Listen and gather as much information as you can from as many sources as you can, and build that into your decision-making process,” she said. “I find that the more people I talk to and listen to on an issue, the better informed I am and have a better opportunity to see the other side of what we’re trying to accomplish.

“You have to have a vision, but it has to be a vision where people come along with you, and it has to be their vision, too,” she added.

She said that’s even more true when it comes to things a leader might not want to hear.

“The greatest danger to a superintendent is when people tell you what you want to hear and not what you need to hear, and I am blessed with people who are willing to tell me the truth,” she said.

She also stressed developing relationships and partnerships and being part of the community, such as the district’s Thanksgiving donations to Storehouse West and its involvement in Leadership Sandoval.

“We’ve always wanted to be a district that was giving back to the community, and not a district that always just had its hand out for wanting from the community,” Cleveland said. “We try to be part of the community, and I think that’s paid off over time.”

She also said she has spent time connecting Dodd with people in the community. 

“I have tried to share information and to connect him with key people in the city, county and state because New Mexico is a very relationship-based state,” she added. “It has been essential that he be introduced to some of the key players who have helped support the district  and who will be great partners as the district moves forward in the years ahead.

“More than anything else, I hope he will grow to love and enjoy this district and the Rio Rancho community as much as I have.”

As for plans in retirement, Cleveland didn’t have anything concrete.

“I’ve got a stack of books that should take me probably to the end of my days,” she said. 

But there’s also travel on the horizon and time with the family — including the new grandchild.

In fact, she said, plans were made to visit Iceland and Norway over the summer when big family news changed the plans.

“Here came this baby, and then my younger son said, ‘I’m going to get married in December,’ so that kind of took care of that trip, but I’d rather have a baby and a wedding than I would a trip,” she said.

New Zealand, however, is one of the places she mentioned she would like to see.

“There’s just a lot of places I would like to go,” Cleveland said. “I do enjoy traveling. I don’t have just one place, but I would like to go places I haven’t been. I’ve been to Europe, and I would like to go to some other places. I’d really like to go on an African safari.”

The Rio Rancho Public Schools Board of Education honored Cleveland Monday with a resolution, which cited her “stable, student-centered leadership to Rio Rancho schools for more than three decades,” noting that she is the longest-serving superintendent in the state.

It also noted state and national recognition for academic achievement as well as athletic, fine arts, career-technical, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities.

Cleveland’s recognitions and honors were outlined in the resolution as well, including as AASA Nation Superintendent of the Year finalist, Governor’s Award for Outstanding New Mexico Women and induction into the NM Coalition of Education Leaders Hall of Fame in 2020.

“Rio Rancho Public Schools under Dr. Cleveland’s leadership has been credited as a major force in encouraging industry, businesses and families to chose Rio Rancho and Sandoval County as a place to live, work and raise children,” the resolution states. “Therefore, be it resolved that the Rio Rancho Public Schools Board of Education congratulates Dr. V. Sue Cleveland, expresses its appreciation for her three decades of service to RRPS’s children, teachers, and staff and the citizens of Rio Rancho, and wishes her all the best as she enjoys retirement.”

As she wrapped up her reflection on her tenure, Cleveland became emotional, and said there are mixed feelings, including wondering what will come next. “I will deeply miss the people, the students, the staff, my peers and all the experiences along the way,” she said.

“It’s just really hard. It’s good, too. It’s not bad at all,” she said. “I think, ‘Oh my goodness, so many things have happened’ — great things. I’m just so thankful.”