Pojoaque district hires superintendent

Dennis J. Carroll | For The New Mexican

10/12/2008 - 10/13/08

The credit and financial crisis engulfing Wall Street will likely trickle down to the schools in ways that may be hard to measure with a calculator, but could have a dramatic effect on students, according to Art Blea, the former and new superintendent of the Pojoaque Valley School District.

Blea, 61, who took over the district's reins Sept. 30 — his third time in that position — said the district is less likely to feel the effects in the short term, but as the credit crunch and economic black cloud hanging over employers hits local businesses, the effects will be felt in obvious ways, such as what the district pays for services and products.

But Blea is more concerned about the effect hard times at home — from layoffs and other economic fallout — will have on students' ability to learn and their behavior at school.

"Kids get angry and afraid when their parents are unemployed or beset by other economic woes," Blea said. "An unhappy child is much more difficult to educate."

Blea said the first major encounter with the credit crisis could come in March or April, when the district is expected to try to sell about $3 million in bonds for several capital-improvement projects, most notably renovation of the middle school on the Pojoaque campus.

"We could be paying more in interest if the current situation continues," Blea said.

District voters in September narrowly authorized the district to sell up to $6 million in bonds.

Blea, who has been the chief administrator of the district for 11 of the past 17 years, was most recently hired this summer to replace Toni Nolan Trujillo. Trujillo announced in June that she would give up her post Sept. 30 because of health concerns. She has recently suffered from recurring heart problems in the wake of surgery several years ago.

Trujillo, a former state Education Department administrator, was hired to replace Blea in 2005.

Blea was recently approved on a 4-to-1 vote of the school board. Board President Reuben Roybal was the lone dissenter. Roybal gave no reason during the vote, but said later that the only person he could have supported for the position was Assistant Superintendent Janette Archuleta, who was never a serious candidate.

Blea served as superintendent from 1991 to 1998 and again from 2001 to 2005. He also served as acting superintendent for a short time in 2006 when Trujillo underwent heart surgery.

Most recently, Blea served as a special-education diagnostics consultant based in Española, contracting with various school districts and private educational institutions.

In an interview with The New Mexican last week, Blea outlined his priorities for the district.

He said one of his first objectives is to improve the district's poor showing in meeting the federal Annual Yearly Progress goals mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act.

Blea said it is important to identify those high-risk students who do poorly on tests and belong to several subgroups targeted by the program. Poor test scores by just a few students can dramatically lower a school's achievement in the yearly progress reports, Blea said.

He cited the hypothetical example of a student child enrolled in an English-learning class who also had been designated a special-needs child.

"One (poor) score can influence so many groups," Blea said.

He also noted that each year the test-performance bar gets higher, making it difficult if not impossible for schools to catch up.

"It's a matter of the further you go, the behinder you get."

Blea's other pressing goals include:

* Getting a clearer picture of the district's financial standing. "I would like to know exactly what we have and don't have."

* Ensuring there are no overlooked safety issues at either campus, issues that range from an overly hard surface on the football field to lighting and surveillance concerns.

* Finishing the wastewater-system overhaul at the middle school campus, which could mean tying into Pojoaque Pueblo's system or becoming part of a county project combining the county, pueblo and school district's infrastructure into one water system.

Blea's contract runs from Oct. 1 to June 1, and will be based on an annual pay of $110,000.