As part of a locally negotiated contract teachers in the Las Cruces Public Schools could take ten sick days and two personal days before absences started to count against their teacher performance evaluations.
The Public Education department says that the number of days teachers can take without being penalized should be no more than two days and they recently threatened to take over the Las Cruces Public School district if the district did not comply.
In a meeting on Tuesday night Las Cruces Public School Board President Maria Flores said despite initial concerns the board will do what it can to protect Las Cruces teachers leave; 10 days of sick leave and 2 personal days.
“The teachers need the relief and these are their days, they should be allowed to take them without suffering any consequences. It is punitive and no one wants teachers to be absent but teacher are also community people, they have families they have needs and often times they postpone medical needs or their families medical needs too. They want to be exemplary and they don’t want to be charged for their days off.” Flores says.
But Flores says that resolution is powerless to do anything to protect Las Cruces teachers leave days for this graduating school year. That is because this year’s numbers have already sent to the state.
Public School board member Ed Frank says that locally negotiated teacher absences for this school year could have been protected if the board had of acted earlier.
“I think we should have held our ground. I think that we made a strategic mistake not forcing the implementation of the resolution this school year. But it is done, it is over. We have to just learn from our mistakes, we are not going to make another mistake next year.” Frank says.
School Board President Maria Flores requested that the Las Cruces Public School District do follow up and calculate the impact and difference in what teacher evaluations scores would be if locally agreed attendance measures were used in the evaluations.
