Superintendent: ‘Community is awesome” as schools deal with COVID0-19

“The community of Las Cruces is awesome and amazing,” Las Cruces Public Schools Superintendent Karen Trujillo said of the community’s response to COVID-19.

The pandemic and its myriad collateral issues create “tons of challenges every single day,” Trujillo said. “It’s tough, but we’re doing all right.”

In dealing with the pandemic, including state public health orders, online learning and planning for partial and full reopening of schools, Trujillo said she is “so happy about the collaboration in the community” that includes the City of Las Cruces, Doña Ana County, state government agencies, New Mexico State University, local nonprofits, Comcast cable and other businesses, the National Education Association-Las Cruces teachers union, the LCPS Board of Education, staff, students and parents.

“We are building capacity,” she said. “No one hesitates. It truly is a model for other communities across the state and across the country.”

LCPS is “really making that connection with parents and students through their teachers” to make sure student needs are met as online learning moves forward into the fall semester of the 2020-21 school year, Trujillo said. The most asked question to students and families, she said, is “What do you need?” With 100 percent online learning currently in place, the biggest needs have included computers and Internet access, Trujillo said, with more basic school supplies also in demand.

In partnership with Comcast and the city, LCPS has created a database of families in the cable company’s local service area, Trujillo said, to make sure they all have Internet access, which LCPS will continue to pay for as needed through at least December. For families outside the Comcast service area, LCPS has spent more than $1 million to pay for 600 hot spots, the superintendent said.

The district continues to identify families with online challenges, she said. For example, a mother called recently because she had four children at home and the one hot spot available to them wasn’t working. In cases like that, Trujillo said, the school district must provide an alternate or multiple hotspots.

“If you’re having those needs, let us know,” Trujillo said. The best way to do that, she said, is for a parent to call his or her child’s school.

Trujillo said LCPS won’t look at moving to a hybrid learning model – combining online and in-school instruction – until mid-September at the earliest. The school board meets next Sept. 15.

In following state public health orders, LCPS has to consider many factors before partially or fully reopening schools, Trujillo said, including how students safely pass in hallways and ride school buses. Protocols will vary greatly from one school to another based on student population, ranging from a small elementary school to Las Cruces High School’s more than 1,700 students.

LCPS has begun making plans for the return of “a small, specific group of students,” Trujillo said. “We’re just going to have to do it slowly and methodically” to develop a healthy hybrid model.

Developing that model includes working closely with NEA-LC, she said, to identify not only students and families but also teachers who want or need to stay fully remote.

Even though learning is taking place online, students still need school supplies, Trujillo said. And the need is as great as ever, because each students must have his or her own set of school supplies at home – there aren’t common crayons and other basic supplies available as they were in the past at elementary schools, and sharing school supplies isn’t going to be possible going forward because of the pandemic.

New on the list of needed supplies since schools shut down in March is headphones, Trujillo said. With multiple family members at home, they have become an “important learning tool,” she said.

Fairacres Elementary School was closed Aug. 28 after two staff tested positive for COVID-19, in addition to a staff member who tested positive Aug. 21, LCPS said in a news release. After deep cleaning in accordance to CDC guidelines, staff is expected to be allowed to return Tuesday, Sept. 15. 

“We have to guarantee that safety,” Trujillo said.

Visit www.lcps.net.