Winter Weather Disrupted Schools

The year started with snow and ice and closed out the same way. Temperatures in the single and negative digits in January caused Eagle Ridge Middle School water pipes, which had been unused during winter break, to freeze and burst. That meant an extra day of winter break for students.

A February snowstorm sent students home on a Tuesday, and they didn’t return until the following week because of snow-packed and icy roads.

While another cold snap earlier this month did not result in broken pipes, it did mean three days off for students. Low temperatures kept the icy roads from thawing out, making it unsafe for school buses and student drivers.

In the classroom, teachers struggled without enough textbooks for all their students. Many had to resort to classroom sets, the Internet, worksheets and other teaching tools when school started in August. The shortage came after state funding for textbooks took a dive. The state budget for instructional materials was about $39 million a few years ago, falling most recently to $15.1 million.

Rio Rancho teachers turned mostly to technology to fill the gap. Mountain View Middle School pre-algebra teacher Becky Cook was using models and a document reader, which displays the textbook on a big screen, to teach her seventh-graders. Other teachers provided Internet sites so students could read the book or other classroom material online.

V. Sue Cleveland High graduated its first senior class in May, with 395 students crossing the stage for a diploma. The school opened in August 2009 but did not have any seniors its first year.

The students rejected tradition, though, and elected to go without an official class song after their choice – Jay-Z’s “Forever Young” – was banned by district administrators because of what they said inappropriate language. The class also made a statement with its senior prank, starting a major food fight with 2,000 students in the cafeteria at lunchtime. Thirty students, mostly seniors, were given a one-day suspension for the stunt.

In June, same-sex couple Shannon Peterson and Jessica Bissell, who were legally married in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2009, filed a lawsuit against the Rio Rancho Public Schools district for allegedly failing to stop other children from bullying their daughter and allowing her teacher Jerri Fryar to discriminate against her because they are gay. Their daughter Jenna Bissell was a fifth-grader at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School during the 2009-2010 school year.

In other news:

• The district introduced a new website aimed at making it easier for parents and students to communicate with teachers.

• The school board in January approved the sale of advertising space on school buses, becoming the first district in the state to do so.

• Inaugural school board member Carl Harper made a return to the board. Harper served on the first board for Rio Rancho Public Schools district in 1993 and was in office until he was ousted in 2001.