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Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Former Administrator Had Advised on Schedules
By Andrea Schoellkopf
Copyright © 2010 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
A former Rio Grande High administrator said Tuesday he warned against scrapping student schedules this summer, but the decision was made before problems could have even surfaced.
"I advised, do not do this," former assistant principal Ben Santistevan said. "Tweak if you like. Scrap, and you're going back to zero."
Cynthia Challberg-Hale, Rio Grande's new principal, deleted the schedules of all students over the summer, citing problems with class assignments that Albuquerque Public Schools said would have threatened students' ability to graduate.
The move delayed students obtaining class schedules until today, more than three weeks into the school year.
Santistevan, who was tapped to be West Mesa High's principal on July 1, questioned how Challberg-Hale could have seen schedule problems because the district had not had a chance to complete its work.
Challberg-Hale, who has faced harsh criticism from parents who want her removed, could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.
APS officials have been working on creating new schedules since school started in mid-August. On Tuesday, about 100 volunteers from around the district and APS administrative offices came to Rio Grande to help pass out new schedules and get the 1,600 students into their classes.
About 400 students filed into the library throughout the day to make schedule changes and another 300 still have requests for changes to be made.
"It's like the first day of school all over again," sophomore Gloria Arredondo, 15, said after school.
And that meant there were still scheduling problems, and some parents were still unhappy.
So were some students, about 30 of whom tried to walk out of the school shortly after 9 a.m. APS and Bernalillo County sheriff's officers were called in response, and a KOAT-TV video showed the students being corralled back into the building by officers.
KOAT also reported that according to one teacher, some 100 students wanted to withdraw. However, APS officials could not confirm that.
The schedule disaster has resulted in finger-pointing, with some saying the problems were due to the schedule Santistevan had created.
Santistevan said in a letter to the Journal and a follow-up interview that he wanted to defend himself and the eight-member staff of counselors, registrar and clerks who had been helping to put together the schedules since last February.
The complex and time-consuming scheduling process begins when students start registering for classes in the winter, he said. The staff determines demand for certain classes and creates a master schedule for teachers, while counselors and district officials make sure the students are enrolled in the classes they need for graduation.
Once the district gives approval, the computer starts placing individual students in classes they have requested based on the master schedule, a process called "tumbling." In this case, APS gave its approval in June.
The result is always filled with some schedule conflicts and other issues, so staff works through the summer to resolve conflicts until the computer shows that 90 percent of the students have been placed correctly.
But Santistevan said, "We never tumbled. The decision to not tumble was made. The (master) schedule was scrapped. ... If people are saying there was a flaw in the schedule, they couldn't because there was no ... schedule."
Fixing problems, he said, does not require dropping the whole schedule but rather working to correct individual student assignments.
APS spokeswoman Monica Armenta said the first tumble did not occur until Aug. 19, the second day of class.
Parent Steve Fernandez was picking up his daughter Estreya, 15, from school Tuesday after trying to get her schedule straightened out for the third time.
Estreya, who transferred from Volcano Vista, said that in the past few weeks she has been in three different English classes, three chemistry classes, three geometry classes and two Spanish classes.
Furious over problems getting her daughter Danielle into classes, Loretta Lopez took her case to reporters gathered outside the school.
"They just messed over her whole senior year," said Lopez, who said she was told "come back tomorrow" to get her daughter back into the Advanced Placement and gifted classes in which she was enrolled.
Journalism teacher Albert Martinez said he found his newspaper class without most of his editors to produce the school's five-times yearly publication.
"It was a little disheartening," said Martinez, who was left with a class of about 90 percent first-year journalism students.
Editor-in-chief Gabe Serrano said he traded out an Advanced Placement class and a psychology class to fit journalism back in his schedule.
"It was just terrible," said Serrano, who said he doesn't know about the status of the other editors. "... If we stay with underclassmen, they usually never get their work done and quit."
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