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Las Cruces School Board Seeks Legal Counsel Following Skandera's Letter

The Las Cruces School Board met for the first time after receiving a letter from the Secretary of Education scolding them for alleged open meetings act violations and overstepping the board’s authority.

In New Mexico’s Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera’s strongly worded letter to the Las Cruces School Board, she alleges 9 infractions and threatens to suspend the school board if they don’t undergo training within 60 days.

In the letter Skandera says, “It is clear that members of the school board either do not understand or choose to ignore their roles and responsibilities in providing oversight of the school district… The board has very specific responsibilities and has chosen to over-step its boundaries with regard to these responsibilities.”

Las Cruces School Board Member Ed Frank says Skandera should have talked through these issues with the School Board President.

“Her letter is just filled with inaccurate information,” Frank said. “And misunderstandings.  “And I feel that her letter was completely unjustified.”

School Board member Barbara Hall says she would prefer to spend time and energy dealing with teachers and students on student success, but she is concerned with some of the claims in the letter and would like them to be looked into.

“It’s a shame that these kinds of things happen,” Hall said. “And I don’t know why the secretary chose to investigate the board, but I do think there is some truth and fact in some of this.”

School Board President Maria Flores says some of the complaints in the letter have already been resolved, and other information is incorrect.

“She keeps going over the same thing over and over again,” Flores said. “The rolling quorums those didn’t happen, and I refute those.”

The School Board voted to seek legal counsel to review the allegations in the letter and prepare a response, Flores says counsel will determine when and if they undergo the training.

“I’ve had no direction from her or from her office, from the PED as to what our next steps would be,” Flores said. “So that’s why we’re going to work through our legal counsel.”  

Many of those in attendance at the school board meeting were supporting the school board wearing stickers reading ‘I support local control.’

Samantha Sonner was a multimedia reporter for KRWG- TV/FM.