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Serving Aztec, Bloomfield, Central, Farmington, Gallup, and Zuni school districts; San Juan College...
and all New Mexico schools
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Four Corners REC-1 Project Highlights
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Four Corners Regional Education Cooperative #1 (REC-1) continues its growth in programs, capacity, and services to our member districts and educators statewide. Our programs, both externally and internally funded, are reaching deeper into school systems where they can make the most impact on student achievement and development. We are a small REC, but we do many great things!
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What PD Do Teachers Need?
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We have completed the spring 2024 professional development interest survey, collecting more than 260 responses from teachers across the REC-1 region.
The survey contained sample topics in five categories, and when the survey closed, we ranked the categories by order of interest. Though each category had high-interest topics, category rankings from greatest to least interest are as follows.
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We will review results with the Board to identify regional professional development offerings for the 2024 - 2025 school year, as well as point us towards district-specific offerings that will enhance teachers' ability to provide effective learning opportunities for all students.
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REC-1 2024 Strategic Plan
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Following a months' long development process in collaboration with the REC-1 Board, we now have an approved strategic plan. The plan will guide our efforts to bring value and services to our members.
Click Here to Read the Plan
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The plan aligns with our mission of "Building and sustaining a self-sufficient and collaborative FCREC#1 for all educational partners" and provides clarity about the actions and desired outcomes to operationalize that mission.
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► We value opportunities for collaboration.
► We commit to doing our work well.
► We hold ourselves accountable and operate transparently.
► We believe in providing value for stakeholders.
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At REC-1, we have already begun implementing the plan. We are all excited about what the upcoming year will bring as we work diligently to achieve our mission!
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To celebrate our successes over the past year, honor our partners, and recognize the value of collaboration with our Board, we're hosting an open house on May 8 in our new facilities.
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With a new ECHS site recently joining the EEDW project, we have 8 participating sites comprising more than 1,900 students; and one more is in the process of signing on. Now, in year three of the project, we are providing new opportunities and experiences for both targeted students and school staff engaged in the project. Highlights include the following.
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In February, we brought together higher education, ECHS, and industry partners for a day-long, in-depth conference focused on supporting and preparing students for future careers. 100% of IHEs and ECHSs were represented.
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We have working to find an effective and appropriate strategy for bringing mentoring from industry professionals to targeted students, and we found a solution. We will be using Mighty Networks, an online platform common to industry, to foster asynchronous discussions between students and professionals.
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Over the summer months, we're signing up a small cohort of ECHS counselors to build out and trouble-shoot the platform. We'll be signing up students in the fall and paying close attention to students' engagement.
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Student/Counselor Retreat
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This coming fall, we will host a two-day event for ECHS students and counselors. The event will provide an interactive exploration of the value of IT skills across career fields. We'll also look at strategies for succeeding in higher education and, eventually, in a professional career.
While students from any pathway will be invited, the event is specifically designed for students in non-IT pathways to help them (and their counselors) answer the question "Why should I study IT?"
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To give attending students a greater familiarity and comfort level with IT, we're even going to build and program robots, led by students from one of our partner ECHSs!
A special hat-tip to our evaluation team from RAND Corporation who conducted focus group interviews with principals and counselors and helped us gain essential input and feedback on EEDW that will guide continued project improvement and lead to successful implementation of our research plan.
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State Technology Initiative: At the Finish Line
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The two-year state technology initiative, funded by the state legislature and implemented by the 10 RECs, is quickly coming to a close. It's been a great process that helped educators across our state expand and enhance their use of technology to improve teaching and learning.
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This year, REC-1 participated in two ways: Tech Bits and Ed Tech Boost. Click here to read about all the program components
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Tech Bits
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During the first year, we provided and published 14 sessions. This year, we provided and published 8 more. By request, our sessions this year focused on creating professional-looking presentations and documents through photo editing. Click here to view all the videos.
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Ed Tech Boost
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Statewide, 300 teachers participated in self-selected technology training through EdgeU. In fact, our region is the big player with more than 130 teachers participating. REC-1 will be providing stipends for 30 teachers, with other RECs providing stipends for the remaining teachers. To help teachers meet the requirements for stipends, REC-1 hosted work sessions, and most teachers will be receiving their stipends. There's just one event left: an on-site conference in Ruidoso in early June, for which REC-1 will be providing travel support.
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Something neat: We have REC-1 teachers who really embraced the EdgeU trainings and made the national leaderboards for achievement!
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SEDL - Enhancing Dual Language Instruction
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Two districts have been participating in the WKKF-funded "Supporting Equity in Dual Language" (SEDL) project: Bloomfield and Farmington. Working under district leadership, dual language teachers have met regularly outside of their regular duty hours to enhance their implementation of their districts' dual language programs and curriculum. We actually had sufficient underutilized funding to increase those teacher work sessions.
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A second major activity through the project was a series of community meetings to gather input on dual language programming. We hosted sessions in Farmington, Shiprock, and Gallup. In respect for their time and input, participants received a gift card. To round out the input, REC-1 joined with 100% Community-San Juan, hosted by Farmington Municipal Schools. Now, we're analyzing and collating responses and will prepare a report for districts' leadership.
At first glance, however, the community strongly supports students mastering their heritage languages, believes schools pay a central role in this process, and are willing to help.
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Strengthening School Leadership through the NWNMSLSN
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Over the past year, REC-1 has provided fiscal services for Aztec Schools' Northwest NM School Leaders Support Network, funded by the Frost Foundation. The NWNMSLSN has provided mentoring and support for novice principals throughout our region. We in the home stretch for this year.
The process will conclude with a final wrap-up session hosted at Locke Street Eats on May 30, and we'll have a special guest speaker. We'll have up to 25 new and experienced principals join us for this special event (now we'll cross our fingers for great weather!).
FYI: To extent this valuable opportunity for new principals into next year, REC-1 has submitted its own proposal to the Frost Foundation. If funded, Warman Hall, the current project director, will continue to lead the effort.
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New Funding for Reading and Mathematics
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The 2024 RFP for EIR grants was just released. These are the research grants through the US Department of Education. Proposals are due at the beginning of July. They can be implemented for up to 5 years. These grants are a great opportunity to bring new opportunities to provide enhanced reading and mathematics learning opportunities to our students.
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READING
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REC-1 will be submitting an early-phase proposal to implement and test the Six Components of Reading after school reading intervention approach.
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We're looking for 20 sites to participate in two cohorts. If funded, we'll work with more than 70 teachers and serve more than 1,900 students. We're reaching out to districts to get input on the plan and determine which districts can serve as implementation sites.
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MATH
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REC-1 anticipates participating in a mid-phase proposal by the Assistments Foundation to bring an technology-based mathematics resource for upper-elementary school and middle school students.
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The unique element of this proposal will be to infuse the resources with SEL components, which can foster student success. Currently, CCSD is considering participating in this project and district-level leadership joined us in meeting with the Assistments leadership team as we're drafting out potential plans. We will need quite a few sites, and we are soliciting for additional districts to consider being involved.
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CLIA Services for In-school Testing
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REC-1 is serving more than 65 school sites throughout New Mexico by providing a CLIA waiver and conducting virtual site monitoring visits. This has been a great service to schools that allows them to test for Covid, Influenza A and B, and pregnancy. We are conducting this service through agreements with the NM Department of Health (NM DOH).
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Although most of the participating sites are charter and independent schools, we're also serving several public school districts.
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Our service contract ends June 30. At this time, we are not accepting new schools for this year as we finish up visits for current sites. The NM DOH is looking into funding sources for a new contract to continue the services. With less than 2 months to go under our current contract, we hope to hear soon about next year's funding.
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Here for you!
We are in a challenging and uncertain time. Even so, we have many opportunities to learn, grow, and help one another. At REC-1, we are committed to making the best of every opportunity we have to serve you and our member districts.
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Thank you, and best wishes to each of you!
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Four Corners Regional Education Cooperative #1
505-603-3411 || director@nmrec1.org
https://nmrec1.org
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