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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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Stop By and Visit - Our New Office
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At the end of December, we transitioned to our new office building. Previously, we were occupying a building on loan from Farmington Municipal Schools. Now we are leasing our own space. Our EEDW staff is housed here.
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Our conference room will be a great place for REC-1 and partners’ meetings. If you need a space to meet for small group meetings, let us know.
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The office location is 205 W. Auburn, Farmington. (The “official” address for REC-1 and the location of our business office have not changed.)
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A big thank you to the three districts who are currently contributing to our annual lease and utilities: Bloomfield, Central, and Zuni.
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Stop by and visit sometime. We’d love to see you walk in our doors!
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Stop by and visit sometime. We’d love to see you walk in our doors!
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Our federally funded project Extending Equity into the Digital Workforce has just entered year 3. Seven early college high schools participated throughout year 2, and a new site is coming on in the next few weeks.
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Now that we’re in our data collection phase, we’re working to ensure full implementation and compliance at participating schools. The big challenge is to ensure that school counselors are targeting outreach efforts at the selected “encouragement” students, as well as fully expending their student support budgets. Of paramount importance, we’re working with counselors and administrators to get target students enrolled in online IT courses, which is the primary outcome under study.
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The Q&A sessions with industry professionals are restarting for this semester, and we’re kicking off the mentoring opportunities for three pilot groups of students. Now, we’re exploring additional strategies to get target students to sign up for this valuable experience. Our business engagement coordinator, Jaime Cherry, is leading these efforts.
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Finally, we are very excited to host the upcoming “Gathering” for IHE, ECHS, and industry partners. More about this below
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EEDW - The Gathering
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On February 28, we’re bringing together ECHS administrators and counselors, higher education dual credit advisors and partners, and representatives of the IT industry for a full day of information sharing and collaboration. Every ECHS and higher education partner will be represented. We anticipate about 30 attendees total.
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We are providing special breakout sessions for counselors, higher education, and school administrators, with each session led by a member representing the audience type. Our evaluators will also be on hand for focus group interviews as part of the project implementation study.
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Of note, our federal program officer will attend by Zoom to speak with counselors during a breakout session to emphasize the benefit of this project and the important role counselors play in the research study.
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Our ECHS/IHE coordinator, Eric Arpelar, has been working tirelessly on setting up this Gathering and making it a valuable experience for all participants.
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Our new events calendar: What’s coming up for REC-1?
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We added an events calendar to our web site at https://nmrec1.org/rec1-events/ (not to replace our continuously growing REC-1 Activities page). We’ll feature REC-1 professional development, conferences, and other public-facing events.
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Spring break: Our office will be closed March 11–15 as we enjoy our spring break. Director David Bowman will also be hosting a community listening session in Shiprock during that week. Let us know if you need to meet with us during that time.
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Emotional Poverty with Ruby Payne:
On January 12, 2024, REC-1 brought Ruby Payne to the Four Corners for a full-day workshop on Emotional Poverty. More than 400 teachers, administrators, counselors, and other educators registered for the event:
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Thanks to Bloomfield Schools for initiating this event and for hosting the workshop at their high school auditorium.
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We have three new projects under development:
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- Federal proposal to conduct and study an after school reading intervention project. We submitted a proposal for this project last year and received a generally positive review, but we weren’t funded. We will re-work the proposal and give it another go for the next round of funding.
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- Federal proposal to develop, pilot, and test a mathematics intervention program that intentionally integrates social-emotional skill development.
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- New initiative to help students learning coding skills by developing phone apps. No funding source identified yet: we anticipate running this project through REC-1 resources.
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CLIA Support Growing Strongly
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REC-1 is under contract to support districts and schools with on-site testing for Covid, Influenza A & B, and pregnancy. In brief, we hold the required CLIA waiver, and bring on schools as associated sites with Department of Health approval. We have nearly 60 sites we’re supporting and monitoring.
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The Department of Health is encouraging schools to partners with REC-1 under our waiver. Since the beginning of the year, we have added nearly 20 new sites. We’re finding that schools’ and districts’ CLIA waivers, which they applied for independently, are now expiring.
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Our CLIA services coordinator, De Anna Davis, has done a great job getting agreements for new sites, providing training, and scheduling the virtual site visits.
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For more information, please visit https://nmrec1.org/clia-waivers
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Supporting Equity in Dual Language (SEDL)
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With funding from the W.K.Kellogg Foundation, we’re looking to enhance districts’ dual language programs. Currently, we’re supporting teams in Bloomfield and Farmington to dig deep in their programs and strategize ways improve efficacy. These teams are focused on dual language instruction in Navajo.
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We have funding for additional teams in both districts, and funding can also support strengthening students’ language learning in other languages, such as Spanish. There’s not much time left in the project, but there is enough time for additional groups of teachers and administrators to meet, strategize, and deepen implementation of their programs.
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We were able to fund teachers to attend La Cosecha, the New Mexico conference for dual language educators in Albuquerque.
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We are about to launch our community “listening sessions” to gather community members’ ideas about dual language instruction. All events are scheduled from 5:30 to 6:30. Participants may receive gift cards for attending and sharing.
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· February 22: Pancake Alley in Farmington
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· February 29: Gallup Community Center
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· March 14: Shiprock Chapter House.
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One more project component to implement is a working lunch with representatives of each REC-1 member district. More information will be provided to district leadership, and we hope for a fully attended, engaging experience for district leadership to share program information, challenges, findings, and strategies for effectiveness.
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Recent Partnership Activities
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Virtual Education: As many of you know, we have been pursuing a new model for creating a virtual school that incorporates the best of gaming platforms with benefits of bricks-and-mortar schools. We have recently begun discussions with the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium to see how we can bring new opportunities to our students in the Four Corners.
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Early Childhood: We continue our support of, and partnership with, the San Juan County Early Childhood Coalition, which brings together families, providers, and leaders in early childhood. We’re able to provide them space for meetings and operations in our new facility.
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We’re also supporters of the Gallup McKinley County Early Coalition, assisting with information dissemination, resources, and other forms of support as needed.
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Northwest New Mexico School Leaders Network: We’re wrapping up collaborative efforts with Aztec Schools project to provide mentorship to novice principals. Over the next couple of weeks, we will work with the project director to find effective ways to spend down the remaining balance in a way that helps our new school leaders be the best they can be on behalf of the students they serve.
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Ed Tech Boost / State Technology Initiative: We’re collaborating with REC-9, through funding from the NM PED, on this statewide, two-year technology project. We are supporting 30 teachers in the acquisition of new technology skills through the Ed Tech Boost program component. Teachers need to acquire a certain number of micro-credentials to be eligible for stipends, which we will issue at the end of the project. Some teachers need to catch up a bit, and we hosted a work day on February 17 for teachers who need support to meet the credentialing requirement. We will also provide funding through this initiative for eligible teachers to attend an on-site workshop in Ruidoso in June.
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Project Echo: We collaborated with UNM’s Project Echo on designing a professional development program focused on reading instruction, which Project Echo submitted for federal funding. The proposal was not funded, but the work continues! We will be assisting in planning project to create and new professional learning opportunities in reading instruction for the Four Corners (and others) based on the Echo model.
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Here for you!
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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