Las Cruces Public Schools Title Ix Coordinator

I have been an educator for twenty years. I was a Bilingual teacher (Spanish) for five years, I was also an Advance Education Service (AES) provider for mid and high school students. When I entered into administration, I was part of a group of seven individuals that pilotted the "Dean Program" at the high school level. We were both the Assistant Principal and the high school Counselor for what was supposed to be no more than 250 students (which ended being more). It was the most exhausting but also most rewarding job I have ever had. We really got to know our students.

After four years, I was recruited by the Superintendent to be the first Hearing Officer for the district. This was another challenging position and not very rewarding. Fortunately, a school principal turned in his keys and said he could no longer work at the school, so I was named interum Principal for the remainder of the year. I stayed eight years. It was a low socio economic school with a lot of issues. Parents were incarcerated for different issues. Students had to many issues at home to be able to focus on education. In todays world of education, it posed a hardship because we had to make Annual Yearly Progress (AYP). Majority of our students had to be at grade level or above. We had students who came to us with very little academic vocabulary.

Change had to take place and a new reading program was brought in to assist our students to learn how to read. With everyone working with the same goal on mind, our students were able to make great progress. Our school made AYP three years in a row. Unfortunately, we went through a change of Superintendents (six in two years time). With every new person, came new changes including academic programs that were not necessarily best for our community of students. Needless to say, our students declined.

The new chapter in my profession is that of being the first Title IX Coordinator for our district.