BY JENNIFER GUY
Interim Superintendent
Los Alamos Public Schools

I want to start by saying thank you to all of you. Dr. Delfin will start on April 1 as the Superintendent. He will be an outstanding leader for LAPS. It has been an honor to be your interim superintendent. I look forward to continuing to support students and staff in any way that I can.

There has been much in the media about school calendars and adding additional school days over the past few weeks. We gathered feedback from staff, parents, and community members last Spring on the possibility of adding extra instructional days for students. That feedback told us that parents and staff were interested in having options available for students during the summer, before and after school, and through Saturday School at the secondary level. There was not much interest in mandatory days during the summer. As a result of the feedback we gathered, we have continued to offer Saturday School for secondary students, implemented before/after school programs at every elementary school, and will be offering optional Summer School for K-8 students this summer from June 13- July 1. For information about Summer School, please contact your child’s teacher, school counselor, or school principal.

This year, Secretary Steinhaus asked us to consider adding 10 additional instructional days to the 2022-23 school year. In order to consider this, we formed a calendar committee with representation from every school site and other departments. We also hosted an information session for staff that was well attended and surveyed all school employees to discuss possible school calendar options. Overall, we learned that there is interest in looking at the school calendar and how we can create opportunities for students that support learning in different ways but consensus that doing this for the upcoming school year was not appropriate at this time. We will present a traditional 180 student day calendar to the school board at the next meeting. We will not be asking for additional days for the upcoming school year. You can view the proposed calendar on the LAPS website. We will expand the calendar committee to include students and parents. The committee will meet regularly over the next several months to look at learning time and ways to offer more opportunities for students. This topic needs more time for research, discussion, and more feedback. If you are interested in being a part of this committee, please email me at j.guy@laschools.net.

Have a nice week and a wonderful Spring Break next week!