Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 123, No. 138 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
June 8, 2014
Accuracy of state teacher evals questioned www.rdrnews.com
officials are working to correct evaluations, said Matt Montano, the department’s director of educator quality. Several elementary school principals said the evaluations showed a lack of consistency in scoring teachers. As a result, they present unfair portraits of teachers’ per for mances. The state hasn’t given a clear explanation for the problem, they said. Under the new system, half of a teacher’s score is based on student achieve-
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Newly released state teacher evaluations that are based on erroneous data left New Mexico educators confused and frustrated, the Albuquerque Journal reported Saturday. Albuquerque school officials and the state Public Education Department say some evaluations were based on data that had factual errors. Some of the mistakes came from infor mation submitted by districts, but
Catching some catfish
ment data from standardized tests. Classroom observations, review of lesson plans and attendance make up 25, 15 and 10 percent, respectively. At the end of the evaluations, teachers are rated by their effectiveness, with “exemplary” as the highest and “ineffective” as the lowest. Some longtime teachers at S.Y. Jackson Elementary weren’t graded at all on student achievement while others were, Principal Jack
SUNDAY
Vermillion said. A group of principals said some teachers were rated “minimally effective,” even when it was clear students had made progress. Also, they said some teachers were listed as absent on days they were at work. Shelly Green, the Albuquerque Public Schools’ chief academic officer, said the district has sent letters to teachers who were getting incorrectly marked as See EVALS, Page A2
AP Photo
Reginald Chavez Elementary School first-grade teacher Yolanda Montalvo, works with students, Monday May 19. Montalvo is part of an increasing number of teachers retiring this year because of the new teacher evaluation.
Report: Economy recovers jobs yet appears weaker
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy has finally regained the jobs lost to the Great Recession. But go easy on the hallelujahs — the comeback is far from complete.
Friday’s report from the gover nment revealed an economy healing yet marked by deep and lasting scars. The downturn that began 6½ years ago accelerated wrenching changes that have left many Americans feeling worse off than they did the last time the economy had roughly the
APD shares video from fatal shooting
Above: Jeff Tucker Photo or stamp. Mark Madson of the Right: Courtesy Photo Department of Game and Hundreds of youths Fish said 248 children “landed a big one” Satur- ages 12 or younger regisday at the 13th annual tered and attended educaKids Fishing Day at Wal- tion stations Saturday at mart. Children learned Walmart, where young about fishing, fish habitat anglers learned the and other essentials at basics of baiting hooks the free fishing clinic and tying knots. sponsored by Walmart Children learned the and the New Mexico correct way to catch and Department of Game and release fish in a portable Fish. swimming pool filled with Saturday was National channel catfish. There Free Fishing Day. All were also games and anglers, residents and hourly prize drawings. non-residents were able Pictured above, volunto fish free Saturday on teer Cameron Madsen the state’s public waters, nets some of the catfish without a fishing license let off the hook Saturday.
Foster mom has been helping kids for 20 years BY JEFF TUCKER RECORD STAFF WRITER
TO DIG SAFELY
calling
Being a foster treatment care mother is a labor of love for Linda Nasrallah. She has been a foster parent in Roswell for 20 years, taking into her home about 45 children over the years for foster care treatment. It all started in 1995 when she was driving a school bus, Nasrallah explained. “I drove a bus out at
Sunset (Elementary School) and there were a lot of troubled children there, especially this one family, and I wanted to help them out more than what I could do as a bus driver,” she said. “It just so happened that I saw the advertisement from the Peak (Treatment Foster Care) needing foster parents, so I applied. And it just so happened that when I got done training, I met this mother, and it was the little boy I had
wanted to help in the first place. He was my first foster child.” Linda and her husband, Gaby, are parents of four grown children, ages 30 to 38. They also have nine grandchildren. Linda said being a foster parent is like a grandmother in perpetuity. She said the younger foster children call her “Meme,” as her own grandchildren do. “I’m their ‘meme,’ because my grandchildren call me ‘meme,’” she said.
HIGH 95 LOW 67
See JOBS, Page A3
and the officers retreated roughly 24 feet trying to deescalate it when shots were fired,” Deputy Chief William Roseman said. Officer Ryan Graves can be heard shouting several times at Chavez to put the knife down.
Graves’ rain jacket obscured his camera, and the other of ficer, Brian Fuchs, failed to turn his camera on, police said.
An internal affairs investigation will also focus on why there was no video of the actual shooting, Roseman said. That investigation will start after the criminal investigation is complete.
Jeff Tucker Photo
Linda Nasrallah works with
a foster child recently while at Peak Treatment Foster
Care. Linda has been a fos-
“I’ve had them maybe nine months. I’ve had one
IS JUST THE
• STEVEN “BUDDY” NOWAK • MARY BETH DESMOND • LARRY CARROLL BALDWIN
ALBUQUQERUE (AP) — Two officers who shot and killed a knife-wielding man who reportedly attacked his girlfriend and another man tried backing away before ultimately firing, according to police video released Friday. The Albuquerque Police Department released an arriving sergeant’s lapelcamera video and audio from the May 22 shooting of suspect Ralph Chavez just north of downtown. The video shows the two officers who shot Chavez stepping back across traffic lanes just before firing. “Mr. Chavez approached the officers roughly 24 feet with a knife in his hand,
“So I’m more like a grandparent. The children come to our house for three days. The children, if they really don’t want to stay, they really don’t have to. We’re not allowed to keep them a long time because of the insurance, because we’re supposed to help them and they move on to something else.
8-1-1 BEGINNING
TODAY’S FORECAST
same number of jobs it does now. Employers added 217,000 workers in May, more than enough to surpass the 138.4 million jobs that existed when the recession began in December 2007. But even as the unemployment rate has slipped to 6.3 percent from 10 percent at the depth of the recession, the economy still lacks its former firepower. To many economists, the
ter parent in Roswell for 20
years, shaping the lives of
See MOM, Page A2
dozens of troubled youths.
It’s when you call. It’s how long you wait. It’s how you dig after your yard is marked. It’s easy to dig safely. You just need to know how. Find out at xcelenergy.com/Safety.
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGES B6 & B7
xcelenergy.com/Safety
CLASSIFIEDS ..........D1
COMICS .................C5
ENTERTAINMENT .....C6
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2
HOROSCOPES .........C6 LOTTERIES .............A2
OPINION .................A4
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ..............A8