Los Alamos school board Sept. 8 outcomes: career-tech gap, $310K for new buses

LOS ALAMOS - About 800 of Los Alamos High School's roughly 1,100 students take at least one career and technical education course, but only about 50 are coded as having completed a pathway, Assistant Superintendent Payne told the Los Alamos Public Schools board on Sept. 8, according to the district's meeting recording.

About 300 students take two or more courses in one pathway, Payne said. "That funnel gets really small at the bottom and we only get 50 who are completers," Payne said, adding that the gap is "not on the students." Payne estimated about 100 more students finish pathways without being recorded. The update was for discussion only.

In other business, the board approved by voice vote replacing two 2016 school buses, a 71-seat route bus and a 48-seat bus with a lift, under a $310,165 quote, with purchase approvals from the state Public Education Department. It also approved three resolutions for the New Mexico School Boards Association, one on nepotism waivers for staffing shortages and two on state equalization guarantee funding, and set aside a fourth on math and reading interventionists. No one from the public commented.