School board extends García’s contract with salary increase
The Santa Fe school board has added a year to Superintendent Veronica García’s contract, which includes a 2.5 percent pay raise, increasing her salary to $184,500 a year from $180,000 when it goes into effect July 1.
The board’s 5-0 vote Wednesday evening, following a closed-door discussion, means García will serve the school district until June 30, 2020.She stepped into the position on an interim basis in 2016, after the resignation of Joel Boyd. A past superintendent of the district, García was quickly hired by the board to fill the position on a long-term basis.
“We’re very pleased to do this, to continue your service on behalf of kids in Santa Fe Public Schools,” board President Steven Carrillo told her.
“I love this district and am very committed to it,” García said. “… Thank you for this opportunity.”
The board members all praised García’s talent, integrity and commitment.
Lorraine Price, a former teacher who has worked with the district for about 30 years, as both an employee and a board member, said of the nine superintendents she has known, “Dr. García’s the best.”
García said in an interview after the meeting that her main goal in the next two years will be to “focus on the educational outcomes of our students … to make them successful, contributing members of the community as they become college- and career-ready.”
The district’s biggest challenge, she said, will be adapting to whatever new educational policies the next governor puts in place after taking office in January.
“We don’t know what policy changes may be coming,” García said. “We don’t know what to expect with accountability measures, the teacher evaluation system, standardized testing. So that period of transition could be a challenge.”
The district also needs to find ways to better compensate its employees, including teachers, she said.
During a public meeting Tuesday, the board unanimously
approved contracts with the local chapters of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, providing raises to educators and other school employees.
García, 66, is an Albuquerque native who started her 40-year education career at Albuquerque Public Schools in the mid-1970s. She first served as superintendent of the Santa Fe district from 1999-2001 and is credited with helping lead the district through financially turbulent times, balancing the budget amid a grand jury investigation and a PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis of the district’s budgetary management under a previous superintendent.
Before taking the job again in 2016, she served as New Mexico’s first secretary of education under then-Gov. Bill Richardson from 2003-10 and then worked as executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group New Mexico Voices for Children, headquartered in Albuquerque.
The school board will not meet again until early August, Carrillo said.