Questa schools request waiver on makeup days

Even though students in Questa missed 11 days of school during a water outage caused by issues with the village’s municipal well, school officials are hoping the state will grant a waiver so the district will not have to readjust the school calendar and teacher contracts.

According to Questa Independent School District Superintendent Valerie Trujillo, only students in junior and high school may have to make up time because of the water outage.

Students at Alta Vista Elementary will not have to make up any missed instructional hours because of the outage. Because of bus schedules, she said, elementary students have approximately 100 extra hours built into the regular school year.

Even after missing 78 hours of school because of the outage, elementary students still have a few days of school that could go toward any additional days missed because of inclement weather.

However, students at Questa Jr./Sr. High School are required to have 1,080 hours of instructional time a year. Even with extra time built into the calendar, Trujillo said, those students are currently short of that requirement by “about two full days.”

“We are asking the [Public Education Department] to waive the instructional hours requirement [for the high school] because the water outage was out of our control and a local emergency,” Trujillo told The Taos News.

The district will also ask that part of the time missed for teachers — who are bound by contracts to work a previously agreed-upon number of hours — be waived so as to not have to renegotiate contracts midyear.

Trujillo said water service was restored to both Questa schools Dec. 22, four days into the holiday break. Students will return to school Jan. 10 as scheduled.

Should students in the Questa district miss more instructional time because of inclement weather, the district’s calendar may have to be adjusted all the same.

Rio Costilla Southwest Learning Academy was not affected by the water outage. Trujillo said the district did not consider busing students from Questa to Costilla because of the academy’s limited classroom space.

Trujillo added that the village administration and local leaders were in close, daily communication with the school district throughout the water outage and were “very gracious" in assisting the district with bottled water.