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Former Las Cruces Public Schools Superintendent Stan Rounds will serve in place of the Floyd Municipal Schools Board of Education in operating the small school district in Roosevelt County while the elected board remains suspended, the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) announced in an Aug. 10 news release.
Rounds, who served 10 years as LCPS superintendent before his June 30, 2016 resignation, is currently executive director of the New Mexico Coalition of Educational Leaders.
In the news release, NMPED Secretary Ryan Stewart said Rounds now has the legal authority, rights and responsibilities of any New Mexico school board member to govern the Floyd school district, which is located about 272 miles northeast of Las Cruces in north-central Roosevelt County.
Stewart suspended the five-member Floyd school board Aug. 4 after they twice voted to disregard NMPED’s Covid-19 safe practices for school re-entry and then placed Floyd Superintendent Damon Terry on administrative leave when he refused to carry out the board’s wishes.
Stewart reinstated Terry the same day he suspended the Floyd board. Terry, who has been reporting directly to Stewart, will now report to Rounds.
“I want to be sure I don’t usurp Damon’s role,” Rounds said in the NMPED news release. “I’m there to serve him.
“He’s my only employee,” Rounds said. “New Mexico communities are each uniquely wonderful. I see my task as one that assists the schoolchildren of Floyd, the teachers and staff who serve those children and to assure that we act in a responsibly fiduciary fashion to support the mission of the district.”
Stewart held open the option of designating additional individuals to serve with Rounds as an interim governing council as he has done in previous cases.
Rounds is a New Mexico native who now lives in Las Cruces. He spent 27 years in the superintendent’s role, first in Des Moines, New Mexico, beginning in 1983. Later, he became superintendent in Alamogordo, Hobbs and Las Cruces, with a stint at NMPED.
