All schools will be closed to students until Monday, April 6. During that time janitorial staff in the Portales Schools will clean, then sanitize each school one-by-one with a special fogging device that applies disinfectant to all surfaces, even underneath desks and chairs. Teachers have until Wednesday to retrieve instructional materials from their classroom with the exception of Lindsey/Steiner which can only be accessed today. After Wednesday all schools will be closed to everyone including teachers with only a few exceptions.

The schools will also begin providing “grab & go” meals on Tuesday, March 17 at two schools. The meals will be available from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the east door (nearest baseball field) of the Portales High School Cafeteria and at Lindsey/Steiner Cafeteria’s west door. Those meals are available for all school children in the district as well as children from surrounding districts in Roosevelt County.

While the Portales High School daycare facility will continue to operate for children currently enrolled in that program, no additional daycare will be provided by the schools in order to keep down large groups as ordered by the state health department. Local private daycare centers will be receiving extra support from the state in order to accommodate greater numbers for the community.

Some teachers will be communicating with parents lists of homework that students can be doing during this three week interruption. At least one teacher is creatively setting up a way for students to listen online to her reading a book to her students. Dual credit (college course) students will have all their classes online during this time so that they don’t lose credits.

All athletics and extra-curricular activities have been cancelled at least until April 5. Some activities after that date could still be cancelled. New Mexico Activities Association is expected to make a determination if spring sports can be pushed back on the schedule and completed. It is likely that the local PHS track meet scheduled for April 9 will not be held since it is scheduled for Greyhound Stadium. All ENMU facilities are closed to large groups through April 15.

We’ll monitor developments with our schools closely since this greatly affects everyone’s daily lives in our community. We’ll update as needed with special emails or in our weekly Memo email on Thursdays.