Honoring the Past, Building the Present, Inventing the Future
Dear Rio Rancho Students, Staff, and Families,
I am honored and excited to serve as your new superintendent. Rio Rancho Public Schools has a unique and proud legacy built under Dr. Cleveland’s 31 years of inaugural leadership, and it is humbling that the Board has selected me to follow in her remarkable footsteps.
Our community has grown from about 6,000 students since our founding in 1994 to over 16,000 students today. Over this time, our students have earned statewide and national recognition in academics, the arts, athletics, and career-technical programs thanks to our community’s values and investments in public education.
It is a privilege to embark upon this next chapter with you. My theme as we move forward is “Honoring the Past, Building the Present, Inventing the Future.” This means cherishing our traditions and successes, engaging fully with today’s needs, and co-creating an ambitious future for our children. We must plan for both short-term and long-term horizons: next year’s prekindergarten students will graduate in 2040, and we have many students to serve between now and then. That requires thoughtful and deliberate action.
As I begin my superintendency, I envision my work alongside you unfolding in three connected phases:
Phase 1: Honoring the Past — 100-Day Entry Plan (Spring–early Summer 2026): In my first 100 days, which run from my first day on March 1 through June 9, I will listen, learn, and work collaboratively with students, families, staff, and community partners to chart our course forward. In particular, I will put systems in place to understand and initiate improvement in teaching and learning across the district.
Phase 2: Building the Present — Bridge Year (2026–27 School Year): Based on priorities that emerge from the first 100 days, I will begin laying the groundwork for our immediate actions to take during a "bridge year.” A “bridge year” allows us to move swiftly on several fronts aimed at improving teaching and learning while we simultaneously develop a comprehensive strategic plan that clearly describes our goals and how we will measure our success. .
Phase 3: Inventing the Future — Strategic Plan Launch (Spring 2027 and beyond): Coming out of the bridge year, we will finalize and launch a long-term strategic plan that reflects our shared priorities, sets clear direction for the district, and guides our work in the years ahead.
What follows is our plan for phase one: the first 100 days of this new chapter in our school district’s history. I invite you to join me on this journey as we, together, continue Rio Rancho’s story of excellence and innovation.
In partnership,
Robert W. Dodd, EdD
Superintendent
100 Day Entry Plan
Over my first 100 days, our work will proceed in four parts:
Listen and learn (Days 1–30): Spend time in schools and communities, meeting with students, families, staff, and community leaders to understand what we should honor, what is working today, and where support is needed.
Study and deepen understanding (Days 31–60): Pair what we hear with a careful review of student outcomes, programs, and resources to identify strengths to build on and gaps we must address.
Align and co-design (Days 61–90): Share what we have learned, validate it with the community, and work alongside educators, families, students, and the School Board to define clear priorities and a shared direction forward.
Share and launch (Days 91–100): Report back transparently, celebrate the school year and our people, and begin moving from listening and planning into action.
Days 1–30: Listening and Honoring the Present
Hold Board and Leadership Meetings: I will meet one-on-one with each School Board member and with district department leaders. I will ask what’s working well and listen to their hopes and concerns. By starting with these conversations, I intend to honor the past, showing respect for our leaders’ elected mandates and dedicated experience in the district to build early trust.
Begin School Site Visits: I will strive to visit all 21 schools, spending time in classrooms and common areas, greeting families at drop-off, and talking with students, teachers, and staff. I will ask open-ended questions like “What should we honor about our past?” and “What are you building right now?” and “What are you planning for in the school year ahead and beyond as we invent the future?” to gather your feedback. I will also observe classroom instruction to see the district’s teaching and learning practices firsthand.
These visits will help me learn what makes each school unique, get an initial sense of what is working well, and develop early ideas for future action and improvement. If you see me at your school or on campus, please say hello, introduce yourself, and help me get to know Rio Rancho!
Engage staff and labor partners across the district: In my first month, I will be in schools and the district office, meeting with staff through school visits, open office hours, regular district office meetings, and direct conversations with our labor partners. These discussions will focus on understanding day-to-day realities, identifying what helps staff in their work and what gets in the way, while ensuring staff and labor partners have meaningful opportunities to help shape early priorities and decisions.
Host Student Voice Sessions: I will meet with student councils and diverse student groups at our secondary schools. These sessions will give students a chance to share their suggestions for making school a better place for Rio Rancho’s amazing student body.
Initiate Tribal and Native American Outreach: I will respectfully visit the tribes that consult with our district and meet with the Indian Parent Advisory Committee. I will listen to parents, elders, and students about how we can better serve our Native American communities. I will seek to understand the deep histories, contemporary traditions, and many contributions of our tribes to develop a foundation for ongoing partnership.
Establish Community and Legislative Partnerships: I will begin building relationships with city officials, local businesses, higher-education partners, and union representatives. I will also connect with our state legislators to share our priorities and understand policy issues coming out of the recent legislative session. These meetings will help ensure our district’s voice is heard as we advocate and partner on sustaining resources for our schools.
Honor Traditions and Leadership Legacies: I will attend events celebrating Dr. Cleveland’s legacy and highlight the achievements of her 31-year tenure. I will publicly celebrate our enduring programs and long-standing traditions—whether in academics, arts, athletics, or career education—to show continuity and gratitude for Dr. Cleveland’s three decades of exceptional leadership..
Review and Align Our Organizational Structure: I will closely review the district’s organizational structure to understand how the district office work is actually supporting schools and classrooms.
Through conversations with district and school-based leaders, I will examine where priorities, professional learning, and instructional leadership are tightly connected, and where there are gaps that can be addressed through a different structure.
I will also review current and pending position vacancies and consider how those roles should be shaped to meet both immediate needs and the work ahead. Using what I learn, I will develop an organizational structure that brings clarity to how we execute near-term priorities while building coherence for long-term improvement. The aim is to develop and implement a school district organizational structure that helps turn strategy into consistent practice in classrooms and, ultimately, increased student learning.
By Day 30: Working together, we will have built early trust by listening carefully and honoring the strengths of Rio Rancho Public Schools. I will have a clear, grounded understanding of what is working well across our schools and where improvement is most urgently needed. Just as importantly, students, families, staff, and community partners will know that their voices are shaping early decisions - from organizational design to near-term priorities. This foundation of transparency, respect, and shared understanding will allow us to move from listening to focused action in the months ahead.
Days 31–60: Continuing to Listen and Study the Present
Deeply Review the Teaching and Learning Program: I will lead our team through a close, districtwide look at how the teaching and learning program is functioning in our schools by engaging directly with principals, principal supervisors, and central services specialists in curriculum and instruction. Through school visits, leadership conversations, and targeted reviews of instructional practices and student performance information, we will develop a clear picture of what is working well, where students need additional support, and what instructional leadership is focused on across the system.
We will begin by working backward from success after graduation. We will study the experiences of students who go on to thrive after high school—whether in college, career, the military, or other pathways—to understand what they experienced along the way in our schools.
We will examine the opportunities students had access to and how those experiences contributed to their outcomes. This analysis will include reading and math state assessment results, district-administered assessments, credits earned, graduation rates, attendance, discipline data, and students’ access to rigorous coursework and programs. We will review this information by student group to understand who is being well served, where gaps exist, and where improvement is needed.
This analysis will help us identify clear student milestones at different grade levels, showing what students should know and be able to do as they move through the system. Over time, these milestones will shape what we call The Seven Keys to Student Success in 2040, a shared set of expectations that guide teaching, learning, and support from PreK through graduation.
Building on these analyses, we will examine how schools and classroom instruction are organized to contribute to these outcomes. We will drill down to what is happening in classrooms, including the clarity and consistency of instructional expectations, alignment to academic standards, effective use of instructional materials, and how teachers support students with diverse learning needs. In addition, we will review how teachers are trained, observed, and supported, and whether feedback and professional learning are effectively improving instruction.
Moving from the classroom to the school level, many of our schools already perform in the top 25 percent statewide, earning them “Spotlight status.” Our goal is for all schools to reach that level in the near future, which will require that we closely examine results from the state accountability system, to understand the specific actions, supports, and measurable improvements needed to move more schools into the top tier of performance.
Complete School Visits: I will finish visiting any remaining schools and return to any campuses as needed, with a particular focus on the teaching and learning program. I will continue to engage with students, families, and staff to hear your feedback, learn about your communities, and immerse myself in our school classrooms and cultures. As spring performance and playoff seasons arrive, expect to see me at student performances, competitions, and games.
Review Special Education Findings: I will meet with the authors and internal leads of our recent special education evaluation report. We will review their findings together, look at the progress we have made, and identify next steps to better serve students with disabilities.
Launch Community Meet-and-Greet and Survey: I will host several public meet-and-greet listening sessions across Rio Rancho for parents, students, and community members to share what’s working, what needs improvement, and ideas for our future. Anyone and everyone is welcome! For those who cannot attend or would like to share additional thoughts, I will launch an online survey to allow everyone to contribute.
Review Budget and Resources: I will work with our finance team to conduct an in-depth review of how our roughly $253 million budget is allocated. We will review staffing and programs at each school to see if they match students’ needs. We will inventory major programs (from preschool through career and college pathways) and recent spending trends. Then, we will hold those up against what we are seeing in our review of the teaching and learning program to examine how our spending aligns with our priorities. Our findings will guide planning for increased alignment going into the 2026-2027 budget cycle.
School-Based Staff, Family and Community Conversations: I will partner with parent and school organizations—such as faculties, leadership teams, PTOs, PTAs, and other family groups—to host school-level coffees, conversations, and informal meetings. These smaller, local gatherings will create welcoming spaces for families and staff to talk openly about their individual schools and feeder patterns.
What I learn from school-level conversations will be paired with broader community engagement to validate themes and identify areas to address on an individual school basis.
By Day 60: We will have a comprehensive, evidence-based snapshot of Rio Rancho Public Schools. The combination of broad stakeholder input, spending time in schools, and careful data analysis will clearly identify our district’s greatest strengths, which we will preserve as we honor the past, and our most important gaps, which we must address quickly as we build a higher quality instructional program for the present and look ahead to the future.
Just as important, families and staff will see that listening has been paired with thoughtful analysis. Our decisions will be transparent, grounded in reality, and inclusive, building confidence that our direction is sound and responsive to our community.
Days 61–90: Aligning and Co-Designing the Future
Present and Validate Our Findings: I will share a clear summary of the themes we collected through listening and data. We will distribute this summary (for example, by newsletter, website, or small meetings) and highlight the top strengths and concerns that have been identified. Then I will ask, “Did we capture this correctly? Is anything missing?” This step honors your contributions and ensures our plan truly reflects the community’s input.
Take Decisive Steps to Improve Teaching and Learning During the “Bridge Year”: What I learn through school visits, leadership conversations, instructional reviews, and student performance data will guide our district’s focused action to “build the present” during the upcoming bridge year. We will identify three to five steps that we need to take to quickly improve teaching and learning, test how they work in real schools, and use what we learn to plan for the future. For example, what we learn from the recent special education evaluation and hear from families may shape how we strengthen special education structures to begin the 2026-27 school year. Similarly, what the data show about credit attainment will guide how we design supports for incoming seniors to stay on track for graduation. These priorities will guide summer planning for the start of the school year across the district.
Align with Board and District Leaders: I will hold structured workshops with the School Board and district leadership team. Together, we will confirm our immediate priorities for building the present during our “bridge year” in 26-27, such as addressing special education structures and establishing a world-class teaching and learning framework.
We will also look ahead to set longer-term goals to invent the future through our strategic plan. These sessions ensure that our elected leaders and administrators share the same strategic direction and understand how each priority connects to our long-range vision.
Establish Advisory and Engagement Roundtables: I will launch routine meetings with students, families, educators, and community leaders regularly. These advisory roundtables will create predictable, ongoing channels for drafting plans, sharing concerns, and testing ideas. Their first tasks will be to review what we’ve learned so far and support next steps moving forward. Together, we will surface issues and begin finding solutions so we can continue to invent the future that our schools and students deserve.
By Day 90: Our community will have a shared understanding and alignment on the way forward. Educators, families, and students will know which traditions merit continuation and which practices will be the focus of our improvement efforts. The Board, staff, and community will rally around a focused set of short-term priorities while beginning to envision our long-term future as a school district. Crucially, we will build broad ownership of our draft vision and strategic framework. Momentum will build as stakeholders see their ideas transformed into a concrete plan for the present and future.
Days 91–100: Sharing and Launching
Publish a 100-Day Report: I will prepare a clear, public report summarizing our first 100 days. It will detail what activities we undertook, what we learned from listening and data, what the community wants to honor and improve, and what our immediate next steps are. We will distribute this report to staff, the School Board, and the entire Rio Rancho community, ensuring that everyone is informed about our findings and actions.
Hold School Board Work Session: I will present our findings, proposed priorities, and recommended actions to the School Board in a dedicated work session. We will discuss any remaining questions, refine plans as needed, and seek the Board’s endorsement of our Year 1 action plan. This step ensures that our plans have the Board’s support and become official priorities.
Round Out Entry with Community Conversation: I will host a district-wide community conversation meeting (with Q&A and interpretation) to close the entry period officially. I will answer questions about what we heard and learned during the 100 days and unveil our vision and priorities. This community conversation will demonstrate our commitment to transparency and invite ongoing dialogue as we move forward together.
Celebrate the End of the School Year and our People: As the school year comes to a close, I will be out in our schools celebrating alongside students, families, and staff. I will attend performances, promotions, end-of-year events, and commencement ceremonies. These moments give us the chance to honor the hard work, care, and dedication of our educators and staff, and to recognize the growth of our students.
Launch Strategic Planning: I will outline a clear process to create a multi-year strategic plan grounded in the Seven Keys to Student Success in 2040 and enabled through a world-class teaching and learning framework. This plan will set milestones at 5-, 10-, and 15-year intervals. Our goal is to develop a draft plan by the end of the 2026–2027 school year in partnership with the School Board, students, staff, and families, with the understanding that it may continue to evolve.
Establish Shared Accountability: My team and I will put in place clear, districtwide routines for follow-up and accountability so that responsibility for student success is shared across classrooms, schools, district office, and district leadership. Shared accountability means we are collectively responsible for results: schools are accountable for delivery of high-quality teaching and learning, and the district office is accountable for providing aligned curriculum, professional learning, staffing, and operational excellence.
We will provide regular progress updates to the Board and community, increase the frequency of monitoring student outcomes, and publicly report on our bridge-year priorities and the actions underway to advance them. As we refine our organizational structure, we will clarify expectations for how the district office supports schools and ensure those expectations are consistently communicated, measured, and monitored.
By Day 100: Rio Rancho Public Schools will have a clear and transparent roadmap. We will have comprehensively assessed Rio Rancho Public Schools, engaged in open communication, and demonstrated a collaborative spirit – all with an unwavering focus on our students’ success. We will start with 3-5 short term priorities and have our strategic planning process underway. Community members will see the connection between their input and the plan, and confidence in our direction will be strong, knowing that this transition was deliberate and inclusive.
Looking Ahead: Year 1 and Beyond
These first 100 days mark the start of a longer journey. We will begin by listening and learning together (Honoring the Past), then move into a bridge year focused on strengthening key areas and clarifying our priorities (Building the Present).
During this time, draft versions of our strategic plan (Inventing the Future) will be shared for feedback and refinement.
Beginning this summer, we will start implementing the immediate priorities for our bridge year while keeping next year’s prekindergarteners, who will graduate as part of the Class of 2040, front of mind. Like the Sandia Mountains on the horizon, that vision reminds us where we are headed and why this work matters. For each priority, we will set clear goals, establish milestones, and track our progress along the way.
We are committed to being open and transparent. You will see regular updates through newsletters, our website, social media, and community meetings, so you can see how the work is moving forward. Public engagement will continue, giving students, families, staff, and community partners meaningful ways to stay involved. There will always be clear ways to ask questions, share feedback, and hold us accountable.
Over the next year, this work will come together. What we learn from listening, what we see in our data, and what we experience through early implementation will shape our direction. By spring 2027, that collective work will result in a long-term strategic plan that reflects our shared values, responds to real needs, and provides clear direction for Rio Rancho Public Schools. Thank you, in advance, for your partnership in shaping it.
Together, we will honor Rio Rancho’s past, build on today’s strengths, and create a future where every student can thrive.