A committee of parents, teachers and staff at Mary Welty Elementary School voted for Claudia Welden, currently assistant principal at Nogales High School, as their new principal. Members of the governing board of the Nogales Unified School District No. 1 voted 5-0 at its June 8 meeting to approve Welden.

She will replace Fernando Parra, who will move to Nogales High School as its new principal. Current NHS Principal Mark Valenzuela will retire at the end of this month.

“I couldn’t be more pleased with the committee’s selection,” said Superintendent Shawn McCollough. “We’re very excited about Claudia.”

The district advertised the position statewide in March and April and received 39 applications, McCollough said. After committee members interviewed five finalists on May 21, the majority voted for Welden in a secret ballot on May 26.

The governing board approved a contract of 11.5 months for Welden for the 2009-2010 school year.

When a list of consent items came up for a vote during the meeting, board member Hector Arana asked why the district was spending $17,449 for hotel bills for teachers and staff to attend conferences between May 31 and July 24, 2009.

“It bothers me to think we are up at that level in these times,” Arana said.

Trips to Washington, D.C., accounted for almost $8,000, he said. But NUSD employees spent some $5,000 to stay overnight in Tucson during conference.

“That kind of burns me,” Arana said. He drives home to Nogales and back to Tucson for the next day’s events, he said.

Arana asked to put travel expenses on the agenda when the board meets again.

Then board member Charlotte Suarez questioned another expense: Citizens Auto Stage Co., which provides bus service for NUSD students, asked for an increase of 1.9 percent for 2009-2010.

This is the final year of a five-year contract with the company, Suarez noted. Each year, the company has requested a raise.

If this increase is approved, it will mean a 10.45 percent increase since the contract began in 2005, according to an NUSD document. Citizens Stage wants to offset the rising costs of wages, maintenance, parts and new buses that meet higher emission standards, its chief financial officer wrote in a letter to NUSD.

NUSD is holding the line and not giving raises to teachers and administrators, Suarez said. “But we’re going to approve a pay raise for a transportation company. It’s kind of skewed.”

At McCollough’s suggestion, the board voted to table the issue until the next meeting.

Finally, the board voted to table the Classroom Site Performance Pay Plan for 2009-2010.

“Now instead of a district goal, we have site plans to be developed,” said Vickie De Giso, director of human resources.

Every year the plan for teachers’ performance pay has to be reviewed, De Giso explained in an interview. A committee of teachers and administrators decided to shift to goals at each of the 10 schools.

Since those plans were still being developed, board members balked at approving the pay plan.

“Any kind of performance pay has to be transparent,” said Manuel Ruiz. “Right now, I can’t support this.”

McCollough promised to present the site plans to the board at a future meeting.

Ruiz has been getting calls from classified staff about their wages, he told the board. While teachers with full certification have been assured they will all be on board next year, many of the clerical workers, aides and custodial and maintenance workers are still in limbo, Ruiz said.

“Some of them are on the verge of losing their homes,” Ruiz said.

The “notices of appointment” will go out to those employees in a few days, De Giso said on June 10. All classified employees will keep their jobs, but some of the positions have been reduced from 12 months to 11 or 11.5 months, she said.