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By Julia M. Dendinger
News-Bulletin Assistant Editor
A local board of education member has been tapped to temporarily fill the top administrative position in a school district to the south.
The Socorro Consolidated Schools Board of Education voted 5-0 on Thursday, June 27, to award a one-year contract to Belen Board of Education president Aubrey Tucker to serve as the district’s interim superintendent.
Tucker’s hire came just two days after the board voted unanimously to rescind SCS superintendent Ron Hendrix’s contract, which had only been renewed in January.
Before the Socorro board asked him to take on this new role, Tucker was originally a contract employee with the district as its student hearing officer. When the Socorro High School principal took leave toward the end of this school year, instead of finishing the year without an administrator at the high school, the board named Tucker the interim principal for SHS.
On Monday, July 1, his first day as interim superintendent, Tucker said he is not leaving the Belen Board of Education.
“It is very, very evident with myself and the (Socorro) board, my purpose is, No. 1, to move the district into the correct direction of student needs. Second is to make sure that everyone understands the superintendent is the employee of the board and that all other persons in the district work at the purview of the superintendent,” Tucker said. “Right now, everyone is expected to do the mission of education and working with children.”
While keeping those two priorities top of mind, Tucker will also assist the board in its search for a permanent superintendent. The search will start in October, he said and, in November the process will continue to include the community as well as the Socorro Consolidated Schools staff and board in making the final decision on a new superintendent.
If that process is unsuccessful, the district will go through the process again in April, with the goal of finding a permanent administrator before July 1, 2025.
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“We are not gong to settle because we have to,” Tucker said. “My contract is for a full year. Just so the public understands, no district can pay two superintendents. It’s important to know there is a clause in my contract, that both the board and I agreed to, that when they pick a new superintendent, all services and monies of that contract cease on a particular date.”
Tucker said the other members of the Belen Board of Education are aware he has a job outside of being a board member and, when it comes to continuing to serve as board president, he will do so at the will of his fellow board members.
“I want to continue to serve but if the members feel they want someone as president other than myself, I understand,” he said. “All my duties for Belen will be taken care of in terms of professional development as a school board member, and I will be doing the same thing as superintendent.”
While the Socorro district is on a four-day week, Tucker said he will most likely be working five days a week, noting that the “superintendent is a 24/7 job. This is very, very temporary. I am here simply to help with the transition to a permanent superintendent for the future.”
At the June 27 meeting, David Hicks, Socorro Board of Education president, said Tucker would be “a wonderful fit to come in as an interim, kind of settle things down and balance things out a little bit. He’s got a lot of experience on both sides of the spectrum ... I think he brings a very unique perspective (having) been at all levels of education.”
Tucker was first elected to the Belen Board of Education in 2019 and was re-elected in 2023.
Tucker served in the U.S. Army from 1988 to 1993, before moving to Valencia County in 1994, where he worked as a teacher, band director and administrator for the Belen Consolidated Schools for 14 years.
In 2008, Tucker became the vice principal at Bernalillo High School, which was classified as a failing school needing improvement. After surviving three superintendent changes and three principals in five years, Bernalillo High School’s grade was a solid 87 overall and listed as a “B” in 2012.
Tucker then became the elementary and middle school principal at Santo Domingo School. Both schools at Santo Domingo Pueblo were classified as failing schools when he arrived. After a year of his leadership with assistant principal, Larryssa Archuleta, both schools were able to attain a passing grade for the first time in five years in 2013.
