NEA-LC BoD

Officers

Denise Sheehan

President

Denise Sheehan has worked with Las Cruces Public Schools for 16 years. During that time she obtained her Bachelor in Bilingual Education where she began teaching at Booker T. Washington. Denise has taught Pre-K, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. Denise later obtained her Master’s degree in Language, Literacy, and Culture during which her work on Social Justice was recognized and included in the book “Un-Standardizing Curriculum” By Christine Sleeter and Dr. Judith Flores Carmona. Denise has been an active member of NEA- Las Cruces since December of 2015. She has attended many trainings at the National and state level. Denise was the coordinator for the Las Cruces Institutes, been part of the bargaining team and has been involved with Early Career Educators. Denise currently works as the Staff Development Specialist for the Beginning Teacher Induction Program for the Elementary level.

Jim Maes

Vice President

Jim Maes is assigned to Sierra Middle School as a Gifted Education Case Manager and teaches Physical Education, and Unified Schools PE. Jim has taught for 21 years and has been active with NEA for 18 years. Jim’s experience in NEA consists of school site advocate, NEA Board of Directors and most recently current Chairman of Employee Rights. Jim is running for NEA Vice President to establish a system of training and advocacy to support all employees at LCPS. Jim has made working conditions advocacy a priority in his career.

Sherri Nolan

Membership Director

Ken Strawn

Treasurer

Karen Hanson-Sharp

NEA-LC Secretary

Currently in her nineteenth year as an educator, Karen is the Library Media Specialist at Mayfield High School and has twice earned National Board Certification in English Language Arts (Adolescence and Young Adulthood). An Association Representative for the past four years, Karen is also an active member of the Employee Rights Committee and has served on the NEA-LC Board of Directors.
Explaining why she became more involved in our local, Karen said, “There are a lot of serious problems in education and I knew our union had the ability to address some of them. It finally hit me that NEA isn’t a magical they who know all the problems and how to fix them. We are our union. We need to step up and do our part to make things better.”

Board of Directors

Brooke Higginbotham

David Luera

Mary Daniel Montoya

David Morales

Mr. Morales is entering his fifteenth year as an educator. He teaches ENLACE at Mayfield High School and is also piloting a teacher coach position with the Las Cruces Public Schools.
Mr. Morales was selected the 2015 LCPS Teacher of the Year, the 2016 NM Teacher of the Year, and the 2017 NEA-NM Award for Teaching Excellence Recipient.
Mr. Morales was appointed the Executive Director of NEA-LC's Educator Leadership and Learning Lab (EL3). He is in his second year serving on the NEA-LC Board of Directors.

Delilah Morales

Matthew Reiter

Matt Reiter has been teaching elementary music for 19.5 years with LCPS. He spent his first two years splitting time between McArthur Elementary and Alameda Elementary. Matt was then assigned full time to Alameda Elementary and spent 16 wonderful years there. Today Matt is happy to be teaching at Sonoma Elementary. This is Matt’s 2nd year on the NEA-LC Board of Directors and has been a building Association Representative (AR) for four years. He likes to spend his free time at the gym, playing music with his band “The Chain”, and helping when ever possible with his wife’s theater company.