By Lynn Janes

The Cobre Consolidated School Board held a regular meeting on October 20, 2025. Board members in attendance included Gilbert Guadiana, Angelina Hardin and Hector Carrillo. Interim Superintendent Randal Piper also attended online. Emmarie Heredia did not attend until later in the meeting. Gabriella Begay did not attend. Hardin opened the meeting and chaired until Heredia came.

Craig Pfeifer, Kiwanis, attended to present the student of the month awards.

Noah Huerta, Snell Middle School, always has his assignments done, is respectful and responsible. He helps his peers and asks questions, a great example for a leader.

Mateo Salcido, Cobre High School has an outstanding academic achievement with a 4.256 GPA. He demonstrates dedication, discipline and has been a valued member of the school band. Also, he has completed over 30 hours of dual credit classes.

Guadiana wanted to add that Mateo Salcido had attended the National History Day (NHD) competition in Washington DC last summer. They had focused on the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant and efforts of Reies Tijerina to secure it. "Job well done and our state was well represented."

The board approved the agenda with the removal of the second executive session. Guadian had a concern over the evaluation of the superintendent. They did not receive a standard format but would like to meet at another time to discuss things more relevant to the board for that evaluation to include things identified in the special audit that need to be included.

Student representative

Taylor McWhorter said "I am the CHS student representative for 2025-2026 school year. The first thing that I want to mention is a thank you to Ms. Herrera for throwing an amazing homecoming and Mrs. Provencio for also having a homecoming week and a Cobre Silver week, an amazing week for everyone and getting everybody involved and showing off school spirit. I myself would like to congratulate all of the new NHS (national honor society) inductees." She said it had been a true honor to be part of NHS and takes a lot of courage. This subject had been brought up before, but the students would like to have a security guard.

Heredia came in and took conducting the meeting over.

Public comment

Heredia read the full list of rules to provide public comment.

Dr. Luis I. Quinones had come to speak on adding the name of Abe Armendariz to the stadium and would be representing a group of former baseball players from Cobre. He went over some of his history with the district and memories. Armendarez had been a former teacher and coach at Cobre and had left a legacy that started in 1967. Up to that time, Cobre High School had never won a district championship and then state. Through the years many other titles and championships had been won under his leadership. Quinones had a newsletter to present to the board that had a list of names of former players in support of this proposal. The committee will be ready to respond to any needs for raising necessary funds for any expenses.

David Ronquillo, also a former player that graduated in 1975 from Cobre High School thanked the board for everything they have done for the community. He knew the board had heard a number of people speak on this proposal and he hoped they have not tired of them. "We are not here advocating to change the baseball field name but to compliment Howie Morales." Both men led in the baseball field, state and district championships. What he also thought important had been what both of them had accomplished off the field and listed those for each one. Armendariz also became a mentor of Morales in his early life.

Guadiana said the board has taken direction of following through and putting together a policy on naming buildings. That process will need to be gone through, and public input would have to take place. The board would let them know but appreciated what they have been doing.

New business

Veronica Garcia, Comprehensive Consulting Services, LLC, joined online to provide a presentation and a packet of information to the board. The proposal she would present on will be about the superintendent search. She went over her presentation.

Guadiana said they had not discussed going out for applications, but it would be the responsible thing to have an open invitation for people to provide proposals. This does not meet the requirement for an RFP (request for proposal), but they would be responsible for ensuring that they pay a reasonable cost for services. It had not been done last time due to the urgency to find an interim superintendent. Now they have a little more time to do this methodically.

The board discussed if they would need to hire someone or do it themselves. This discussion went on for some time and both will be considered.

Kevin Gutierrez, SFE (Southwest Food Service Excellence), joined online to provide a presentation to the board. The company had been around for eleven years and partnered with eleven districts. His family came from Cobre and came from Silver City area. Andres Montoya, director of business development, spoke to partnering with them on food service. He had provided a power point presentation showing the many elements of partnering with a food service management company. "We are a food first focused company." They provide students with scratch made meals and food familiar and delicious to them. In New Mexico each district will be different and create custom programs for every school.

SFE has 300 districts across the country and the menus in each one differ. They have been the first company to introduce food trucks and food trailers with touchless payment, grab and go and online menus. Every year they add 30-40 new districts. Because of this they will be very mindful of how much of a change this would be for the employees. "We are sensitive and empathetic to the needs of each employee." The majority of their districts have been in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. "Our goal is to get kids excited about eating school lunch each and every day and keeping them nourished." Montoya continued for some time explaining the service.

They will ensure that they run a financially responsible program. In many cases they have been able to save districts money. He went over how much or how little things could change from the current program. Employees could be kept as employees of Cobre or become employees of SFE. If they become employees of SFE they will keep their same pay with a three percent increase. They will want to provide them with training, so they have opportunities for advancement.

The national school lunch program comes with hundreds of pages of regulations. Every year they have an audit by the state and national level that require a paper trail for every ingredient used. SFE will take the precautions and measures to make sure the district will be audit ready. The partnership will come with registered dietitians. This ensures that students with health concerns will be taken care of. The dietitians provide education to not only students but also parents.

Weekly they connect with the students to see what they want to see on the menu and add that down the line to available items. "It gets the students involved and excited." He provided examples of how they entice more involvement in the choosing of the menus and had many photos he showed the board. SFE would want to provide catering for special events and help with fundraisers.

The district will have to put out an RFP if they decide they want to move in this direction. The district will have the opportunity to shape the terms of the service. It could include the component of the employees and how that would be handled. Montoya went over some other components they would need to consider in the RFP.

SFE has recently taken on the food service program in the Silver Consolidated School District. They also provide service to Lordsburg, Hatch and Truth or Consequences.

Carrillo said they had received an email from Alma Grijalva, food service director, and an email from Michael Chavez, New Mexico Department of Education. Grijalva wanted to remind the board that the district had hired both SFE and Summit foods at one time and neither of them had been successful.

Gutierrez said they had been there about eleven years ago, and they had some hurdles back then. He felt if they had the support of the community and district they could do well. Montoya said he had not been around then but looked back to see what happened. He had found leadership changes and not having the district's support. The leadership needs to buy in. Some schools become complacent and comfortable with cooking and baking frozen and premade items. "To be very honest there will be some growing pains because our goal is to switch to cooking from scratch." He added that they have redone their process for transitions. He encouraged them to speak to Silver to find out how smooth the transition had been.

Carrillo asked Piper if he knew why they had received this presentation and if they have some issues. Piper said Begay had asked for the presentation because it has been working well for the Silver Schools.

Charlene Fletcher, executive secretary/board secretary, spoke to the policy for adding/changing names on district buildings, fields etc. She had found a policy from another school and rewrote it for Cobre. She had provided a draft to the board to review and make changes and then she also posted it on the website for community input. At this time, she had not had any input. They discussed other places they could use to make the public aware of the proposed changes and have a work session. They will have to have public input and then do readings of the policy.

The board discussed the filling of the superintendent's vacancy including conducting a search process and timeline. Piper said the one thing they must consider is that the state has a timeline that must be followed. Nothing can happen during the time of an election and 60 days after that election when board positions will be open on the ballot. It can be discussed but no action taken in that time in regard to the superintendents contract.

Action items

The board approved the minutes from several meetings.

The board approved the bills. Frank Ryan, finance director, said Patricia de Naranjo had attended the meeting. Hardin said Ryan had provided very detailed answers to their questions and details on the credit card bills.

The board approved the initial budget for disciplinary literacy model and support. Ryan said the district had received $50,000, which will be used for professional development, supplies and materials. This had been a new competitive grant they applied for and had success.

Hardin and Begay will remain appointed to the finance committee.

Finance committee had already been discussed earlier

Audit committee

Heredia had not attended the last one but in September they had been talking about the progression of the special audit and the phase one and two of the process.

Guadiana wanted to know if the 2023 audit had been submitted. Ryan said it had been submitted, and they will be waiting for the report.

Carrillo asked if Priscilla Lucero, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments, had been able to contact Piper. He said the Department of Finance and Administration had released the funds and Lucero's department will be the fiscal agent. Piper said that was not on the agenda and they could not discuss that. Carrillo thought that had been part of the audit and it had not.

Board member reports

Carrillo said this would be his second meeting and it was  an honor to be there. He has just been asking questions. He asked them to bear with him while he played catch up. He has enjoyed the relationships he has been building with the board, Piper and staff. In the past he has had a law enforcement relationship from the outside and now will have one from the inside.

Hardin congratulated all of the inductees to the National Honor Society and named all of them. "It is really awesome to see these kids grow up and just to have them in that Honor Society, and I hope that the board can bring them in and introduce them to the public."

Heredia wanted to echo what she had said and welcomed Carrillo. She congratulated the student representative for being inducted into the National Honor Society and all the others as well. The homecoming had been a huge success and takes a lot of people to make the event happen and thanked them all for helping out.

Guadiana spoke to the golf tournaments and how well Cobre had done. He talked about some other sports events but had concern over the football team because of injuries.

Superintendent's report

Piper had an update on the capital assets. He has had a team working on this report that has become a requirement of the state. They should be done soon and will have a complete list. Any equipment valued at $1,000 and above must be on the list. If they have depreciated out that will be noted.

Piper addressed the audit submission. All information requested by the auditors for the years 2022 and 2023 have been submitted to them.

The Cobre Band will be performing in Rio Rancho. Not many small schools compete in the competition.

Piper had joined online due to being in Albuquerque for the legislation education committee and finance committee. He said a lot of interesting things had come forward and he would update the board the next day when he knew more. Some of the main conversations have been about transportation and special education.

Piper said they had a stack of fundraisers going on and had provided the board with a list.

The board went into executive session to discuss pending litigation. They would be discussing current legal actions and advice of legal counsel for Annette Acosta v. Cobre Consolidated School District Board of Education (CCSDBE), Cecilia Barela v. CCSDBE, Melissa Maynes v. CCSDBE, Daena Davis v. CCSDBE and Maureen Peru v. CCSDBE, Uresti v. CCSDBE. They will also be discussing the interim superintendent's performance.

The board came back into open session and affirmed no action had taken place and discussion had been limited to the items listed on the agenda.

All action items listed after the closed session would have no action but would be discussed in a work session. All had to do with the interim superintendent, but no personnel information would be discussed just the documents used to prepare the evaluation.

Meeting adjourned.