By Lynn Janes

The Cobre Consolidated School Board held a regular meeting on September 9, 2024. Board members in attendance included Gilbert Guadiana, David Terrazas (phone), Angelina Hardin, and Emmarie Heredia. Superintendent Michael Koury also attended. Gabriella Begay didn't attend.

Administration – principal – directors' reports

Suzanne Chavira, director of academics, had a report for the board that would be focused on some of the strategic goals. One of the goals had been to increase student achievement by the 2024/2025 school year. Another one would be to create partnerships with local businesses and organizations. They had started an afterschool program at all the schools except the high school. They had partnered with Steaming Ahead a local organization and Stem Outreach from New Mexico State University (NMSU).

Maria Elena Garcia from Steaming Ahead addressed the board. They want to expand the opportunities in the schools and had written a grant that they had received for Cobre Consolidated Schools. Felicia Abeyta said they wanted to provide the same opportunities that the big city kids had. Laura Martinez from NMSU Stem Outreach had attended and spoke to the board. The grant received by Steam Ahead had been $157,236.67. Of that $62,116.66 of it had been spent on student equipment, supplies, coding kits and drones. Salaries for staff and teachers to fund the after school projects came to $18,640.01. The remaining funds of $26,480.00 will go for professional development and $50,000 for curriculum and program development.

They provided photos of some of the events they had done during the past year and how many students had benefited from the after school programs. Some of the programs included Lego robotics and social emotional. A presenter came to do a demonstration with large drones he used in his job with the Forest Service. Two hundred children had benefited from the program last year and Chavira said she hoped they could have more this year.

Shane Stephens has been working with both school districts to provide job internships for the senior students. The schools have used part of the innovation zones grant money to support the program. Stephens said, "I am excited to do this work, and it provides a lot of opportunities." The kids will be receiving real work experience and skills with the internships. He works with each student to find an internship that meets their goals and interests. Some of the businesses they have already worked with, and some will be new to the program. The funding they have available for the program will be $150,000 and that will facilitate approximately 30 students to work 10 hours a week at $12 an hour.

Some of the jobs will be inhouse, welding, carpentry, etc. Each will be unique to that student and their goals. Stephens said he had great responses to the program from the community. The city of Bayard will be participating along with Southwest Bone and Joint to name a few. Last year he had a student that wanted to be a Realtor, and they did an internship with Beter Homes and Gardens and now they have a real estate license and started working with them this year. They have a student interested in veterinarian care and they will be working with Arenas Valley Animal Clinic. He hoped to have all students placed by October 1, 2024. Currently they have 22 signed up and 50 businesses that will participate.

Theresa Villa, coordinator of family engagement, went over her strategic goals and where they were with those goals. One of the goals had been to enhance and increase parent involvement. Villa had collaborated with other districts, businesses, The Commons and Healthy Kids. They had been able to start the parent center and provide resources, food, clothing, hygiene products, classes and laundry facilities. She didn't have any baseline data since this had been the first year. She added that they will be increasing classes for parents in the future.

Villa said the program had seen an increase in participation in events and use of resources since they started. Summerfest had increased significantly. During Summerfest, 60,000 pounds of food had been given out. Several barbers had offered free haircuts during the event and always had someone in the chair getting  their hair cut all day.

The new director of operations that took over for Lisa Walton gave a presentation to the board along with his assistant Jasmine Black. Black said the PSFA (public school facilities authority) reports  had been sent out. Central Elementary and Hurley Elementary had minimal deficiencies and they had provided work orders to address them. While the inspectors had been there, they commented on how clean all the schools had been. The state fire marshal would be coming to do inspections again. Last year Snell Middle school had 44 corrections that needed to be made. They had addressed 38 of them and the 7 remaining have been corrected. The administration building had 38 and 28 had been corrected and the remaining had been done. Gary Placencio, director of operations, said when they had gone through the high school, he had called the maintenance department and made the corrections on the spot. The bigger issues would have to be done later.

Guadiana asked if they had done a maintenance schedule. Placencio said not at this time but will be working on it. He said his staff has been on board and they will have everything fixed. He wanted to have all the maintenance employees trained fully so they could bring students in for internships.

Guadiana wanted to know if they had any security concerns. Black said she knew that had been part of the strategic goals and has been working on a checklist for all the schools to evaluate their needs. She thought the first draft would be done by November 1, 2024. They had received a grant for $500,000 to address security concerns last year and have applied for that grant again to expand further.

Placencio said they had met with the new fire chief for Bayard, and he did a walkthrough of Snell Middle School and the high school. He will be working with the state marshal.

Cory Gropp, Cobre High School principal, had a report for the board and provided them with the current testing data. He went over all the numbers and percentages and showed the percentages had jumped significantly. He said he had shared the data with the students from the previous year, and it had helped create some competition. Gropp said, "I am happy with the numbers but need to increase them more. We have awesome kids." He added they had only one cell phone write up this year so far.

Action items

The board approved the minutes from August 26, 2024

The board approved the bills for payment. Terrazas said when the finance committee met all  were in line and any questions had been answered by Frank Ryan, finance director.

The board approved the operational budget increase. Ryan said that PED (public education department) had increased their unit value and that increased the budget by $269,753.00. They will be applying these funds to previously shorted budget items and went over those items with the board. Terrazas said they had addressed this in the finance committee meeting.

The board approved the initial budget for IDEA-B entitlement. Ryan said in the initial budget they didn't have the numbers from PED. They now have them, and the budget item will be $808,952.00. This will be for special education, contract services, professional development, supplies, material and special education buses.

The board approved the initial budget for IDEA B preschool. Ryan said in the initial budget they didn't have the numbers from PED. They now have those numbers, and it will be $22,277.00 and it would cover half the cost of an instructional aide.

The board approved the initial budget for New Mexico fresh fruits and vegetables. They had received $8,871.00 to purchase locally grown produce.

Old business

The board discussed the updates on the high school and middle school replacement building. Koury said he had put this on the agenda because of the request from Guadiana. He had wanted to know the difference on the general obligation bond and tech bonds. The tech bonds cannot be used on the building, they can only be used for technology items. Ryan pointed out that Cobre still owes on a 2017 bond and will be paying until 2032 and they still owe on a bond from 2019 and will be paying until 2034. In 2025 they will have to issue more bonds and will be asking the voters to approve to fund the design of the project. They talked about a special election and Koury said last time they did a special election it had cost the district $25,000 and it didn't pass. They can do bond elections on the odd years at no cost to the district. Guadiana asked if that meant they would be on hold until the 2025 election and Koury said yes.

For the finance committee report Terrazas said he had previously gone over what they had addressed.

Guadiana said they had an audit committee meeting and would be having another one that week. They discussed the special audit and annual audits and said he hoped to have them public soon.

Board member reports.

Hardin said she wished more community members would be involved and thanked the people that had come.

Heredia agreed with Hardin. She thanked Gropp on the increased numbers and said they had great teachers. She congratulated all the sports that had won.

Terrazas said all the presenters for the meeting had been very positive and it had been great to hear.

Guadiana commented on the motivation and enthusiasm Gropp brought and the improvements were noteworthy.

Superintendent's report.

Koury said he didn't have anything to report in open session but would bring it forward in the executive session.

The board went into executive session. They would be discussing the special audit and personnel matters.

The board came back into open session and said no actions had taken place.

Meeting adjourned.