By Lynn Janes

The Cobre Consolidated School Board held a regular meeting on November 17, 2025. Board members in attendance included Gabriella Begay, Gilbert Guadiana, Emmarie Heredia (online for a while), Agelina Hardin and Hector Carrillo. Interim Superintendent Randal Piper also attended.

Dottie Pfeifer with Kiwanis attended to present the student of the month awards. The students were chosen by the teachers at the high school and middle school.

Taylor McWhorter, Cobre High School, has true spirit of academic excellence, leadership and community service. She is involved in cheerleading, National Honor Society and many other volunteer activities. She will be earning an associates degree before graduating from high school. She always seeks new ways to make a positive impact and stands out as a role model.

Jeremiah Valenzuela, Snell Middle School, even though only a sixth grader always shows kindness, compassion and respect. He has been an exceptional student.

Damon Clearley, science teacher Snell Middle School, had a presentation for the board.

He has started a small business with the students doing 3D printing. It has taken awhile because it had turned out harder to do than he anticipated. They have a design team and production team. He listed the items they would be doing along with mugs, caps, sweaters and t-shirts. He hoped to have it all running by January. He said it has been a learning process for the students as well as himself. What Clearley wants to accomplish will be not to just teach academics but to teach real life productivity. The goal will be to have enough product so they can sell for the sports teams at the school. He had been able to do this with a $1,500 grant from Freeport McMoRan. This business will run as a nonprofit because everything made will go right back into the project.

Guadiana asked if they would have a web component so parents could purchase items. Clearley said eventually but would be starting with social media. Right now, they can't do any kind of large order so he will be steering away from a website at this time. Everything they put forth will be brought to the school board for approval. Guadiana asked how they would structure the store. Clearley will be the overall manager, but they will have departments and managers

The board approved the agenda with some changes. Legal counsel had asked that the executive session be moved to after public input. The board also removed history and status of board censures and board investigations within the past eight years discussion.

Taylor McWhorter, 2025-2026 student representative, had a report for the board. The main thing she had been hearing is a lot of complaints from staff and students about credit recovery. They're being taken out of class to recover their credits, but they're falling more and more behind in the class that they're being taken out of and that's a big concern. A lot of students have expressed that the school shows more pride in the appearance of the school, specifically like the outside, the tables, the sidewalk, and the dirt area. "I understand budget constraints and things like that, but a lot of students spend their lunch there, and they've just been bringing it up to me that they would like to see some changes." The students expressed disappointment about the Thanksgiving food baskets being moved to Easter. "Administration and I took the initiative to start Penny Wars, and I also started a raffle and got donations so that way we could help as many families as we could for Thanksgiving." Then they'll also have that extra help during Easter as well. McWhorter has heard a lot of complaints about communication issues between students, teachers and the administration. The new teachers have been doing great, and Ms. Jimenez has been doing great connecting with the students. "I would also like to talk about Fields of Flags. This year, we were the first ever school in the state of New Mexico to ever have Fields of Flags up."

Public input

George Esqueda said in regard to the agenda items being moved around would there be any way that those who had come to listen to the meeting could be notified when they come out of closed session. Begay said yes.

The board went into executive session to discuss with legal counsel the following items:
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.

The board came back into open session.

Some agenda items had to be rearranged due to Guadiana had not come back and the items had been put on the agenda by him.

The board tabled the reading of the policy revision for naming and renaming facilities. They had tried to mirror what Las Cruces had done but not to the full extent. They had received an email from Dr. Luis I. Quinones concerning that and some controversy that had arisen from it. Piper said maybe it could be combined into one, but it will be left up to the board to decide.

The board approved the minutes from two past meetings.

The board approved the bills. Begay said they had been discussed in the finance subcommittee meeting. They had a couple of new vendors

The board approved an RFP (request for proposal) for consulting services for the superintendent search. They had spread out the deadline due to the holidays. The deadline will be January 7, 2025. The RFP had been reviewed in the finance committee meeting. Questions came up to why it went to the finance committee and not the board, along with other questions that went on for some time.

Piper said that human resources would be willing to review proposals and help in that process. The board continued to go over the process when the proposals came back for the RFP.

The board approved the first quarter PED (public education department) report. Begay said this had been brought to the finance committee

The board approved the appointment of Carrillo to the finance committee. Gaudiana asked why this would be done now. Begay explained Hardin would be resigning so Carrillo had the opportunity to serve on a committee. Currently Hardin serves on both the finance and audit committee. Hardin did ask if she could attend as a guest and Piper said that would make a quorum so she could not.

New business

Guadiana wanted to review the salary schedules for teachers and how they have been calculated. Piper continued with a PowerPoint presentation lining out how the calculation of salaries happens. He reviewed the state statutes and showed the levels and minimums. The minimums for the levels started at $55,000, $65,000 and last level $75,000 set during the 2025 legislative session. The district has no control over the minimums. From there he explained the other factors that go into the salary amount. He moved on to the administration salaries and how that would be arrived at.

Guadiana's issue centered around the number of days used to come to the salary amount. Several different total days came up and why those numbers had been used. This discussion and disagreement went on for some time back and forth. The reason for the difference had to do with paid days off. Piper suggested that next budget time they would revisit this and right now it could not be changed. Gaudiana said this schedule had never been reviewed by the board nor approved.

Finanance committee report

Begay said they had met on November 12, 2025. They reviewed the check register and credit card statements. Frank Ryan, finance director, had presented the fund balance report for the committee. They also reviewed the budget status report and PED first quarter report and spent two hours on the documents.

Guadiana had some questions. He referred to an expense and wanted to know if the school had paid for it. He referred to a food bill at Hooters for crab legs. It had been on the credit card statement. He wanted to know how that excess amount had been approved. Ryan said when the teams travel, they have an allocated amount per student and if they exceed that amount it will come out of their activity fund.

Audit committee report

Piper said at this time the audit will still be confidential. The auditors did ask for some follow up information which had been provided. They had also asked Ryan for some clarification on some numbers that he provided.

Guadiana had a question concerning an email sent in February by the auditors saying they still had outstanding issues, and he wanted to know if those had been addressed. Piper said all of that information has been in the hands of the auditor and they have just been waiting for them to finish.

Board member reports.

Hardin wanted to congratulate the volleyball team. "They've been really great."

Begay echoed the congratulations to the volleyball team. She had attended a performance by the Central Elementary School with kindergarteners and some fourth and fifth grade students at the Fine Arts Theater. She has been invited to their literacy night, and she planned on attending. She thanked the staff for the weekly memos of events and information. She really liked the pictures from the Veterans Day programs. "Veterans are so important to me; both my grandfathers served."

Carrillo also echoed the congratulations to the volleyball team. He wanted to mention the upcoming "shop with a cop" event. Last year it had been a great success, and they already have $2,500 donated. It will benefit children in the mining district. Silver City has one of their own but come help as well as Bayard helps them with their "shop with a cop". They will be spending $130 per child, with which they buy shoes and clothes mostly. The child can pick a toy for $20-$25 with that.

Guadiana echoed the accolades for the volleyball team. He did have curiosity about the recovery of the football team for the next school year and a discussion about the safety of the players needed to be done at some point. "I am happy to see both bonds pass and grateful to the electorate for doing it." He hoped to see them have community meetings to determine priorities and seeing the availability of funds for the district.

Begay forgot to bring up one thing. Alma Grijalva, food service supervisor, had a press release for her to read. Silver City officials will be honoring both school districts and Frontier Food Hub for connecting students to locally grown food through the New Mexico Grow Program. It went over other programs they had been involved in and recognized by the state. The promoting of local foods and establishing a new hydroponic garden earned them a Team Blossom Award. Grijalva plans to build on that momentum. They have applied for a grant to purchase more hydroponic towers for every school. A garden will be built in Bayard and Frontier Food Hub will be offering more education.

Begay added that New Mexico Vistas had released their ratings and San Lorenzo Elementary and Hurley Elementary both will be spotlight schools.

Superintendent report

All of the schools had been accredited. They will be reviewing each school's rating separately. One main thing on the accreditation will be school board training. They now have an option for online training. They can purchase three levels of training packets. The lowest one will be $3,000 and called the bronze package. It provides five online courses and could help the board make sure they keep up to date with their training requirements and approved by the school board association.

The board discussed the difference in actual travel, hotels and registration for education to keep up the requirements. Begay said registration alone for one had been $3,700. Piper said it would be something for them to consider.

Piper had provided a list of the current fundraising events being done. "I'll tell you what, this community supports our kids unbelievably."

Meeting adjourned.