By Lynn Janes

The Silver City Consolidated Schools held a work session and regular meeting, on September 17, 2024. Members in attendance Ashley Montenegro, Michelle Diaz, Patrick Cohn, Mike McMillan and Kimberly Klement. Superintendent William Hawkins also attended.

Work session

Hawkins had a presentation for the board concerning the PSFA (public school facility authority) process. He said he would be doing this presentation many times over the next few years. He would be going over the whole process. He had submitted three letters of intent to the finance authority. The first one had been for Cliff schools in the amount of $45,855,464 for planning and design. The second letter had been for Harrison Schmidt Elementary HVAC system in the amount of $1,900,880. The third letter had been for fire and alarm systems in the amount of $680,462. This puts them on notice that the district will be presenting the plans, and it has to go through review with the finance authority. He listed several state organizations they would be working with, public school capital outlay oversight task force, public school capital outlay council and public school facilities authority.

The facility authority will come and visit each site, manage the projects and make sure the funds will be used for what they have been requested for. Hawkins went over the school rankings. Montenegro said she wanted to verify they are only eligible because of the general obligation (GO) bond passing of the 10 mill levy. Hawkins said yes and no. They would be eligible no matter what, but because of the mill levy passing they would be eligible for the higher match.

At this time, he called Mark Valenzuela, Bosque Advisors LLC, to answer any questions the board might have.

The district had met all the prerequisites for the application and award. They had to have a current facilities master plan, current preventative master plan, district use of facility information maintenance system and a facility maintenance assessment report. The district, using the funds from the awards will need to hire a project manager, construction manager and risk manager. The applications must be in by the end of September, and it would be 15-18 months before the projects could start.

Senate bill 131 had provided the higher match percentage. In the past it had been a 93 percent school and 7 percent state. This senate bill brought it up to 63 percent for the school and 37 percent for the state. This had been done because many districts could not afford the 93 percent, so the state had the funds and picked up more of the burden. It is set to expire in 2026. Hawkins said, "I will be engaging our local legislators and others around the state to extend the time and keep the same percentages or increase the percentage the state provides. I don't want it to be allowed to sunset."

Part of the facilities master plan would be to "right size" the school facilities. They currently could accommodate over 4,000 students but they only have a little over 2,000 students enrolled and have for some time. They will be putting a school consolidation taskforce together. The criteria for the task force will be district capacity, facilities and operations costs, impact on students and families, impact on academic achievement, state and federal funding losses and transportation. All will have to be considered over the next year. "I will be part of this conversation."

Hawkins asked the board to submit names for the taskforce. He suggested those that participated in the master plan would be ideal.

Diaz wanted to know if they consolidated would the classroom size remain the same. Hawkins said yes. Cohn said once it had been formed that transparency would be very important and they would need to conduct town hall meetings. Hawkins said he had intended on doing that at each campus. Diaz asked what kind of people he would be looking for to put on this taskforce. Hawkins said they had 40-50 that had been involved in the master plan and they all had been different kinds of people, and it would be a very good cross section. He would like to see students involved, administrators and anyone with a vested interest in the community. Ideally, he wanted 15-20 people on the taskforce.

Work session adjourned

Regular meeting started.

The board approved the previous meetings minutes and this agenda.

Bob Carson, Kiwanis, attended to present the student of the month awards.

Sophia Gonzalez, La Plata Middle School, had not been able to attend. Carson read the letter from her principal. The letter said she consistently embodies kindness and dedication. She has always been positive and a pleasure to have.

Jameson Runyan, Cliff High School, has always completed his projects and is  known for being hardworking and kind. He has been a positive influence on the other students and always enthusiastic about learning. He demonstrates good leadership.

Milo Brines, Silver High School, excels in his classes holding an A in all of them. He has been involved in many athletics. He sets goals and works hard to achieve them.

Dianne Carrico, president of SCEA (Silver City Education Association), attended to provide the board with a report. The union will be ready to set ground rules for bargaining. They will be looking for two people due to losing two people. She went over some of the things they would be working on.

Superintendents report

The school report this time would come from the student council at Silver High School.
Brock Anderson-Amaro, president and Ariel Alvarado, vice president, made the presentation. They want to be the voice for the students and be an outlet of support. They will do this by being available, open minded and charitable. The student council had made some changes this year. The student council would no longer be responsible for pep assemblies. The funds for the beginning of the year for the council had been $9,576.78. They went over the plans for the semester and fundraisers they would be having. Some new ideas they have include plans for a community closet to provide clothing to those in need and to help other clubs.

Hawkins addressed the Cliff baseball field he had spoken to the board about at the previous meeting. The baseball field encompasses 6.730 acres. Grant County will purchase it for $1. They already have plans for improvements. A title search had been done and no realtors had been involved and each paid for their own legal fees.

Hawkins has also brought a request for donation to the district for the parking lot in Cliff, but they have still been in the process of doing what they need to facilitate the transfer.

Louis Alvarez, associate superintendent, provided the board with a personnel report. Currently the district is staffed at 98.8 percent. He said they have two interviews coming up and have still been looking for coaches.

Cindy Barris, associate superintendent, had an enrollment update for the board. Enrollment came down 20 students. Some of the schools they had gained some students and some had lost some. She went over some of the changes with Silver Scholars.

Joyce Barela, mental health grant coordinator, had a report for the board. Since the beginning of the school year, they had 569 visits to the wellness rooms with 230 being different ones. La Plata Middle School has partnered with the Cook Center and has started a helping helpers help project. Because of this partnership many things they had to pay for last year the Cook Center would be paying for.

They also received a grant from McKinney Vento for $5,000 to purchase clothing, shoes and food. She explained this grant will be specifically for students without a fixed place to live.

Last year they had received 50 pairs of shoes through Soles for Souls and this year they would be receiving 100 pairs.

Barela had other updates. Because many people have expressed not knowing about the wellness rooms, they have purchased frames and will be putting notices in them and hang them on the bathroom walls to advertise the wellness rooms.

Hawkins said she has been working on other projects such as making the schools have a more comfortable setting and not look institutionalized. She will be starting with the lobbies and then the common spaces.

Finance sub committee

Montenegro said they had met the previous week and focused on the cash report. It was a new report they had not seen. A lot of things came to light looking at it. The district must be very careful due to the lack of funding. She pointed out this would be an election year, and they might have many new legislators. They needed to be armed with the information needed to speak to those legislators.

Audit committee didn't meet but will after the first of the year.

The threat assessment committee had not met. Hawkins said even though they didn't meet, they would if something should occur.

Montenegro said it had been a long month and thanked the community for voting for the general obligation bond (GO). "We could not have done it without your support." She acknowledged they had not done a good job letting the public know about the two questions. "We can get those funds on a future election." Many school events have been happening, and it all had been going well.

Diaz thanked everyone for jumping into the new school year. She thanked the administration for requiring accountability to the kids. They had a huge change in the communication with the parents. She mentioned being able to go to the parents website now and obtaining all the information on things happening in the district. The no -phone policy has been amazing, and she thought it had been accepted. She thanked all involved in the mental health grant. It had been important to make sure the kids would be taken care of head to toe. Diaz added a huge thank you for the support of the GO bond vote.

Cohn thanked all the voters for the support of the GO bond. He loved all the decorations in the board room for National Hispanic Month and thanked Marisol Delgado for decorating. He thanked Alvarez for all the things he had done and wished everyone a great school year.

McMillan thanked the voters that supported the bond. The innovation zone grant had been good for the community. In his office he said they had both Cobre High School and Silver High School students interning.

Klement thanked everyone for voting for the bond and Hawkins for his hard work presenting the information. She had thought a lot about engagement. It is not just about Facebook and spoke to how the community had shown up to vote. The teachers make the kids successful. "How do we get more engagement?" Klement complimented the kids that had done the presentation earlier. She knew it had been hard to do.

Action items

The board approved all requests made by Michelle McCain, finance director. She had checks totaling $1,753,732.59 and several budget adjustments. PED (public education department) had changed the unit value when they had done the budget. They came back and increased the unit value so the increase for the budget would be $493,095.16. She said it would help cover the holes caused by the lower unit value previously. They had received a grant of $12,787 to purchase local food for the lunches and breakfasts. Priscilla Lucero, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments executive director, and Representative Luis Terrazas had secured funds of $40,000 to purchase mats for the track and field at Cliff schools. Emmarie Flores had applied for a grant and received $20,000 and They had received the vaping lawsuit money of $10,149.06 and needed to reimburse the technology department for the detectors that they had purchased and put in the bathrooms at all the campuses. The last adjustment had to do with auctioning off obsolete items. In the past they had only been able to make $2,000 to $3,000 in a few years. This year Benjamin Potts, technology director, set them up on govdeals, an online auction website. They had made $41,764.63, which would be added to the operations budget.

The board approved the transfer of the Cliff baseball field to Grant County. Cohn abstained due to being an employee of Grant County.

The next meeting for the finance committee will be October 17, 2024
The next work session and regular meeting will be October 21, 2024

Montenegro spoke to board training and the changes that had been made. They need 5 hours. She suggested a board retreat that would facilitate some hours.

Adjourned