By Lynn Janes

The Silver City Consolidated Schools held a work session and regular meeting February 17, 2025. Members in attendance Ashley Montenegro, Michelle Diaz (came later in meeting), Patrick Cohn, Mike McMillan and Kimberly Klement. Superintendent William Hawkins also attended.

Work session

Hawkins had an update on the district and bonds. The district had just received approval to start the process, so he didn't have a lot to report. Instead, he talked about the process and what they had learned. He said the public school capital outlay council has been a hurry up and wait. He asked the board to keep in mind they would be contributing 37 percent of the projects but said Cliff Schools would be a higher percentage. He has been meeting weekly with their liaisons, Martin Vasquez with the public school capital outlay council (PSCOC).

Currently they don't have a project manager so Hawkins, Michelle McCain, finance director, Amanda Peterson, procurement officer, and a few others meet weekly. What they have submitted at this time has been Harrison Elementary, HVAC and roof, Cliff Schools design and La Plata Middle School fire alarm system. These had been submitted immediately after the bond election.

The district has to follow the process precisely and have everything approved with the PSCOC or funding will be cut off. They have to develop a scope of work, obtain quotes, reach out to vendors, develop agreements. He had a complete checklist the district has to follow. It has been a constant back and forth of documents and if anything is wrong it has to be sent back and corrected. Then resubmitted. Documents have to be submitted to different departments at PSCOC to be vetted. The process had been very frustrating to Hawkins and that had been why he and Vasquez started meeting weekly.

Hawkins continued the process with each project. He complimented Peterson for being very detailed and able to have patience with the process. A lot of documents being passed back and forth for little change requests from PSCOC. Hawkins did feel that they would be able to start construction at Cliff between January 2026 and June 2027.

Hawkins asked McCain if he had missed anything or overexaggerated. She remarked everything did need to be approved before they could move forward. Later they will have a project manager that can take some of this burden off.

Work session adjourned

Regular meeting started.

Information and presentations.

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

Nasiaah Cisneros, Cliff High School, has demonstrated incredible growth in both her academics and extracurricular activities making her a standout student and role model. She has balanced her studies while participating in cheer, yearbook and working part time. As a student she has been very well rounded.

Two other students had awards but had not been able to attend so they will be recognized at the next meeting. The students for next time will be Temperance Tempi Hostetler, La Plata Middle School, and Ivan Hernandez, Silver High School.

Azul Cano, Silver High School band teacher, came to recognize three students that had made the New Mexico All State band and choir members. Josiah Campos, Bailey Klement and Maxwell Johnson accepted the challenge and had been selected.

Cano said every year New Mexico Music Educators Association holds auditions for students across the state challenging them with advanced etudes, scales, and sight reading to earn a spot on the prestigious All State Music Ensembles. Many times, the auditions have been exceptionally demanding and more difficult than the students have been used to. Campos had been the number one overall tenor voice. Bailey Klement achieved number two ranking as a clarinetist. Johnson had place number four overall as a tuba player.

Once selected the students travel to the University of New Mexico to rehearse seven hours a day for three days. On the fourth day they preformed at the All State concert.

Dianne Carrico, president of SCEA (Silver City Education Association), didn't have anything to report.

Information to the board

Two Silver High School student body members Mirna El Hosary and Malak El Hosary had a presentation for the board. The presentation had to do with the student council and what they have been doing. The student council has been about giving the students a voice and outlet of support. They had recently had the Winter Ball. Leading up to the ball they had spirit week that include something every day for a week. One day they all dress up in their favorite pajamas, another day had been favorite jersey, another day had been tacky tourist destination clothing, celebrate your cultural heritage and pink or red for Valentines Day.

Last semester the students had done care packages for Fort Bayard Veterans and residents. They provided them with blankets, toiletries, socks and gloves. The students had been grateful for the opportunity to serve the community. For this semester the students have a number of plans for fundraisers and supporting other groups.

Hawkins had a legislative update for the board. They had taken a group of 12 students to the legislature to participate in Grant County Days. The students had been chosen from Cliff, Silver High School and La Plata Middle School to represent Grant County and learn more about the process. "I tell you the students did a great job." Throughout the day they had opportunities to share their thoughts. He commented Brenan Shock had not been shy and shared his thoughts clearly and articulately.

Hawkins went over how the bills would be presented and moved through the process. He mentioned House Bill 63, public school funding formula change, House Bill 64 for secondary tuition, House Bill 71, childhood education, House Bill 156, educational salaries, House Bill 157, new school licenses and House Bill 193 study for public education.

One of interest to Hawkins had been House Bill 201, public school employee minimum wage adjustments. Three bills he has been watching. Senate Bill 133 would allow retired educators to come back in. It has been a struggle to keep positions filled and would be beneficial. Senate Bill 242 and 235 had been the other two Hawkins has been watching. The bills had to do with advancing the science of reading. He talked about structured literacy and balanced literacy and it being two schools of thought and how you approach teaching the elements of reading. He believed in structured literacy. "I think we can't leave our students to wander through the natural occurrence of reading." He had concerns on some of the elements of the bills. As an English teacher he felt he could speak more eloquently on structured literacy and balanced literacy.

He and the superintendent's group will be one hundred percent behind the math and literacy bill but have been waiting for more information.

Diaz asked if the district would be funded for the increase in wages. Hawkins didn't know but thought the intent would be to fund it. They went over the increases and how it would look by the way it had been written.

McMillan wanted to make a few comments. He wanted everyone to know that Hawkins had set up additional meetings for the students taken to Grant County Days.

Cohn wanted to address the bill on electric buses. Hawkins said he didn't have any expertise on the bill, but it would be hard for rural communities. Cohn wanted to know if they would have a choice to choose gas or electric. Hawkins said many of the school superintendents in the rural areas had concerns and didn't have the infrastructure for electric buses. He added that part of the requirement for new school construction would be electric charging stations. They discussed also the cost of those electric buses and the fact they could purchase two or three diesel buses for the same price. Cohn said oil and gas has saved education around the state.

Hawkins said every year the board has been presented an agreement with Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments. Hawkins said they have been phenomenal at helping with finding funding for projects. Priscilla Lucero, executive director, has helped with grant writing opportunities, support and advocation at the state level. She helps with the capital outlay request and has been invaluable. Montenegro said they would take action later in the meeting.

Louis Alvarez, associate superintendent, provided the board with a personnel report. Currently the district is staffed at 97.5 percent. He hoped the bill would pass to allow retired teachers to return. Since the report he had filled two positions and working on another one.

Cindy Barris, associate superintendent, had not attended. Montenegro said they had received all the documents on enrollment.

Joyce Barela, mental health grant coordinator, had a report for the board. They have now had 2,440 visits to the wellness rooms. Bullying incidents had gone down according to the data and disruptive behaviors had also dropped significantly.

Barela addressed truancy which had increased. A lot of students had missed ten or more days. They have 87 students that have missed 25 or more days.

The data showed an increase in drug incidents by three incidents. Last year it had been 13 and this year 16. She attributed it to marijuana vaping. She continued with some other data.

One of the initiatives they had wanted to start had been a support group for dads. They had a meeting and only one dad showed up. They do have another meeting scheduled and hoped to recruit more dads.

They will be partnering with the public education department family engagement team to provide kin raising kids session. Sixteen family members have registered. It will be an introductory session the first time and will see what their needs would be.

Montenegro asked if they would be offering virtual attendance and Barela said not at first but might later. McMillan said the good work done at this district had been noticed by the people in Santa Fe. Cohn said he had received compliments on the wellness program at the district. "We are becoming a model school for mental health." He thanked Barela for all her efforts. Kim Klement thanked her for all her hard work.

Barela said when she started it had been hard to imagine what a wellness room would look like, but she and Barris had traveled to California to see what they had done, and it made all the difference.

Kim Klement had a question. She had seen some information in the data. She asked why Cliff had such a high visit rate. Barela said they had been broader based with the students. They do a lot of things in the wellness rooms. They use it for group meetings, and some eat their breakfast or lunch there.

A conversation about funding started and the fact they would not always have it. Hawkings said they have been transitioning to billing Medicaid to replace that funding.

Montenegro said the finance subcommittee had met and talked about a few things. The mental health grant comes from the federal government. They had some concern about that funding being paused. McCain will be requesting a draw down on those funds for current contracts so that will be covered. The funding has been done annually and uses the calendar year. It will be covered through the end of the year. All contracted employees will be covered through August. They talked about board travel and the difference of flying and car travel. Montenegro said they had a presentation she would share.

Audit sub committee

Montenegro said they would not be meeting as the audit had been finished.

Threat assessment committee

McMillan said they had met, and he had not attended and deferred to Alvarez to summarize. Alvarez said they had the vulnerability study done that he had spoken about at the last meeting. They had been debriefed, and he could not share all of it. The study had been done at the middle school and high school. They had 84 different categories to look at and see if they had met the requirements and had only missed 12 on one category and 14 on another. The schools had done really well and some of those things could not be fixed. He gave an example of a 70-foot requirement of not being able to park a vehicle. These building had been built long ago, and those types of things had not been requirements.

Three more security guards have passed their qualifications and now just have the physical test. Once that has been passed every guard will be armed. They had also discussed how they could do better for threat assessment.

Montenegro wanted to know if Cliff would have a vulnerability study done. Alvarez said because of time constraints they had picked the two largest campuses but down the road would. He added that the study required that an unknown person try to come into the school without permission. They all had been caught in a very short period of time. Compared to other schools Silver took minutes and others had taken hours.

Hawkins wanted to add they had gone through the process of forming the armed guards. It had been a very extensive process in training to be able to qualify. He had been addressing the questions about why the guards had not been immediately armed. The guards have to meet all the requirements, and he thanked Alvarez for all the extra time it has taken to coordinate the training to meet those requirements and stay compliant with the state statues.

Board president

Montenegro addressed the NMSBA (New Mexico School Board Association) in student achievement awards. Every year the association pays for the district to nominate someone. The district can nominate more but must pay for the award. Hawkins had asked all the campuses for nominations. The names had been provided to the board. They will be taking action later in the meeting. If they chose to award more than one, it would cost the district $25 each. Four names had been nominated.

The board did the second reading for the wellness policy update. They will take action on the policies later in the meeting.

Montenegro said McCain had brought up travel rates for staff and students. Nothing in the policy lays out how much can be spent on hotel rooms. They had a few scenarios that brought their attention to this. When the teachers had already booked to go to Atlanta and paid the nonrefundable registration fees, they found out it was a holiday, and the motel rooms had been very expensive. The policy needed to be changed to handle this kind of situation in the future.

Board comments

Montenegro thanked Lisa Lucero, administrative assistant, for always having dinner for them and the decorations for the board room. She also thanked her for always making sure they have been lined up for travel. "I know it is a lot of work, so I thank you very very much."

Montenegro said they had traveled to Santa Fe to meet with the legislators and hear about the education bills. They had also been able to attend classes and obtain continuing education requirements as board members. She commented that this district has not been the only one that feels like the PSCOC system has been difficult. "Without Hawkins guidance and leadership, we would not have been able to get here."

Someone had asked why it had to be 10 mills. Montenegro said the legislators have introduced legislation to bring it down to 8 mills.

Montenegro said she and Kim Klement had attended almost every class together. She commented how it had helped her be sharper and ask more questions.

Diaz apologized for being late and had been taking care of some daytime obligations. She thanked Lucero for dinner.

"I am going to say something that's just a little offshoot from actual education and want to be clear this is not politically driven. It's really important." She alluded to the movement of people refusing to have the covid and flu vaccine. It became much more than a public health issue. "People need to take a step back and realize when we say we don't want vaccines that really should not apply to the traditional vaccine pediatric schedule we have out there. I am sure everybody is hearing about measles outbreaks and potentially polio coming back. These are not theorized scenarios. They are impacting our population from a public health perspective." She had been wearing a mask and said she had to keep everyone safe because she had a cold. She thought people made informed decisions about their health, but it would be important to take a step back and look at the data and realize these have all been lumped in together. No matter what a person's perspective would be on the flu or covid vaccines which she has been a clear proponent of and promoted. She asked that people not have a blanket statement that applies to all vaccines. "Now we will see more and more people unvaccinated and will see disease come back. We have had an uptick of flu B and have seen more patients suffering from being deaf. It is things we have not seen in a long time because of vaccines to prevent it." She continued on by saying people had vaccine fatigue at this point and have been tired of hearing even the world covid. "There is a lot of data to support the traditional vaccine pediatric schedule."

She had not been able to attend the training and thanked her colleagues for attending.

Cohn thanked Lucero for dinner and all she does for the board and called her the school board mama. He had also traveled to Santa Fe for the legislature and school board training. "It feels good to hear the nice comments about Mrs. Barela and the mental health program. We are being a model district to other schools."

McMillan thanked Lucero for dinner. He reminded everyone the legislature would be in session for another 30 days. He said they had made some good connections in Santa Fe when they had all been up there for the legislature earlier. He thanked Hawkins for bringing the students up to experience the process and represent the district. He had not been able to attend the training but had attended Grant County Days. McMillan had some questions from others on how they have been able to have the board work so cohesively.

McMillan brought up the annual cake auction in Cliff and said it had raised $30,000. He thanked everyone that had supported the event.

Kim Klement thanked Lucero for taking care of them. "I am sure it is a bigger job than we realize." She spoke to the training sessions at the school board association and thanked Montenegro for answering all her questions. It had been an insightful experience. She encouraged people to contact their legislators because of all the bills that impact education. They can also go to NMlegis.gov website and follow all the bills. Prom and SAT tests will be around the corner. She wanted to give a special shout out to Hawkins for all the different directions he has to go with all the events happening.

Action items

Michele McCain, director of finance, went over her requests. The board approved all requests made by McCain. She had checks totaling $3,287,681.82, two budget adjustments and donations.

Elks Lodge - SHS Teacher Appreciation $500
GC Farm & Livestock Bureau - SHS FFA Jackets $500
Sharon Houghton - Cliff Cake Auction $600
Morales 4 NM - SHS Lady Colts Basketball Banner in Gym $1000
Gene Watson - Cliff Cake Auction $1,000
James & Robin Gierhart - Cliff Cake Auction $1,125
Gila Valley Electric - Cliff Cake Auction $1,500
Tyson Looney DBA TL Enterprise - Cliff Cake Auction $1,500
Bradberry Vets, LLC - Cliff Cake Auction $1,700
Dean Bearup - Cliff Cake Auction $1,960
Bald Knoll Properties, LLC - Cliff Cake Auction $2,000
Action Realty/Dale Spurgeon - Cliff Cake Auction $2,200
Amplified Therapy - Cliff Cake Auction $2,500
T.G. McCauley, Inc. - Cliff Cake Auction $2,500
Beau & Autumn Bruton - Cliff Cake Auction $4,550

Antonio Andazola, transportation and maintenance director, did not have a report.

The board approved all four nominations for the student achievement award. All had come from different campuses.

The board approved the second reading of the Silver Consolidated updated wellness policy.

The board approved the agreement and resolution between the Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments and Silver Schools. McMillan said the $452 has been the best return on investment.

The next meeting for the finance committee will be March 13, 2025
The next work session and regular meeting will be March 31, 2025

The board went into executive session to discuss the superintendent's contract.

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

The board approved a $5,000 payment to Hawkins and said it would be for overload compensation, excess duties and services.

Adjourned