By Margaret Hopper
The Cobre meeting of March 10 was held at San Lorenzo Elementary Media Center with all board members present: Fran Kelly, Frank Gomez, Robert Montoya, Frank Cordova and board president Toy Sepulveda. The closed session began at 6:02 where Sepulveda said they discussed student identifiable information, hiring, financial concerns and limited personnel, but no decisions were made. The public portion began a little after 7:00 p.m.
San Lorenzo principal Chris Rottman introduced two elementary groups who showed the board what they were learning about states of matter in first grade, and older students who were drawing to scale. The first graders were Brody Richer, Emma Crisp, Audra Tovar and Trent Sedillo from Betty Tovar’s class.
Deane Alcorta’s fourth, fifth and sixth grade students, Lanye Sias, Isa Gavoldon, Amanda Hupp and Zane Lane, took the board and attending parents out to the greenhouse area where they explained how they had measured a pond, benches, the composting space, the floor of the greenhouse and by dividing by 10 or other numbers, made scale drawings of those areas. The math project will continue for some time, yet.
Regarding the composting project, students said they were using the decomposable parts of leftover foods from breakfast and lunch to rebuild soil. The compost enclosure had three bins. The first began the process, and once decomposition was underway, the matter was moved to the second space, where the action continued. When it looked ready to go into the third, finished, space, students sifted the results into the third bin. Anything that didn’t go through the sifter was returned to the second bin for further aging.
Back in the Media Center, the board listened to the reports on the agenda. There were no administrative actions to be taken, so the superintendent, Robert Mendoza, made his reports on the fundraisers student groups had requested. At Hurley Elementary, students were organizing a basket auction which they hoped would bring in enough money to give each teacher $100 for student activities and supplies.
The Psychology Club was planning a bake sale/burrito sale to raise another $1000 for the Hyde family which had lost its home a few months back. Fran Kelly asked if a special account had been set up for that work; the board was uncertain, but Rottman said he had heard this had been done, probably through either AmBank or Wells Fargo. The board said it would check further on that.
The Cobre High School Band planned to hold its annual dinner to raise funds for instrumental materials and supplies. It expected to raise $2000.
The board said Brad Holgrin, a senior, had been selected to receive the New Mexico School Board Association Student Achievement Award for the Cobre District. Also, on April 4, board members would be attending the national association’s convention in New Orleans and returning home on April 8. As the student representative was not present at this meeting, there was no student perspective report. The meeting adjourned at 7:30.