By Margaret Hopper

Silver District school board met at the Administrative Office on Tuesday, October 14, 2014. At the workshop period, board president Trent Petty opened the meeting at 5:04.
Board members present were Mike McMillan, Chris Arvidson, Arnold Torres and Petty.
Michelle Vasquez of CATS TV was present to video the meeting for presentation soon to local audiences.

Petty immediately called for a motion to go into closed session to get an audit exit report from Mike Stone of Stone McGee and Company, the local auditing firm. The board and Financial Director, Candy Milam, Superintendent Lon Streib and Stone all went into closed session for the next fifty minutes.

The public action session began at 6:06 when Petty called the meeting to order and said that no decisions had been made in that closed portion. By that time a larger number of citizens had come to attend the meeting. About 20 or more had signed in and the seats were mostly full.

After the usual minutes approvals of the past month and the agenda approval, the next part was the public comments section. Linda Pafford of San Lorenzo addressed the board to ask for a copy of the recent policy changes the board had made. Petty said that could be researched, and she would receive the information in the future. As no other person had signed a request to speak to the board, the comments period was declared ended.

Under SCEA, Silver City Education Association, James Sherwood, the new president of the union, talked with the board, saying that with 38 new employees, he would expect 10 to 15 new members for the union. Only five had signed up. Sherwood said a recurring question was whether they would be fired if they joined the union. He said he assured them that couldn't happen, but the fear was still there.

Sherwood told the board the union would continue to support teachers and try to get more of them signed up, but it was harder now. He pointed out that there were still three outstanding grievances to be resolved and that the union would continue to support, listen, bargain and represent as it had in the past. He said the board's recent efforts to listen and resolve issues had been great and he hoped that would continue. They should work together.

Streib informed the board that representatives of Literacy First had been at Silver all last week, meeting with each school and principal, going over where each school was in the process. The implementing teams were planning activities for the next work session that would address the differences in the schools and hopefully offer teachers new ideas for improved results in the future. Citing issues of Common Core, PARCC testing and other needs, teachers would soon have more options for motivating and problem solving with students.

He said there would be more student work out in the halls on display and he hoped more people would be visiting and encouraging what is being done. He hoped students would be more self-directed and involved in their own learning, for better-written papers and complex thinking skills, rather than so much teacher-directed effort. He noted that the computer department had also done a lot of work getting equipment in place for students. More was planned for La Plata, but a lot had been done recently. He hoped students would take pride in their work and be more comfortable with the new technology.

One patron had asked for bullying as a topic to be placed on the agenda. Streib said that the safety issues belonged to Gus Benakis, and he would be presenting the topic in November at Cliff, as the person seemed to want it there. At present Benakis was in Santa Fe addressing the teacher evaluation system to see if that could be improved. Benakis and some other administrators had been chosen to inform legislators of possible options to make it more workable in the state. Streib said he thought growth elements were being favored over benchmark mandates.

Also, there were four parts to the PARCC evaluations, and Silver would be assessing on what evaluators could see teachers doing and growth in the kids, regardless of what the state might decide later. Difficult formulas would not be in the local evaluations at this time. He hoped local teachers would not be too anxious; the state was still working on the problem, and there was much discussion at this time, so teachers should keep asking questions. Nothing was settled and things could change.

In Candy Milam's report, she said the district had eight new students this week. In the budget sessions Torres had attended and asked many good questions. Petty reported that he was still working with things he was hearing about people being let go in the district. Instead of three, it is technically six; not all of them union members. Also, he was hearing that 22 had left Stout. It was more like six. He further heard that it was not all about the so-called problems at Stout. There were other reasons, good ones, why people were moving around.

Arnold Torres asked permission to address the citizens present. He said for eight or nine months he had taken pot shots from people. Much of it was slander and harassment that was just crazy. He was a board member because he cared; he was accused of not caring. He wanted people to work the problems out, or simply do a recall, but they would find themselves in the same position; accused and their hands would be tied if they took these positions. He mentioned that the retirement parties for Pool and Vasquez had been costly, but no one had cared. Now, every expense was questioned. It had become a hostile environment, and it had come "from a lot of you".

In the consent agenda, Milam asked for approval of the September check total in the amount of $2,561,710.54. Donations had been given. The Moose Charity Fund gave $2500 to the Silver high football team; Richard Begley had donated to Sixth Street through Freeport's 2 for 1 match, and the amount became $680 in the end. Begley had also done this in the past two years. The Town and Country Garden Club had donated $500 to the Silver High Color Guard. The board approved the items reported.

Revisions in the 2014-2015 bus contracts were approved after Milam explained about the two new buses for Montoya, and that the state took care of the details; the district did nothing but the approval part.

Carl Levi asked to clarify the agenda request on bullying, which Streib said he was moving from the December agenda to November. Levi said he didn't understand the part about being in Cliff, and would rather have it moved back to the December agenda, where it would be presented here in Silver City. That was noted and agreed upon.

The meeting adjourned at 6:45 to go back into closed session to work again on the employee grievances remaining. Petty said there would be discussion but no actions taken in the closed portion.