By Margaret Hopper

Silver Consolidated School Board met at the district office on Tuesday, December 16, 2014. The work session began at 5:06 p.m. and lasted to nearly 5:45, when it adjourned for a break prior to starting the action session at 6:00 p.m. All board members were present.

Bianca Padillo and Tim Madrid addressed the board about the Truancy Prevention Program, which had had some changes made to its policies. Padillo and Madrid explained where the differences were and said the school could now use a form letter they were developing for referrals if truancies went past the initial intervention stages. Out of 164 referrals, 20 students had been placed on active contracts. The differences between parents and guardians were significant and spelled out in the update.

Padilla said students must be actively taught during school ages, and where suspensions were needed, the JPO department was holding school for a dozen or more students on a regular basis. Silver teachers were helping students catch up, too. The program leaders had learned they couldn't expect parents to teach the children during suspensions, and private school didn't seem to be an option, so there were fewer expulsions, now. Students were learning at better rates, it appeared, on the program. She gave student statistics and contact hours.

Wayne Mendonca, La Plata principal, spoke on the much improved computer ratio at middle school and the extra requirements of special needs students in testing situations.

In the 6:00 session, there were no public comments offered. Mike Stone of Stone McGee & Company gave the audit results for the year 2013-2014. He said the figures were solid ones needing no adjusting, and the work was unmodified. Under comments, Stone said the reserves were down from the usual four or five percent to one and a half percent, caused by two issues, it appeared. First, the pressure to upgrade technology had caused additional expenses, and the excessive use of credit cards, second, was causing accounting to lag. He said he thought Silver was addressing these things, now.

Other items to be improved included some form I-9s in the files, some listing of bids, board minutes had weak areas, and some salary schedule changes made problems. When things once approved were adjusted, they needed to be reapproved for the record. These were small needs. But there were too many credit cards being used in travel situations and those should be reduced and brought under control, as they presented serious risks; the accounting department couldn't manage them all. Other than that, Stone said he hoped the board would approve the audit report. It was good and he wanted to see it finished.

Gus Benakis, assistant superintendent, Beth Lougee, high school principal, and Louis Alvarez, assistant middle school principal, brought the board updates on how they were handling bullying. While the public perception is that "nothing is being done," each told what changes had been made and assured the board that the community needed to be aware of present improvements. Lougee spoke of a student survey which gave percentages of reduced bullying, which implied students saw improvements. She also had staff covering large areas of campus during the four-minute passing periods and before and after school. Some re-education was aimed at showing students how to handle negative behavior before it became full-blown bullying. Complaints were documented, studied and interventions executed. Teachers and staff were given more training, and action was stepped up on students who showed a pattern of negative involvement, as opposed to those with occasional lapses.

Alvarez said middle schools everywhere were overwhelmed with bullying behaviors, partly because of the age difference. The younger kids were moving into a place of increasing social interactions without the experience to handle the offenses they imagined, and many of their reactions centered on retaliation rather than problem solving. Overnight or on weekends, middle school students nursed their grudges and came back to school primed for a show-down. The problem periods were more at home than at school, but school was being blamed for actions kids were taking off site and after hours, and bringing to the schools later. He said their cyber-bullying was especially bad.

He said kids this age needed to be taught how to report incidents to adults who could and would take action, and the parents often needed to be involved. There were videos that all middle school teachers were mandated to watch; they are given better training than before on how to handle the kids. When a group forms, it could be a signal of problems ahead. Staff and teachers are much more alert to students in the halls, lunch room, playgrounds and restrooms. While the community still voices the opinion that "nothing is being done," a lot is changing already. Incentives are in place and successes are increasing.

Benakis said he was covering the elementary schools and knew they were still building on the past programs such as "Rachel's Challenge." Teachers are trained to sense bullying at earlier stages, to reward "random acts of kindness," and to teach children to tell adults of problems, not just be silent. He said he personally thought pledges stating desired goals and what students should refuse, and contracts promising to do certain things could be useful in identifying and rejecting bullying. He especially invited parents and community to visit schools, see the changes in atmosphere and acceptance. Jason Ping, principal for OHS, spoke of the family atmosphere there and the improved conditions.

Under action items, Candy Milam asked for budget adjustments (BARs) which would clear book keeping on four items, and an actual initial allocation of $7,767.00 for an IDEA-B Autism Spectrum Disorders grant. The board approved all of these and also her request to approve November checks written for $2,493,773.14 and a donation of $500 from First American Bank for the Silver High School Band. In a separate action, it approved the Stone McGee audit report.

Superintendent Lon Streib announced that Silver District was now rated 11th in the state of New Mexico, quite an improvement in ranking. The local Prospectors would be in Santa Fe on January 28 and he hoped citizens would attend that if they could. Regarding teacher evaluations, he said the state was judging them on criteria that neither he nor the teachers were expecting, and it was upsetting. But over all, it appeared that there was much to be proud of what was happening in Silver Schools, he said.

The next board meeting is set for January 20. The School Board Institute, which new members needed to attend, would be in Santa Fe on February 19 through 21. There was no executive session after the open meeting and the board adjourned at 7:23 p.m.