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Category: Front Page News Front Page News
Published: 21 May 2015 21 May 2015

By Margaret Hopper

Silver School Board opened its May 19 meeting at 6:01 p.m. with all five members present. Justin Wecks asked questions about board policy during public input at the opening session, which is limited to agenda topics. Linda Pafford followed with similar comments in the public periods and followed with a statement about teacher evaluations and factors which she said they could not control, such as numbers, student absences and other unfair portions of the state's evaluating system.

Claudie Thompson, history teacher, introduced six girls who represented Silver in National History Day finals at the national level with their projects that had already passed regional and state competitions. One project was a presentation on Hanna Barbera as cartoonists and the work they did and their influence on their generation. Another was a ten-minute documentary they put together, then showed on the big screen. Their topic was John Kennedy's handling of the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s.

 

The girls, Carly Heiderfeld, Marissa Young, Rhiannah Jaramillo, Yen Chu, Gabbrielle O'Keefe and Dani Rydeski told of their parts in putting the projects together. Thompson noted that all six were active in a number of activities and honor groups, and spoke of personal interviews they had made at high levels with the project. In addition, Marissa had the top World War II project, which has earned her and another person of her choice an all-expense paid trip to the WWII museum in New Orleans in December.

He asked if there was any funding, which would help the girls get to Washington, D.C. for the competitions. Streib responded that he didn't know of any, but would make an effort to search for them, anyway. Thompson talked extensively about the quality of work Silver students had contributed to the National History Day program; a large number had made it to state, and Silver had run up quite a record of wins over the past seven years.

Jason Ping, Opportunity High School principal, gave a summary of the year's progress with 35 students who had worked on vocational education classes over the year. He said community support had been good, and they had recently received a $50,000 grant from Freeport McMoRan, which would help students with their expenses in the next year.

The OHS graduation rate this year was a good one. Forty-one of the 80 students had made enough progress to finish. While that is great, Ping said on a later phone call that that there are now 40 open spaces that need to be filled by fall. He estimates they could accept another 15 welders, about 10 construction and 10 electrical students. Those will be capped as their expenses for each of the trainees will be $1500 for the year; that will use up all the McMoRan grant funding they have. Other spaces are not so expensive and students wanting careers in finance, CNA and early childhood, and other programs, are not as limited.

Ping told of another program, the TLC Apprenticeship group, started by a New Mexico plumber, owner of TLC Plumbing, some years ago, that is helping students who meet certain qualifications of character, honesty, hard work, leadership and similar traits, which would pay tuition and books as well as on-the-job earnings for the students it accepts. The program, post high school, could support a student's efforts up to four years, a year at a time and renewals, if the student meets their standards. OHS/VE now has a working relationship with TLC and will develop that further.

TLC's goal is to attract the top five percent of the workforce into the program and Ping said kids should be applying. There are training centers in New Mexico and the opportunities are excellent for those who are accepted. A $25,000 bonus is an additional incentive, for some, on graduation. At present, TLC is expanding its trades. It started with plumbing and has added heating and cooling.

The next step should be developing stronger ties with the local business community, he said. NM Gas has shown interest and over the past year it gave students a first-hand look at skills needed in its operation. Freeport McMoRan has been an interested business partner. The city, county and PNM also have much potential for local student training, and he will be making more contacts over the summer.

Bianca Padilla, JPO coordinator, and Tony Sosa, truant officer, gave a year-end report on their work at Silver since February 2015, when their present program began. They had 274 referrals and 236 students had returned to school after the first contact, an 86 percent success. They had written contracts on 38 other students, who were now fulfilling requirements under the program.

Some parents had also been cited, and fines and court action were possible. They said the D.A.'s office had been quite helpful with the paperwork, and Judge Laney was also a great help. Sosa could make home visits, and where children showed neglect, such as no food or supervision, etc., they could be removed from the home. Fines could also be imposed.

They would tutor students who needed help this summer. Ten or more students needed credit recovery for La Plata. Their work will be in June. Others from OHS would also be tutored in June. Beth Lougee, high school principal, said high school and JPO would work together on this level, with H.S. offering two certified teachers, free breakfasts and the computer lab. They expected 20 students to be tutored in English, another 20 in math. This session would start July 1, taking July 3 off for the holiday, and finish the joint effort at the end of July. Padilla said this would help students, who had lost so much time they were in danger of losing those credits for the year.

Padilla also mentioned the swimming training to be held a week in June to recruit lifeguards for the area. Freeport had given $500 to train Daniel Lopez as a life-guard/trainer and he will be able to train others needed in the area. This free swim week and the training later are being sponsored by JPO.

Silver City Education Association's co-president Wayne Sherwood assured the board that the union wanted more input into the budget work for 2015-2016, saying it had filed a grievance against the district for the lack of staff involvement in the budget process. It is asking for information on district spending over the past two years and the depleted cash reserves, how the district will restore the budget, any budget cuts, and where they will be made. He said the district had presented the budget but no real interaction on the details was allowed, which jeopardized its integrity and its approval at state. He asked for more open dialogue about it.

In the superintendent's report, Lon Streib asked the nursing director to assist with information on the pending voluntary policy advisory, regarding emergency administration of medicines to students. The concern was epinephrine, which was injected, rather than albuterol, inhalant relief. There was discussion on who would be administering the treatments.

Gus Benakis and Louis Alvarez, La Plata principal, discussed the teacher evaluation system and used a PowerPoint presentation to show discrepancies in the items used by the state for the ratings, as well as the mathematics involved. Benakis said principals and superintendents were not the problem. The system was flawed. Would resistance work? Looking at Las Cruces efforts, there were drawbacks, certainly. The legal work might take years. Meanwhile, Silver District was spelling out its stand, and Streib said he hoped the state was listening to the group of superintendents' efforts to improve the system.

The April 21 board meeting had tabled the request for a person's leave of absence, and in this session, Vasquez moved that the leave be granted. That motion died for lack of a second. Regarding financial support for students going to competitions, sources of funds were discussed and Streib said again that he would look to see if any funds were available for students wanting to go to state and national sites.

In associate superintendent reports, Benakis said the New Mexico 90 bridge still had not been closed, they had driven the alternate routes to make such an event less stressful, but with the delays, it might not happen before school closed. (This Friday is the last day.) Board members congratulated all who helped the school year end so successfully.

Under the consent agenda, financial director Candy Milam listed all the items that would fall in that action, starting with April checks of $2,437,519.54. The BAR adjustments included $1,035.48 for dual credit instructional materials; an allocated portion of breakfast funds for Sixth Street, $4,599; an initial allocation of $7,175 for teen dating violence campaign, (for FY 2015), and two operational budget cleanups with zero amounts.

Further, there were bids to consider: audit services for 2014-2015 awarded the contract to Harshwal & Company, Albuquerque, although Stone, McGee and Company, Silver City, also scored 87 points of a possible 100 and has past experience with the district. The decision makers favored Harshwal in the tie. Two other bidders, Accounting & Financial Solutions, Farmington, and Beasley, Mitchell & Company of Las Cruces, both had lesser scores of 80.25 and 74.5.

For Cliff's high school restroom improvements, Sacaton of Silver City bid $41,232.70 and TFC of La Joya bid $56,212.21. Because both bids were over the allotted budget, both were recommended to be rejected, and the suggestion was to rebid boys' and girls' restrooms separately, so some of the work could be done with the present budget.

For Special Education restrooms at Silver High, Glass Shop of Silver City bid $24,990 and Sacaton, Silver City, bid $36,881,25. Glass Shop was recommended. On the Fox Field south parking lot improvements, Southwest Concrete bid $50,350 and Fowler Brothers, $76,345; recommended Southwest. Anticipated bids for cafeteria food and supplies for 2015-2016 listed Labatt Food Service of San Antonio, Shamrock Foods of Phoenix, Sysco New Mexico of Albuquerque and Wallace Packaging of Tucson. The recommendation was to go with lowest responsible bidder meeting the requirements as per specifications, when they came in. The board approved the recommendations.

Benakis asked for approval of bus contracts, year 2015-2016, with Montoya, Mangas and Shelly Farms. Cindy Diggs, director of SPED, asked the board to approve the IDEA-B application and also the revisions to New Mexico Special Education Policies and Procedures. Also on the list for approval were applications for ESEA-Title I and Title II, Rural Low Income, Elementary Arts Program, Revisions to Policy BEDH-Public Participation at board meetings, and District Goals.

There was discussion of the last one, district goals. Streib said they had met three times for the seven goals being presented, and numbers 5, coaches' expectations, and 6, respect, were still unfinished but they still must be decided, as teachers needed this information to consider over the summer. He said they should be completed before June 1, and asked for an additional meeting to finish the work on a day agreeable next week. On the Wednesday the others said they could attend, Vasquez said she could not. The decision was to do it, to meet the deadline. They agreed to start at 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 27.

The board did approve the applications above. The next scheduled regular meeting is on June 16, at the district office, and the NMSBA Leader's Retreat is set for July 10-11 in Cloudcroft. The first session was released at 9:22 p.m., with the closed session still to go, which was to discuss limited personnel, matters of staffing and collective bargaining negotiations.

The board came out of the closed session at 10:06 and adjourned shortly after, without making any decisions.