The Silver School Board met at the district office on Tuesday night, August 18 at 6:05 p.m. Chris Arvidson was absent; Arnold Torres, Tony Egan, Mike McMillan and board president Frances Vasquez were present.

Bianca Padilla, JPO/Program Coordinator and Beth Lougee, high school principal, reported on the summer school work for La Plata, Silver High School and Opportunity High. Padilla said many more were expected for the high school, but 21 actually did attend. Hours for the group totaled 1548 and 18 of them gained a collective 21.5 credits in the 21 days they were in session. These credits were in math, science, English and social studies.

Eight La Plata students enrolled, seven finished and completed their eighth grade work, to go on to high school. They had 22 days to attend and put in a thousand hours. In OHS, 15 students attended. As their major issue was attendance, (they had exceeded the 10-day absence limit,) by attending they made up their no-credit conditions. The 44 total attending was up considerably from the eight last year. The average cost per student to do this was $196 over the two-month period, said Padilla. Lougee added that students learned responsibility and overall, it was a positive experience.

Superintendent Lon Streib reported on the Texas based lawsuit, which questioned equality of funding for Hispanics vs. Caucasians. He said Silver had not signed onto the suit, but must answer 41 questions the firm, Montgomery and Andrews, required. There were questions going back to 2008; the process was time consuming and difficult; the school's lawyer was trying to end the inquiry or at least extend the reporting time, which ended this month.

The manhours needed to respond would take more than one person's full year of effort. The suit might take from three to seven years to settle, and there might be appeals after that. The outcome, he said, might be more equitable funding, but the suit would be difficult. He hoped that kids would eventually be helped.

Regarding enrollment, kindergarten would start this Thursday, and next Thursday, the developmentally delayed students, so the count might be about 2876 or more, but the mobility of students could cause extra staff to be hired. Sixth Street appeared to lose about 23 students; they may have just moved to a different school in the district. Anyway, changes might be needed after the figures were in. This would affect the budget; $350,000 in funds was available for those adjustments without using general funds.

Addressing budgeting, Streib said former superintendent Dick Pool had about $1.4 million in reserves, which was good, as it was needed in other places, such as getting ready for the PARCC tests. He was glad it was there; without it, the district would have had serious problems. The district is now building that reserve back up, but it would take time to do it.

As to the second reading of the transfer of the accrued annual leave, Streib said he had talked with Martha Alvarez about the sick-leave pool; as the district already has the sick-leave bank, the proposed policy isn't needed. The “machinery is already in place to do what this advisory says.” Another second reading for the epinephrine storage issue, he thought should be tabled until Aimee Jaurequi, nurse coordinator, could make a recommendation about it. He asked Vasquez to read a sentence holding responsible both the school secretary and the board president for recording the evaluation of the superintendent, to be added to that policy, also in the second reading stage. Streib said there would be another reading next month and a vote.

Assistant Superintendent Gus Benakis told about changes on the bus route because of the NM-90 Bridge replacement. The extra traffic on the detour was causing damage to the bypass road, and repairs are about to begin on that, as well. He said he asked the person in charge to help get the buses through; delay the one-lane close downs until after 8:30 in the mornings and before 3:00 in the afternoons. He thought that would be done, and it would help get the kids home without additional delays.

Several commented on the smooth start of this present school year, the work that went into it, and how well the planning paid off. Egan then reported on finances, saying the shift of unencumbered funds went from about 3 million to $1.6 million, as expected, because of last minute hiring and changes. The budget looked good. On the new credit card controls, they were set up to get people to plan ahead, from the time of requesting a card. There were also verification rules. He said he thought the controls were in place and working.

Some expenses had been placed in the wrong categories; he pointed out where certain items were being changed to other positions; the books would reflect this shortly. Streib reviewed the code numbers with the board, explaining what the major headings represented. Under food service, he commented that this was the first school in his experience where food service was running in the black; most were always in the red, being subsidized and needing constant attention.

Egan finished that it looked like enrollment might actually be up this year; last year there were 2891 students and Silver was at 2876 now with more to report soon. That was good news, he said, but the bad news is that the benefits wouldn't be realized until the next year after the numbers are increased.

The first public information space allowed Pool to speak on the school lawsuit information. He told of the funding formula of 1971 and the Level I, II and III teacher designations in 2007. The bottom line was that investigation revealed gross inequities across New Mexico districts, and over all, underfunding by probably 15 percent. Schools needed more money from new sources.

Pool spoke of first-hand information as a co-chair with Mimi Stewart, now a state legislator, on a committee to “fix the problems." He said, in standing before numerous legislative committees, this fact-finding group was given a hard time; legislators didn't trust school administrators to guarantee that increases in funding would actually go to the kids, or where it was needed most, to get quality results.

Pool packed a lot of information in about twelve minutes of public input time, pointing out where districts were, how and why much of this had happened, and the difficulties of arbitrary cut-offs, in which some districts above the cut-off received extra money, while those even a point below the cut-off received nothing in the way of extra funding. New Mexico schools definitely have funding problems, and any kind of remediation, or phasing-in-plans, may not get the expected result, he said. The state may start it and not deliver, in the end, he indicated.

On the consent agenda, the board considered a BAR of zero, which simply moved funds from one code account to another, as Egan had explained earlier, and the July operational budget expenses totaled $981,595.20. Torres, Egan and McMillan voted to approve, Vasquez voted “no."

On the 5-year plan, Streib credited Barry Ward, business manager, with a well-done document ready to submit to the state for approval, pending board approval. He said each site had been considered and the report was both a wishlist and a statement of insights leading to the conclusions. He passed the large report to the board for a quick look.

Egan responded that if the report was not under deadline, he wanted the action tabled, for further study, as the board should have time to see this in depth. Vasquez added that with information on the new bonding expected in 2017, they needed to give the report serious attention before sending it on. Egan's motion to table passed. Further action to approve it will be placed on the September agenda.

Other items Streib explained were the plans to add to the list of obsolete equipment, and to approve the option and land lease agreement between Silver Consolidated Schools and Verizon Wireless. He said the lease agreement needed attorney input, as any term over five years needed a land appraisal, among other agreements, and Verizon should pick up the expense of the appraisal. As Verizon was making similar arrangements with other districts and meeting that expense, he thought they would approve it in Silver's case. That placed the time line a few weeks away, so he asked that this item be tabled. It was.

For the auction, he said the district wanted to add two more items to the list already approved for disposal last month. He named a '73 International dump truck and a Chevy Cargo utility van. The board voted to add them. A request for leave of absence for the 2015-2016 school year was considered. As the principal had recommended it, Streib said he was in agreement. The board approved it, and asked for a quick break, about five minutes.

On its return, the second public comment period began. Pool spoke again, this time on board members and board policy. He created a dialog between a legislator on the Senate Finance Committee, and a board spokesperson. He centered on administrative expenses and ratios to student numbers, with words to the present board about fiscal responsibility and what the budget could handle. He mentioned overspending and over-staffing, with failure to reduce administrative expenses.

Tom Laws upbraided the board for lack of action and lack of courage regarding the retention of the superintendent. He quoted state rules, section 14, which subjects board members to recall. Items he mentioned for such grounds included an April 15 deadline for presenting the budget to the state, evaluation of the superintendent and documentation, board members interfering in administrative work and “flagging people”; he said the budget had been blown and it was time to move forward on recalling a number of board members.

Linda Pafford addressed the transfer of accrued annual and sick-leave policy, noting that Streib had not been in favor of the policy changes. She said she thought the state recommended it, and that both contract and written policy should match. Also, getting the draft minutes online was still not happening. The Internet Technology (IT) person could help with this; having to go to the school secretary for them was difficult. Perhaps they could be posted as draft minutes until approval changed them to permanent.

Vasquez anticipated an adjournment at that point, but Superintendent Streib offered to give some answers to the Laws statements if the board approved. With that, he told Laws that the PED determined when the budgets were due. It had first named April 21, then set a May 7 date for technical review in Santa Fe. That was changed to June 12, then June 24, and finally, that review had been canceled, as there were no issues to be discussed, so the district had sent the budget in on May 27. No extension had been needed. But, timely, yes. He had emails to prove all of this.

As to annual evaluations, the board had done that. The board has delegated to the superintendent supervisory functions, but it does not micromanage daily responsibilities. As for a board member “flagging” or firing someone, the Activities Director decided to terminate a basketball coach according to the activities handbook; the principal concurred, but no board member was involved. That had never happened.

On policy review, he said the school contracts with a company provided by the School Board Association; that 5-year contract has one more year to go. It presently operates under a contract Mr. Pool signed four years ago. Next year that arrangement can be reviewed.

The curriculum is aligned to Common Core; the district was presently mapping the subjects, language arts and math, with science and history to follow. Tests are the PARCC and Discovery, both mandated. One by the state, the other by the national governors' association. PARCC results are to come in October.

He said the board does see that funds are properly managed. Anticipated annual budget carryover from last year was over $370,000; they were within a few thousand dollars of that amount. The district didn't overspend. Laws' list of questions included a lot of opinion; Streib said he had stated facts.

Back to the employment of the basketball coach; Laws had said there was no committee. Streib said he had the committee list, some of which were students, some in attendance, at the meeting where Laws stated that there were no students on the committee. The district had the recommendation of that committee, the high school principal and Streib, himself.

The condition of technology when Ben Potts, IT, arrived; the bandwidth at Cliff was 100 MB; it is now 288. At Harrison Schmidt, it was 200, now 561; at Jose Barrios, it was 200, now 284; at Stout, 488; La Plata, now 10,000, high school, 10,000, and OHS, 1000. The district now meets the standards for 2017. And using some eRate money from this year, those speeds have been increased some more.

At Cliff, they can now connect 100 wireless devices at a time. At Jose Barrios, Sixth Street, Harrison Schmidt, at La Plata and Stout, the wireless speeds will allow up to 1300 devices at one time. These are tremendous changes, Streib said. The firewall, on his arrival, was eight years old, completely open; there was none. There was something in place, but it did not work. Backup was manually done, when someone could find the time to do it, and that was by tape. Now, it is done hourly, on disc, and kept at a secondary site in case of fire.

There was no email archive on his arrival, he said, none whatsoever. Now there are off-site Google Vault email archives. Saying the changes in technology have been tremendous for the district, Streib said he was pleased to give Laws some facts.

The meeting adjourned at 7:40 p.m. The next meeting is set for September 15, at 6:00 p.m.