By Margaret Hopper
The Silver District school board meeting, reportedly delayed for a week because of fall break, met Tuesday, October 27, at the Administrative Offices on Swan. The meeting began shortly after 6:00 p.m. with four members present: Arnold Torres, Tony Egan, Mike McMillan and Frances Vasquez, the board president.
Louis Alvarez, principal of Sixth Street Elementary, began his informational presentation with thanks for the opportunity to work at all three levels in the district: high school, middle school, and now elementary, as an assistant principal or principal. He said it was an excellent opportunity to round out his experience and he appreciated the opportunity.
Some of the new plans and goals for this year were leadership training for teachers and allowing the data to direct curriculum. He said one training session, Capture Kids' Hearts, seemed to open teacher-student communications to a higher level. He could see growth and also things to be worked out, through RTI, or response to interventions, by staff development efforts.
He said reading and math specialists are coming in twice a month. The ideas are being received and teachers are willing to make changes. Teachers also are communicating, sharing ideas and learning from each other. The school is communicating with parents, keeping them aware of coming events.
To help kids increase interest in reading, he said they had figured a horse-race theme. After some adjustments, it is now a game that stirs competition and excitement, with announcements that sound like “the track." No, they aren't playing the ponies, but it gets results. For each book read, students need an 85 percent test response for credit. Reading points are doubling and tripling, and kids are reading at home, too. It is working well.
Other “smart goals†are attendance improvement, up about a percentage point to 95.91. Vocabulary is getting attention, and with new additions to the school's computers, kids are learning to “drag 'n drop," use tool bars, become more familiar with computers. He gave Ben Potts, network administrator, a big thanks for bringing in another 26 computers from Sandia Labs for Sixth Street, this year.
(Note: Potts was instrumental in bringing nearly 600 used items from Sandia for the district's upgrade over a year ago. It made meeting the PARCC mandate and timeline possible this spring, as well as many improvements for the business machines and office procedures. These used materials were leveraged to get other equipment. What the budget could not do, Potts, with ingenuity and staff, succeeded in doing. - MH)
Referrals are down 22 percent, and they (staff and principal) have figured a way to bring the data from the walls into “data books†the kids keep. The kids take pride in the figures that tell of their successes. This data comes from testing and other sources. Kids have personalized it and keep their own data books to show others their progress. Alvarez expressed pleasure on the students and staff.
Leslie Fritz, union representative from Las Cruces, spoke for the local education association, telling of efforts to increase accountability, access resources from over a wider area, and take advantage of opportunities to apply for new positions.
District superintendent Lon Streib went over a number of policy advisories, some in first reading, others in second reading status. Policies 118, Animals in Schools, addressing service animals, and 119, Graduation Requirements, were introduced and received their first readings. Professional Staff Certification and Credentialing Requirements, 116, and Support Staff Certification and Credentialing Requirements, 117, were both in second reading status. He said those would possibly be concluded next month.
Policy 114, regarding Emergency Administration of Medicines to Students, is being continued for another month, as Streib said the state had not made any recommendations for storage, a necessity. That policy has lingered for several months, as a result. The board agreed it would be easy to continue tabling the policy until the state acted and a final decision could be made.
He also updated the board on the Verizon Wireless Tower lease agreement, noting that when it became active, the funds would likely go into the Operations Fund. He suggested they might want to earmark those for some special purpose. The agreement is for $1000 a month to be paid to the school, with renewals scheduled at 5-year intervals. Associate superintendent Gus Benakis said he thought Verizon was looking at this December as the starting period.
Under reports from associate superintendents, the present New Mexico-90 detour had added about 37,000 miles to the bus route mileage. Vasquez questioned how this extra expense would be covered. Benakis said there might be some state compensation for those extra miles. When the bridge is opened in January, the problem should end.
Candy Milam reported on the 40th day figures, which affect the district's funding for next year. In this present time, she said the district was down 45 students from last year. She named the schools that had increased, and those that had lost student numbers. Jose Barrios, Cliff Elementary and Cliff Middle/ High and Stout were up over last year. Opportunity High School held; Harrison Schmidt, Sixth Street and Silver High were down somewhat. La Plata Middle School was down 33 students.
On the test scores (PARCC), information was coming in after many months, but it would be a few weeks before a complete report could be made. She mentioned a number of retakes being required as parents had opted students out of the testing, or others simply had not passed it. Language arts retakes number 79 students; math, 97; science, 108.
Vasquez thanked all the students, staff and families for their recent hard work. She said she had attended the Freeport McMoRan training on October 22, as it should help applicants apply for their grants. On September 24 and 25, she and others had attended the Legislators' Educational Study Committee (LESC) at WNMU. And for Silver, she had worked on the finance committee along with others.
She had given board members a sheet on board policy, which said regular meetings may be rescheduled by agreement of the majority of the board; she had talked to Mr. Streib; he had made that decision to change it to October 27 rather than October 20, as originally scheduled. She wanted it in the board minutes that it was changed, and how it was changed.
Egan mentioned the financial committee work; McMillan reviewed three findings of the audit committee; Torres reported he had the contracts for work on the Benny Altamirano Sports Complex. They included the agreements between the City and school, defining the responsibilities of each. Streib suggested that Vasquez might appoint Torres as the head of a standing committee on that work, allowing Torres to continue it and appoint community helpers, as it was a community field.
In the consent agenda, Barry Ward, Finance Director, claimed 96.24 percent of the operations Budget was encumbered. Credit card expenses were $29,000 this September, compared with $49,000 last September. He noted that they “were cutting back."
There were three budget adjustments—$65,498 was new money coming in for elementary student breakfasts. They needed to create a new line item for that. The other two were transfers of funds to cover training expenses at Western New Mexico University and other places.
Donations included $500 from Financial Credit Union for Cliff's FFA; Elk's Lodge donated $600 for Silver's National History Day; Griffin's Propane donated $1000 to the girls' volleyball team, and Freeport McMoRan donated $2500 to volleyball and girl's golf teams. Streib said they would be sending letters of thanks shortly. The September check review amounted to $1,821,303.66. All items on the consent agenda were passed with a single vote.
There were no comments in the first public period. In the second, an open period, Lucy Montoya identified herself as the mother of Anthony, the student who lost his life in the stabbing incident eight and a half years ago. She voiced concern that the high school principal had used funds from that memorial fund to purchase instructional materials for a science program. She said she first heard after $4900 was spent. A stop payment was able to recover $3000 of that amount, but $1900 had already cleared.
She said she had tried to call the principal but received no answer. This was misappropriation; it was unethical and such behavior would do damage. She didn't want that memorial jeopardized, and called on the board to change the situation.
Bill Hudson of San Lorenzo questioned the authority, the process, by which the board meeting date was changed. He called it a violation of board policy and said it had caused the absence of Arvidson and CATS (TV). The board needed to observe policy.
Third speaker was Dick Pool, who said in the past, the district had compared itself with other parts of the state. It should never, never, be below the state average on scoring. He said he was very disappointed with the scores coming out of the PARCC information.
The board then voted to go into closed session at 7:40.
The November 17 meeting is scheduled to be at Cliff, starting at 6:00 p.m. The NM School Board Annual Convention will be held in Albuquerque on December 4-5.
The board reconvened at 8:47 and adjourned at 9:04 without taking any action.