The Cobre school board met Monday, November 9 at Central Elementary. The closed session began at 6:02 p.m., according to board president Toy Sepulveda, where they discussed student identifiable information, limited personnel and the superintendent's evaluation. After this session, which lasted past 7:00, they entered the gym where the open portion of the meeting would begin, about 7:20. The other members present were Frank Gomez, Frances Kelly and Frank Cordova.

After the board approved the evaluation of the superintendent, Central Elementary School Principal Daena Davis gave a demonstration of new technological equipment recently received from Freeport McMoRan, courtesy of a grant written by Dr. Colleen Walker, Literacy Coach for the four elementary schools. The big screen, probably 6 by 12 feet, was in the gym. Back in the fifth grade room, Norman Diaz and his students made contact with the board by way of a projector at that end.

The equipment was called “Tandberg," interactive radio conferencing, by Epson. To show the capabilities, Diaz had a glitzy information game, somewhat on the order of Jeopardy, where two sides competed to answer questions for imagined sums of money. The questions were all about math concepts, with the $250 questions being harder than the $100 ones.

Davis held her camera on the board and Diaz focused on the game and the students were back in the room, so the interaction was up close and personal. Board members nearly lost their scores by being so polite the cartoon character timed them out. The exercise was well received, and as many said, fun.

As Dr. Walker explained later, she felt students needed more interaction in the field of electronics. They might have hand-held equipment, but this was no substitute for the teamwork and timing they needed to develop educationally. The grant application included the ideas of many people. Teachers and administrators knew skills that needed to be developed; the tech department knew the equipment and helped with the budgeting. It should help with programs, testing, bilingual classes. The technology has brought forth many ideas.

Freeport's $50,000 gift made it possible to have equipment for every 3rd, 4th 5th and 6th grade class in the four elementary schools, about 27 classrooms. Walker said she hoped the project could be expanded in both directions; principals were looking over budgets to see how more could be added in the lower grades, and Snell Middle School was interested, too. The project was also written in phases, stepping up the benefits in classroom work.

Next on the agenda, Razanna Robinson-Thomas told the board how her substance abuse prevention program was changing to address local needs. She said alcohol was still a major focus; signage, repeated messages, were being used to counter its use; electronic smoking and “juice” were also targeted. Some time back her team had asked for pledges from Cobre students to abstain from them. Of 341 students there that day, 187 had signed pledges; they received a T-shirt with the locally designed message. She had some to give board members, too.

Thomas said a youth center was under consideration. The Coalition is in the process of grant writing and “trying to put a finger on” the draw that would make the center a success. She thought the critical hours for a center to be open were from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. The center could also be alert to mental health issues and refer kids to those who could help them, as these problems are under-recognized. She finished by asking board members to consider signing letters of support for the plans.

Superintendent Robert Mendoza recommended that the board approve two requests for use of the high school gym. One was the Cobre Youth Wrestling Program; the other was the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, which requested its use for a fundraiser, including use of the concessions stand, in early December. He explained that there would be no conflict on timing. The board approved both requests.

The board looked over the list of bills for the month of October. Out of the Operations Fund, the
largest amounts were written for the two payroll periods, one check for $409,116 and the other for $409,388.75. The entire amount of the October Operations expenses was $977,074.86. Among other budget payments, Food Service spent $32,897.35, nearly all of it on salaries, and Special Revenue Funds spent $230,080.21, again, over half of that was for other categories of payroll and some for bus-transportation expenses. All were approved.

Assistant superintendent Jose Carrillo reported on the recent PARCC scores for the testing taken last spring. He compared the English language arts and math scores at levels from third grade to eleventh, and also compared them with state averages. He commented that most were about the same as the state averages, but the fifth level, students who exceeded standards, was almost non-existent in all groups. The graphs showed most students clustering in the first three levels, those not meeting standards, those who partially met and those approaching standards.

He said Cobre would be looking at local solutions and district remedies on the Nov. 14. He also noted that many of their Level Three teachers were no longer with them; Cobre had 16 Level One teachers come in recently. He said he thought the PARCC testing, teacher evaluation changes and other factors had impacted staffing. The recent gaps needed to be bridged and training must continue. Teacher retention and other programs were a priority. People were working on things.

Mendoza stressed that now they had that “baseline” information on the PARCC results, they would be meeting, starting Tuesday, Nov. 10. Regardless of excuses, they would be going forward, he said. The bad part was that the district needed this information in June; by now, they had lost almost half a year. Going back to the high school graphs, he pointed out that freshmen appeared to be taking a light attitude on the testing. He thought such thinking might be another factor to be watched.

Juniors were taking this more seriously, as graduation depended on these scores. He also saw good scores from the eighth grade; he said it would be important to see that these gains continued on as the students became freshmen. The important thing was to use the information and go on from here.

Carrillo finished, saying the scores throughout the state were not good. At state level, there is serious searching going on. Parents are pressuring to reduce testing, while the testing now determines if a student will graduate. Some possibilities are to put other needed tests into that same “testing window."

Efficiency can be improved; it might be possible to improve procedures and save up to 90 minutes on some testing sessions. But, certainly, the pressure is on and changes must be made everywhere, he said.

No student representative was present, so Mendoza filled in with information the kids had discussed concerning the cafeteria and the lack of flavor. No salt, no pepper, etc. He said it was important to send out a letter to parents explaining this federal mandate that the school could not address otherwise.

The agenda went to public input. Toy Sepulveda noted that the Mimbres Messenger, a small circulated paper, had local interest information that might be good to circulate in the area. It carried a number of positive happenings, including what San Lorenzo was doing. He hoped others would push such information forward; perhaps each school in the district could have a chance to tell what good things it was doing, perhaps a school a month could put out the good word.

The second November board meeting falls during the break; the next meeting will be December 14 at the district office, starting with the closed session at six and the public portion at seven. The meeting adjourned at 7:38.

A final note from Sepulveda is that although the superintendent's evaluation was approved, it will not be official until after the board has discussed it with him personally, so no information is going out at this time.