By Margaret Hopper
Making the usual November trek to Cliff, the Silver school board opened the meeting at 6:07 p.m. with all board members present. Cliff principal Dean Spurgeon informed the board of recent happenings at this elementary and secondary unit of the district. He gave the board a handout created for last spring's PARCC test, showing math and English scores at high school levels. Some other test results were still not back, months later, he said, but he shared what he had.
Algebra I students exceeded the state average, Algebra II slightly better than the state average, and Geometry slightly less. On the English Language scores, 10th graders were a few points less, with 11th graders exceeding by about 10 points, and 9th graders exceeding the state average by about 30 points.
He said Cliff was concerned about the PARCC. A lot of parents had opted children out of it, especially at the elementary level. That could reduce the school's scoring from the state by a full letter grade, and cost additional penalties in funding. He said he considered this unfair, as the school could not control what parents did, but it could be penalized. They would try to explain to parents the importance of cooperation and hope for the best, this next time.
Cliff was happy about the recent remodeling of the high school restrooms. In the process, they learned that the last remodeling had been done in 1946; it was definitely time for improvements. They were getting a new, large sign. 1st New Mexico Bank was a sponsor for the work, and an electrical company would help with installation.
Spurgeon said the technological upgrade was very important. Before that, 20 mgb/s was the best they had. Teachers couldn't count on using it in classrooms; five or six wireless computers couldn't be run at the same time. When it went up to 100 mgb per second, it was a huge difference. Ben Potts was helping them get more tablets and other equipment; it was all sorely needed.
Another plus was the furniture he and other teachers were able to load on trailers and bring back from Fort Bayard; file cabinets, teachers' desks, a lot of things they could use, and it was all for free. The student count last year was 236; this year it had climbed to 253, and that was good, he said.
In the superintendent's report to the board, Lon Streib noted that Advisory Policies 118, service animals in schools, and 119, graduation requirements changes, were both in second reading. 114, regarding the administration of emergency medicines, was still under review.
Ben Potts was presently in Santa Fe representing Silver District in the finishing of the paper work with the Verizon tower project which would soon start bringing in $1000 a month for years to come; Potts had helped work on the project from the beginning, Streib said. The contract would be renewed at five year intervals. While the district could get out of the lease if needed, he considered it a good opportunity to improve things, such as the soccer/softball complex or some other things that needed to be done. These funds should be earmarked and a new line item created soon to make sure that the new money could be accounted for.
Streib told of the information he, principal Beth Lougee and Tony Egan were able to give the community at the TEA Party last Tuesday. He said the audience was very cordial and he hoped the people went away with a better understanding of the PARCC and Common Core. In new information he had received on November 12, he learned that only six states and the District of Columbia were planning on using the PARCC next year.
It is reported that the PARCC people will allow states and districts to customize parts of it. They could buy chosen parts, and score it as they contracted with other scorers, even score it locally. He said New Mexico's secretary of education, Hannah Skandera, has not determined how this state would offer those options, if at all.
Considering that the PARCC was initially intended to compare students from all states in the country, with only six states committed to it, and others buying bits and pieces of it, the original purpose was defeated: changes would have to come, and quickly, he thought. With so many changes possible, it was anyone's guess what would be offered in New Mexico. Skandera would make those decisions for the state. Personally, he hoped this was the last year Silver would have to deal with it, he said.
Candy Milam, an assistant superintendent, had created a booklet reporting on the available PARCC results from the tests last spring. Of 393 elementary schools in New Mexico, Jose Barrios ranked 63, Harrison Schmitt, 151, Stout 205, and Sixth Street, 283. La Plata ranked 88th of 199 middle schools in the state: and Cliff, 95th; Aldo Leopold Charter, 27th. With 183 high schools, Aldo Leopold ranked 3rd, Cliff 40th, Silver 112th. Opportunity High, 283th.
Milam said one of the pleasant surprises was La Plata's 79 percent proficiency in Algebra I. Jose Barrios scored very well, too, in the elementary. Another significant number was the teacher experience score, which went from 1.152 the year before, to 1.156. She said that little bit of difference made a difference in funding.
A report from Frances Vasquez, board president, said the American Legion had informed her that the Air Force Junior ROTC wanted to make a presentation to the board. Regarding the vacancy on the financial committee, they had checked with the school board association and learned it would be appropriate for her to serve on both the finance and audit committees; she said she would appoint herself to the finance subcommittee.
Tony Egan said budget controls were working, and it remained in good shape. He reported that the credit card expenses were about $33,900, continuing an improved amount from past times of between $50,000 and $90,000. Another issue was the accusation of the high school principal in the October meeting for an accounting mistake made in August, but immediately corrected, once the principal learned of it.
Then, eight weeks later, this incident was brought to the school board meeting, without any attempt to take it through the chain of authority. When Streib learned there was an issue, he asked that the matter be brought to him for discussion. Rather, the person chose to make it public, without any discussion, and it was printed in a local paper. That later required a retraction. Egan said this failure to go through channels and try to resolve it was disturbing.
The board has processes for handling complaints. He said in too many instances, the process has been bypassed needlessly. He wanted to remove the open comments section from meetings at this time. The board secretary informed him that he couldn't do that at this meeting, but it could be placed on the agenda in a future meeting. After some discussion, he agreed that whatever was proper, it should be done. There were grievance procedures in place and they needed to be observed. Accusations like this were not appropriate, and not true.
Arnold Torres, board member, said in board training, they learned from attorneys that anyone coming into a meeting and threatening or accusing, could be stopped and removed. He said in months past, he had been bullied, too. While board members would listen to complaints, they were to be brought up in other conditions, not brought into meetings first. The board would listen, but these complaints were not being properly presented.
He said it might help to have an open forum to inform the community how to handle such issues; the superintendent and others could be available to explain, but board meetings were about business. They had to be able to conduct business. These allegations took time; members had other jobs, and listening to this could take hours. They were willing to listen and do the job, but this was out of control.
Better control of the process would help the board, the kids, and everyone involved. He said he had been called names by people in these meetings, and board members could not answer. It wasn't fair. Seeing how the threats and accusations had been given, he considered it appropriate to do away with the open comments section. The board meetings were for business. These other issues should be handled at another time, not while they were trying to do business.
Streib suggested that they could handle such issues, not at board meetings, but at other times, in other places, where they would have the freedom to answer questions on the spot, without the constraints of board protocols. If allowed, they could respond and settle many issues in another setting. Torres said an attack on a school official was a felony. And people needed to understand that.
Back on the agenda, Egan said they had proposed a superintendent evaluation tool. He had consulted other places and they had two ideas to present to the board for further discussion. At present, they were half way through the process. It still needed work, and comment from the rest of the board. Once decided on, it didn't need three meetings; they could put it to use.
Torres said he had started forming a committee to look into the care of the sports fields. They would work on a master plan. The work would take some time; it wouldn't be finished this year. There were safety issues, and baseball would be coming up before long. Responsibilities were being listed and and people were helping. But it would take time. Improvements were needed. Streib noted that Torres was preparing to renew the memorandum of understanding with the city, which dated back to 1999, for the benefit of a lot of local people.
In the action items section, Streib presented the list of checks for October, which amounted to $2,476,998.57. No bids, no BARs. Under donations, he said Potts and staff had come home from Sandia National Laboratories with 1700 computers. Their fair market value was $523,340.76, but some of those machines were very special. He said there would be more labs, more computers in classrooms. Another batch of computers, Apple and Mac types, donated by Dr. Bratcher of Mountain View Eye Clinic, would help with music and art. Their fair market value is given as $2399.98. The motion to accept these was approved.
Other motions were made to assure that bus drivers and others were properly processed before hiring, to prevent problems that had arisen in a district elsewhere, in policy advisories 116, staff certification and credentialing, and 117, support staff certification and credentialing.
A third motion approved revisions to the Montoya Transportation bus contract. Streib explained that buses were routinely replaced every 12 years, with the state reimbursing the costs over a five-year period. In this case, the amounts would be $19,806 annually. The school became the second lien-holder in the event that anything happened to the first party, so it had to be approved, and it was.
The next regular meeting is scheduled back in Silver on December 15, at 6:00 p.m. On December 4-5 New Mexico School Board Association is holding its convention in Albuquerque.
Public comments followed. Kyle Johnson questioned the school's response to signs and demonstrations with Confederate flags just beyond school property's boundary, (Tony Egan asked why the board should be involved if it was not on school property) and what he thought was an increasing number of policy revisions recently. Also, ways of handling the public input period; people would have their say. As he ran out of time, he asked for a few seconds more, running over six minutes.
In Scott Terry's time, he insisted that when his five minutes was, he would stop. He thanked Streib, Beth Lougee and Egan for being at the TEA Party discussion on Common Core and how the district was dealing with it. With the good results of that meeting, he said the school should go to more groups like Rotary and others, and present more information for better community understanding.
Regarding the broken rules of the speaker just before him, Terry said the rules were there. "You should have stopped him. And if somebody attacks somebody, bang the gavel, call the cops..." He commented on valid topics, and some where people came to the board rather than going through the office and finding the facts first; it wasn't right, he said. Newspapers printing misinformation created problems, too. He said he felt bad for Lougee going through this.
Last on the agenda was closing the open session and going into the closed portion at 7:39 where they were to discuss limited personnel matters (staffing) and possible litigation concerning transportation and administration. At the end of the closed session, it was reported no decisions had been made.