By Lynn Janes
The Cobre Consolidated School Board held a regular meeting on September 21, 2026, at the San Lorenzo Elementary School. Board members in attendance included Hector Carrillo, Gabriella Begay, Gilbert Guadiana and David Wilguess. Dr. Verenice Gutierrez, superintendent, also attended. Agelina Hardin did not attend.
Sylvia Tabor, a member of Kiwanis, had come to present to the student of the month awards.
Sebastian Marquez, Snell Middle School, goes above and beyond consistently and greets everyone warmly and excels academically. The letter also said he showed respect to all.
Johnathan Calzolari has been consistently motivated and positive. He comes ready to work, participate and encourage everyone around him. As a foreign exchange student from Italy, he has done an outstanding job embracing the culture, traditions and school spirit of Cobre High School. He has made a genuine effort to become part of the community.
The board approved the agenda with the addition of the San Lorenzo presentation from the students after the adoption of the agenda.
The students of San Lorenzo had prepared a special presentation for the board. Before the presentation started Shay Biebelle, principal, wanted to point out that Marquez had attended San Lorenzo along with the new student representative for the board.
The students' presentation went over the mission statement of the school, with each presenting student reading a portion of it from a power point presentation. The presentation also highlighted they fall in the top 20 percent of schools in that state with the highest attendance rate in the district. Biebelle listed a number of other accomplishments of the school. The students recognized all of the new teachers they had this year, and the board engaged the students with questions about school.
Caesar Alvarez, Cobre High School principal, introduced the new student representative Ixayana Alcorta. Alcorta served as president of her freshman year but now is a senior. She has membership in the National Honor Society, All American cheerleader and two time state champ. She plans to pursue a career in nursing and continuing education.
Alcorta said she had come to share some positive things happening at Cobre High School and highlight a few areas where they hoped to see continued improvement. The staff and students had been working hard to build a strong school culture, increase student engagement and bring back pride in the school. They had come together to create a new vision and mission statement for the school that allowed everyone to have a voice. For the first time students had traveled to Santa Fe for a debate competition. The class of 2027 has started a new tradition, on the 27th day of each month the seniors do something special to recognize and celebrate their graduation year.
Currently they have 10 All American cheerleaders and six will have the opportunity to travel to Rome and represent Cobre. She continued with other athletic stats for the high school. She said the school spirit had increased because of the new principal and his efforts to build that spirit.
One of the main concerns has been school safety and security. They wanted a dedicated security officer for the high school. She also added they needed the security at the front entrance improved. Some of the current functions do not work. She thanked the board and administration for everything they have been doing to make the schools a better place.
Carrillo said currently they have been in the process of improving the safety of the schools. Gutierrez said cameras have been ordered and when delivered will be installed.
Public input none currently. They had a request from Samantha Morales, but she had not attended.
Action items
The board approved the regular meeting minutes from August 17, 2026, and special meeting minutes from September 14, 2026.
The board approved the bills. Begay said they had all been discussed in the finance committee meeting. They had a few questions that Vertex had answered about new vendors. Carrillo thanked Vertex for their following up on their questions within 24 hours. Guadiana had two areas of concern that Gutierrez answered. One had to do with a conference registration Guadiana had attended. The other listed a person for a Sams Club membership. Gutierrez said they obtained the membership to purchase snacks and other items cheaper for events. Sams Club had the best prices. Although the membership had been put in the school's name, they had to have a person's name, and it listed as the person and not school but had been opened as a business account and only for the district. They found another one and Gutierrez will be following up.
The board approved a list of eight budget adjustment requests. Natalia Brunton, CFO, answered some questions from the board and all had been discussion in the finance committee meeting.
The board approved the adult meal increase. This had been discussed at the finance committee meeting and Brunton explained she had talked with PED (Public Education Department) and looked at the USDA guidelines for adult meals and they needed to increase them due to the rising cost of groceries. Carrillo wanted to reinforce that all student school meals will be free of charge.
The board approved the disciplinary literacy budget. This had also been presented in the finance committee meeting.
The board approved the consolidation of bank accounts after some discussion. This had been reviewed in the finance committee meeting and Vertex had made this recommendation. It would not combine budget accounts but will streamline operations and make them more efficient.
The board approved the Cobre golf course lease with the city of Bayard after Gutierrez explained some changes. She had sent the last agreement the board approved to legal counsel. The lease agreement she had used to model the one for the golf course came from the one they used for the little league field. She found out that agreement would not be valid and they could not enter into an agreement with the city or county without involving multiple state organizations. The agreement for the little league field had not followed the process and they will have to go back and do it correctly. It also could not be done for 100 years and can only be done for one to two years. Anything over three years must have state approval and they will not do anything for over five years. The superintendent that signed that lease in 2023 could not legally and should have been the board president.
In regards to this agreement Carrillo had abstained so Begay would have to sign. Gaudiana wanted to wait until they had both leases to approve but Gutierrez said the little league one would take considerably longer to undo and redo correctly. The person that had been taking care of the golf course would be leaving soon and wanted to start training the Bayard maintenance department on the care as soon as possible.
Wilguess brought up the water meter issue again and Gutierrez said that would be part of the agreement to put in a separate water meter. Gutierrez will be finding out what each water meter has been attached to because of some questions brought up.
Finance committee report
Begay said they had been discussing the finance committee meeting throughout this meeting and went over it again.
Brunton went over the Pre-Budget and said this would just be information for the board. They had worked with the state to allocate the funds accurately to all the necessary categories. The majority of the funds will be used for salaries and benefits. They had an increase in transportation due to higher gas prices and more Pre-K students with significantly longer routes. Some increased from 25 minutes to 45 minutes.
Audit committee
Gutierrez said they had met and wanted the board to see a report provided to them that the expenditures had gone down in the last two months compared to the previous year which has improved their liquidity. "We are moving in the correct direction." She addressed the audit meeting and said they had made progress submitting the items needed to move forward. Brunton and Kelly Jones, Vertex, will be going into the storage room and trying to find other items needed by the auditors. Guadiana asked about the phase two special audit and Gutierrez said she did not have a time frame on it. A discussion had happened concerning capital assets because they have not been tracked well at all. She had an example: the car she drives is owned by the district but they don't know when it was purchased, what depreciation had been done, or any tracking. The system does not exist that should be tracking this. For the special phase two audit they must go back on all capital assets and try to find the information.
Gutierrez said not having this information probably has been the reason for the findings on all the audits. Last year Dividend Asset Company had been hired to walk every classroom to make a list of assets, anything $1,000 or more, but vehicles had been excluded along with a few other things such as computers that that had been done in October 2025 and not updated. They will be implementing a system that will be ongoing to enter assets as they receive them. She didn't know why the interim superintendent and financial officer had excluded those assets and said a full one should have been done at that time. On the vehicles, with time, they could obtain all the information they needed by checking all the VIN numbers and tracking them.
Board member reports
Wilguess said he only had issues on the ADA compliance, but with the financial situation he would have to let some of it pass.
Guadiana said on a positive note the football team has been making quite a record and the debate team had made its first appearance. He added the volleyball team had beat Silver Schools. Gaudiana commented being glad to see they received the opioid funding to allow anybody to attend sports activities for free.
Begay wanted to recognize San Lorenzo Elementary School and Hurley Elementary School for being highlighted as spotlight schools in New Mexico.
Carrillo wanted to echo all the positive things brought up in the meeting. He thanked everyone who had attended the meeting.
Superintendent report
Gutierrez had received an MOU from the opioid remediation collaborative of New Mexico. Alvarez had brought the funding to their attention, and they immediately went through the process to obtain the funding. It had been easy to obtain. They asked how much the district took in from gate receipts in the past three years. They will be covering the games moving forward. People who purchased season passes will be reimbursed for 80 percent of the cost and may contact the school for that. It will not be retroactive. They had received $59,753.17. The district will make a public announcement about the grant. Alvarez had already announced it on the Cobre Smoke Signals Facebook page and Gutierrez said she thought it had been shared by others.
Gutierrez had an update on Freeport McMoRan (FMI). While traveling to Albuquerque with William Hawkins, Silver Schools superintendent, for a conference FMI had called them to let them know that Tyrone would start production again. This will mean 75-100 new jobs and will mean potentially more students for the district. They will be working with Priscilla Lucero, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments director, to help find housing. She talked with the clerk from Bayard to find out where they will be building houses but does not have the map yet. The city of Bayard had recently purchased over 600 acres to develop and some will be housing. The median income of these new employees for FMI will be $75,000.
The schools currently have a long list of fundraisers, and she went over some of them and what would be coming up. She has been approving all of them and hoped she would not be causing any unnecessary competition.
She had one other thing she felt the board needed to know that had not been on the agenda, but she had just found out that morning. A discussion on adding things to her report went on and Begay said they needed to consult legal before changing anything.
Meeting adjourned.
