By Lynn Janes

The Cobre Consolidated School Board held a regular meeting on May 12, 2025. Board members in attendance included Gabriella Begay, Gilbert Guadiana, Emmarie Heredia and Angelina Hardin. Superintendent Michael Koury also attended. David Terrazas did not attend.

The board approved the agenda with the removal of two reports, human resources and special education

Public input none currently

Nico Zamora, student representative, reported not a lot had been going on except finals and everyone will be ready for summer.

New business

Begay did the first reading of policy revisions B-100 BE for school board meetings. Last month they had discussed going to one meeting a month. She had contacted the New Mexico School Board Association for guidance on how to make the change. Begay read the current policy and the proposed policy. Currently the board meets the second and fourth Monday of each month. The proposed change would be the third Monday of each month. Last meeting everyone had been in favor of the change and pointed out that Bayard had done this and everyone liked it much better. She acknowledged it would be a longer meeting.

Guadiana pointed out that they had two meeting and two special meetings that month. The meetings will be too lengthy. He asked if that would be advantageous to the public and thought a longer meeting would deter participation.

The board discussed the meetings would be much longer and they will be asking how Bayard approached that problem and how the public has responded.

Administrator's – principal's – director's reports

Shay Biebelle, San Lorenzo principal, had a report for the board. She provided the data from all the testing to the board. They had made huge gains this year. It had not been growth but proficiency. She went over all the data for each grade.

Guadiana asked what would help them accelerate. Biebelle said she understood next year they would have a part-time interventionist. They play a significant role. Currently they have a couple of volunteers that come in and have helped tremendously. One of them will be leaving.

Alma Grijalva, supervisor of food service, said only seventeen school days left and counting. The food service department would be running a summer lunch program June 2 to 26 on Monday thru Thursday. The meals will be for the students attending the summer reading program at Bayard Elementary. They will be going back to an old rule, the students have to eat on site. Cobre food service had been chosen to attend a summit in which only 10 districts would be attending in the state.

The board asked how the hydroponic gardens had been going. Grijalva said they have been growing two different kinds of lettuce.

Katelyn Church, coordinator of technology, said she didn't have handouts for them like the last two. "I am either a slacker or way too busy, I'm going with the second." They had started to prepare for next year. One third of the teachers had new laptops. A problem had happened with the new laptops, but the vendor had stepped up and taken care of everything and in a short time. The IT department has received new Chromebooks for the students for next year. The tech bond had helped to do the replacing. The others had old technology. This summer they have major upgrades to the network scheduled. It will give higher capacity and faster internet speeds.

Guadiana had questions about the insurance they had asked parents to pay on the Chromebooks. Church said it had been completely optional and will continue to be offered. It helps offset costs and would be a onetime cost of $25 a year regardless of how much damage happened. Guadiana continued with questions on how much had gone to repairs and how much would be rolled over. Church provided him with an explanation but didn't have a dollar amount.

Action items

The board approved the minutes from April 28, 2025

The board approved the second reading of the policy advisories 261 and 262.

The board approved the wellness policy with changes. Alicia Edwards of Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities handed the board the recent newsletter. She directed them to page five that featured Cobre Schools student nutrition department. Somebody had asked earlier about the hydroponic garden. She had pictures to show them of a little boy holding some lettuce. He had been so proud and showed all his schoolmates. They grew basil and made pesto also.

Edwards pointed out some of the new rules. The cafeterias must produce 50 percent of the food from scratch. Grijalva and her staff do 75 percent.

She had come to talk about the proposed changes to the wellness policy. The public education department requires it be reviewed every three years. They had two language changes and went over it. One addressed the staff not wearing jewelry except a plain wedding band and that would be covered by gloves and fingernails no longer than the tips of the fingers and unpolished.

The board approved the budget decrease due to rural low income schools funding decreasing. Frank Ryan, finance director, said they had the final notification from the public education department. It went from $39,325 to $33,029 a loss of $6,296. He explained what funds they would cut. Begay said other schools had been affected by this change also. It had been done using census data.

Finance committee report

Begay said they had met and discussed stipends. Everyone in the district had to email and provide a reason for them to continue to receive that stipend. They reduced the Title Nine team from $2,000 to $500. Church had been increased from $2,000 to $2,500. Everyone else would continue to receive the same. Everyone had also provided justification to continue to receive the stipends. The committee also reviewed all of the bills and credit card statements. They had some questions about Door Dash being used by some of the coaches, and it has been put to a stop.

Guadiana said the duties of both the audit committee and finance committee would be to make recommendations to the board for actions and it sounds like that is not being deliberated by the board and being done by the committee. Begay said the stipends had been discussed at the last meeting. It will be coming up for approval.

Audit committee report.

Heredia said they had not met but would in a few days.

Board members' reports

Harden thanked all the speakers

Heredia thanked all the teachers, administrators and staff. This would be the hardest time of the year. She added a thank you to those that had coordinated the teacher of the year banquet and everyone putting on the graduation.

Begay agreed with Heredia and didn't have anything to add.

Guadiana said the boys team had made it to the state bracket but didn't succeed. The girls softball is still competing at state. They will be playing here, and he encouraged people to attend. He appreciated the work being done for graduation especially with staff shortages.

Meeting adjourned.