By Lynn Janes

The Silver City Consolidated Schools held a work session and regular meeting September 15, 2025. Members in attendance Ashley Montenegro, Patrick Cohn (regular meeting), Mike McMillan and Kimberly Klement. Superintendent William Hawkins also attended. Michelle Diaz attended halfway through.

Montenegro started the meeting out with the expressed grief of the district for the loss of one of the students. "We not only pray for the family of this sweet student that was lost but would also like to take a moment of silence." She asked all to join her in that moment of silence.

Work session

This work session would be to revisit the conversation from the last meeting to review the agenda setting procedure policy in regard to board meetings. Montenegro commented that not having two of the board members would be unfortunate. It would not be an action item but the following month they will have the first reading. She opened up the floor for discussion.

McMillan said the primary discussion has been to only allow public comment on agenda items or to open to concerns also. Currently both public comments have only been open to agenda items.

If they added anything to bring before the board, they discussed adding language that they would not discuss personnel or allow critical remarks of people.

Klement said she agreed with the added language and that it would be important to have one section open to new items to come forward.

Hawkins said he appreciated the conversation. "I think you can have an opportunity for open dialogue and another space for parents and community members to come in and ask questions." He will support the board but hoped that they continued to communicate clearly that the district still had pathways to come to the central office or principals to initiate those concerns first.

Klement had concerns about the time limitations and Montenegro said in the past it has been three minutes and policy may say five minutes. The time limit would be based on the number of people wanting to provide public comment. McMillan pointed out that the policy speaks to time limits and an allowance for thirty minutes for all. It does say five minutes per speaker but will be the president's responsibility. In other parts of the policy, it lists twenty minutes for all so that will need to be amended. They will be clarifying and cleaning up the language for the first reading of the changes.

Work session adjourned

Regular meeting started.

Montenegro started out the meeting by saying, "Our district is grieving at the loss of a sweet soul that attended our La Plata Middle School and we as a district want the family and friends and teachers and everyone that loved them to know that you are in our prayers. I would like to take a brief moment of silence if we could." They did.

The board approved the minutes from previous meetings and the agenda.

Information and presentations.

Bob Carson, Kiwanis, had attended to present the student of the month awards. He has been asked many times why Kiwanis had such a funny name, and he looked into the history. The organization had been founded in Detroit in 1915 and started by a group of businesspeople. They named it the Benevolent Order of Brothers (BOB). After a while they found out no one wanted to belong to an organization called BOB. The name Kiwanis came from an Algonquin expression that meant roughly have a great time and party a lot. They thought that fit the organization perfectly and they adopted the name in 1916. It had been a networking organization, but many others did the same thing, and the organization decided to be a club to help children in 1919. The organization has clubs in 81 different countries around the world. Carson asked if anyone would be interested in volunteering with them to let them know.

Kiwanis asks teachers and counselors to pick the student of the month at Silver High School, Cliff High School and La Plata Middle School. They don't have guidelines but do encourage those that have made great improvements.

Lyrick Perry, La Plata Middle School, has focus and always positive. She always has a smile to offer and demonstrates kindness and thoughtfulness. She shows dedication to learning and takes pride in her work, leading by example.

Ruth Perkins, Silver High School, could not attend and will be recognized at the next meeting.

Rowen Burchett, Cliff schools seventh grade, has been involved in many activities but still a very serious student. He completes assignments and is always eager to help his classmates. He has a positive impact on others making him a true role model.

Diane Carrico and Desire McGee, SCEA (Silver City Education Association) said they had some new representatives at their training the previous week. Bargaining had not started but would the following week.

Information to the board

The Silver High School student council had come to provide a power point presentation. Four of the members had come, Brock Anderson-Amaro, president, Chidinma Nwachuku, vice president, Emma Drennan and Carolyn Coltrane. They each introduced themselves to the board.

The student council has some key characteristics; they want to be a voice for the students and an outlet of support for the students. They also want to be available, open minded and charitable. The council keeps growing and they have meetings every Thursday.

The homecoming game would be coming up and for the half time theme they will be doing old Hollywood, back when none of them had been born. The council had planned a lot to include classic convertibles for the queens to ride in. A week before the game would be spirit week to get everyone excited and engaged for the game. Some events would be pajamas day, hunter versus animals (wearing animal print or camo), jersey day, the next day would be a wear read day to jinx the opposing team, and the last day wear all Silver High colors, blue and grey. Other events would be the powder puff game, bonfire and pep assembly, of which they explained and described all. They want to have the students involved.

With the new house system, they want to bring them together to do projects. Some projects will be raising money for Gila Animal Rescue, The Commons, food drive and sock drive. The houses will be doing other events through the year.

The council recognized students that had received recognition awards. In the presentation they had recognized all the sports and how they had placed at the state championships and other competitions.

This year the cafeteria had made some big changes, and the council had done a survey. Noticeable improvements had been seen and the freshness of the food improved. The survey also included what students would like to see offered on the menu. Spicy chicken sandwiches and orange chicken seemed to be an overall winner with pizza being a close third. The cafeteria now has many more options, and everyone seems to be grateful for the new cafeteria.

Cohn thanked them for all the information. Montenegro wanted to know a little more about the recognition awards. She had not known about them. Nwachuku explained the national recognition award that she had been a recipient of. She and another student had taken the PSAT and scored very high and it had not been the score, but percentile reached. Montenegro asked if that opened them up to scholarships and they told her yes. Colleges had reached out just because of her scores.

Montenegro said they had a lot of presentations from students and this presentation had a lot more information and they had given good eye contact throughout. "You got us involved and laughing." She told them they had great presentation skills and had done a really good job.

Hawkins had a school consolidation update for the board. Josh Chisholm, Capital AE president, had joined online with a presentation on the consolidation and bond update. The firm focuses on three main themes, assessments, planning and project management. "K-12 is what we do." The project manager said he had spent the last 16 years managing K-12 construction projects.

Hawkins said when he and the staff had started putting the projects together, they quickly became aware they lacked the expertise. At that time, they brought in Capital AE to assist, and they had jumped in and started organizing, structuring and engaging with the PSCOC (public school capital outlay council).

Some of the other current bond projects will be HVAC systems, security, door replacements, plumbing, playgrounds and flooring. This will take care of $49 million in differed maintenance needs. They went over how much would be spent at each school. Cliff will be a $45 million project.

Harrison Schmidt Elementary School will be gin during  the summer of 2026, Benny Altamirano Field and Stout Intermediate School during the summer of 2027. La Plata Middle School and Silver High School will be at the bottom of the list.

Cliff sSchools new construction would be an18- month design process and will then jump into construction. Capital AE continued to go into each project a little more in depth.

Louis Alvarez, associate superintendent, had not attended and Hawkins went over his report. Most positions had been filled, but they still needed a special education instructional assistant at La Plata Middle School. Hawkins didn't know the exact percentage, but it had to be 98-99 percent staffed. Alvarez had not attended due to being drawn for an elk hunt.

Cindy Barris, associate superintendent, said she didn't have good news on the enrollment update. The enrollment number currently is 1,991. Last year had been 2,113. She said she didn't have anything specifically she could point to as a reason.

Barris didn't have any update on the health grant. The state will be supporting the grant as well as they can. The district still has wellness rooms at every site but not manned. They have been using interns from Western New Mexico University (WNMU). For the unstaffed ones, the councilors have stepped in, and some will be using the rooms differently.

Barris had a presentation on the honors and dual credit courses. She had provided a list to the board for both Cliff and Silver. Some of the dual credit courses will be available online. The relationship with WNMU has been great, but the problems with the bookstore as a separate entity has still been a problem. Barris has tried to meet with Follett Bookstore. the owner of WNMU bookstore, and they will not respond.

The board discussed the dual credits and honors courses for some time and the high school experience versus the college experience. Hawkins spoke to the conflicts with scheduling, and no matter how hard they try it can't be rectified, and choices have to be made.

Silver High School didn't receive the innovation zone grant but Cliff High School did. The board, Hawkins and Barris speculated the reasons, but none had been provided. Had the grants been set up to support the schools in hopes that once the program had been put in place the schools would sustain it? Barris said yes and no. It had been mentioned in the sustainability portion of the application, but it had not been tracked. No conversation had taken place on how they planned to maintain it but had the conversations about adding it to the state formula. Barris said the application this year had been 29 pages, and she has never seen anything like it.

Finance sub committee

Montenegro said they had met and addressed various questions they had from constituents about funding for athletics and activities.

Audit subcommittee report

Montenegro said they had not met but will be soon for an entrance meeting.

Threat assessment committee.

Hawkins said they had a meeting. They had also had an event that day and he would not have any detail at this point but would follow up at the next meeting.

Board president

Montenegro did the second reading of policies concerning copyright compliance, several on technology resources and use of artificial intelligence.

Board comments

Montenegro told Diaz she had missed a treat. The Silver High student council had made a presentation. After attending the Ron Clark Academy, she had come back thinking if every student when they graduated felt comfortable public speaking with eye contact it would be great. The students had done that.

She had already touched on this, but it has been a sad day for Silver Schools. "It's one of those things that you just never want to ever happen anywhere close to you. If you see something, say something. Any kids that are listening there's always someone there that cares and loves you and is open and would support you through whatever you are struggling with. So please reach out for help, because no matter who you are, you leave a huge hole in our lives."

Montenegro thanked the community again for the bond and said they will be able to do so many projects. She announced she would be running for another term and they all will be running unopposed. "I think we do a very good job of balancing each other when we need to but also seeing what's most important and being very unified on that front. Our number one job in these seats is to support our superintendent so that he can lead you guys and lead this district in a direction that we want to see it go. But I think we need to acknowledge that the best job that we've done as a board is hiring the right superintendent."

Cohn said it saddens him with today's events and then what happened the month before. He said he also serves on the board of directors for the New Mexico School Board Association. He also serves as the region eight chair, and he wanted to acknowledge the loss of Peggy Appleton, a Hobbs school board member. "My thoughts and prayers go out to Hobbs, their school board, her family, friends, community. That was just a devastating loss."

Cohn thanked Hawkins for all the studies he does for the board. He thanked him for the feasibility study, town hall meetings and every aspect of what happens with Silver Schools. He looked forward to serving another four years on the board.

Diaz thanked her fellow board members and was glad they will all be running unopposed, so they can continue to move forward. She agreed with Montenegro the best thing the board had done was to hire Hawkins.

Diaz addressed the adversity they had in the past several months. At the school level many have been tackling health issues and mental health issues. She asked parents to talk to their kids and for kids to talk to their parents. If not the parents, a sibling or a counselor. "I think it's so important whether you find it in your faith or friendships to please, please reach out because there's nothing so bad that you can't get past it and there's support in place and no one comes out a bad person." Social media makes it harder because kids access outlets parents don't even know about. "Put your phones down and communicate. Reach out." Diaz added that people have the responsibility to not only the kids in their household but those outside. "We have to start talking again and quit thumbing." People need to learn to be kind to each other again. So many divides exist, and people seem proud of those divides. Egos need to be put aside and go back to what matters, compassion for one another. Instead of humiliating and belittle people, we should be uplifting each other.

"What matters is relationships, but if we don't ever take the time to build those relationships, people don't know they matter. We take the time to make an ugly comment about someone, whether it's about weight or color or their ugly shoes or, you know, we take the time to be so superficial."

McMillan said a lot of things have been going on and a lot of stressors. He expressed being glad that all three came up for election would be running again unopposed. McMillan referenced the words said by the other board members before him "I couldn't say it better and, you know, I think having Mr. Hawkins lead us through not only the academic and the physical, you know, building and planning for the future of our district is key but also during these tough times like the day we've had today leading us through this day." He thanked Hawkins and the other board members for their leadership to go through the tough days. "We need to show resilience and support for each other, our families, our staff and our kids."

Klement offered prayers for the family, friends, teachers, classmates and everyone involved in the loss. She expanded on what the other board members had said. "I think it's very easy for us within social media to take it. Social media has taken out the emotion; it's very easy to be just a faceless person and say things without having any recourse on whose feelings are hurting or what those differences are, and it's a very emotionless platform and it does foster so much negativity in so many different ways. I think there's a lot of good that can come out of it, but then when you're doing it without thinking and without realizing that the person reading those comments or reading whatever you're pushing is real person and that they may take that the wrong way and see it." She agreed with Diaz about talking and building those relationships. People need to respect other differences because it makes people unique. The world would be boring if all people were the same. People need to agree to disagree sometimes and foster those differences.

Hawkins wanted to add a special thanks for the crisis management team that had been on site at Silver High School and La Plata Middle School. "It was a hard day, and I can't tell you how privileged it is to see the leadership and the teaching staff and the support staff that we have. They educate every day, but they care harder and that was very evident today. I just wanted to make sure that we acknowledge not only the hard work but the sacrifice that staff makes for their own mental health at times for the sake of our students."

Public comment none currently.

Action items

Consent agenda

Michele McCain, director of finance, went over her requests. The board approved all requests made by McCain. She had checks totaling $1,649,471.68, and four budget adjustments that had to do with grants that had been received. They had received SB9 funding, not expecting it but had for two months in a row. It had come from property tax revenues in 2024. She expects to see some come in for a while due to delinquent taxes being collected. Today she had $40,383.53 for July and August to put in the SB9 budget. They had received a grant of $76,890 from Comprehensive Literacy Development. She continued to explain the other two adjustments.

The district had received donations from Elysium Solar LLC for Silver High Football in the amount of $500 and Cassie Health Care for Silver High volleyball in the amount of $700

Antonio Andazola, transportation and maintenance director, didn't have anything to report currently.

The board approved the second reading of policies concerning copyright compliance, several on technology resources and use of artificial intelligence.

Public comment none currently.

The next meeting for the finance committee will be October 16, 2025
The next work session and regular meeting will be October 20, 2025

The board went into executive session.

The board came back from executive session and said no action had taken place.

Adjourned