RRPS - School Board Meeting - March 23, 2026

001Good evening. The Rear Ranch Public Schools Board of Education meeting for Monday, March 23rd, 2026 is now called to order. All please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. We'd like to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight. We'd like to welcome all those who are um visiting with us. I'm sure Dr. Cleveland like would not like me to say this, but this is our um last official schoolboard meeting with Dr. Cleveland. And so um we have some wonderful things that will be planned kind of throughout the meeting tonight as um as we honor her. But um we're so grateful to her and for

002all of her service to our school district. Um tonight we would like to start um with some introductory comments by our superintendent of schools, Dr. Vu Cleveland. everything and thank you all for being here uh this evening. >> Okay, thank you. So, prior to this um this uh board meeting, we had a workshop and uh we met as I said prior to the regular board meeting for the purpose of familiarizing the board with the process of instructional materials adoption and also talking a little bit about how materials are adopted in the state. uh we work with a six-year cycle and so it's an important um you know getting the right instructional materials is really an important component of providing our teachers and our instructional coaches with highquality materials that will be used in our schools

003and classrooms uh for the next six years. So it's always an important investment and uh it it has to be a wise choice a very expensive choice and uh this year we have a major adoption and the content that is being adopted is K through2 mathematics. The uh workshop was presented by Dr. Stephanie Moore, executive director of secondary curriculum and instruction, and Joy Morales, who is the executive director for elementary curriculum and instruction. And uh this evening, they will explain a little bit about the process that they use uh for the adoption cycle. And then the board of education will be asked to consider approval for the purchase of the district's new math material. And uh we need to have those materials ordered by March 31st so that they can arrive on time before the

004start of the 2026 2027 school year. Uh the uh since you know the process it's a really lengthy process. Uh it is though just the beginning of the work. Uh once the materials are selected then you kind of move to the second phase which is equally important and that is the professional development, professional training to use those new materials and um certainly new instructional materials have an impact on on our district leaders, administrators, teachers, coaches, content specialists, students, families and others. So uh we take it really seriously. It's it is a very important part of uh teaching and learning in our district. I one one other thing I would just add really quickly um and that is that we continue to work with the state some frustration over uh that instructional materials are not fully

005paid uh and they should be in our opinion. And so we have worked first initially through the Yazi Martinez lawsuit and then through uh the last few years the um legislative committees including the LC to try to get full uh full payment for adoptions. When you don't get that money that means it has to come out of your classrooms from some other um from some other budget. And so that's just a challenge for the district for the future is uh to continue to work to get those paid. One of the things that uh changed the dynamics a great deal was uh a decision made a couple of years ago to run the instructional materials money through the operational budget. And if you happen to be at the bottom of that operational budget uh in terms

006of a district getting the lease per pupil out of the uh student the state equalization guarantee uh then that is reflected in in the costs of everything. And so I guess the best way I can explain it is that a textbook in one district um they get more money for that textbook than districts that are in that bottom quartile of the funding um the funding formula cycle. So uh that's just something that we'll continue to work on. We are estimating right now that we'll be about one and a half million short. Uh last year in the science adoption it was well over two million that we were short. We were not the only district. many others experienced that. But uh that's that's something that uh needs to be a legislative priority. Continue to work on

007that. But obviously the materials should be should be paid for. And it's very interesting in the Yazi Martinez lawsuit. One of the findings from Judge Stapleton was that instructional materials were to be paid. So we're still fighting that battle. Uh we'll continue to try to work toward full funding of instructional materials as stipulated in that court decision. We have a commendation this evening uh that will be presented by Annie Canana who is the field representative from Senator Martin Hinrich's office. And uh I I just want to say uh we we sincerely appreciate the opportunities that our district has had to work with Senator Heinrich and his staff on various projects over the years and including recent support for Riot Tech and um uh and it was a wonderful opportunity for the senator to visit the

008campus and he uh had time u to sit down with some of our students and and discuss things with them and also meeting with some of our our teachers and uh other members. and the instructional staff. And so, uh, we appreciate those many opportunities and, uh, please send our thanks to the senator and, uh, and it's nice to see you again because you played a key role in some of those those visits and some of those, uh, partnership activities. So, uh, thank you for being here this evening. We have commendations uh this evening and uh we'll uh we'll come back to that slide uh during the commendation but we uh want to commend uh our athletic director Todd Rash for a recognition that uh he has uh he has he has earned. So talk a

009little bit more about that during commendations. And then uh we have uh two reports this evening. One is a really important issue and that is safety and security and this report will be presented by Sal Maniachi who is of course our executive director of safety and security and some of the things he will be talking about is uh the organiz organizational structure of that department fiscal fiscal uh security surveillance systems security personnel communications and technology and you know safety and security is something that just never leaves our mind as a district never leave something we never quit thinking about. It's important that we keep our students and our staff safe and um we do an awful lot in the district to try to promote that um that safety uh within our own uh school district

010and our individual schools. We will have a legislative report uh this evening by Chris Bzanado uh from Balzano government relations and he will be sharing information uh kind of the final report from this past legislative session. Uh our district chief legal counsel Lauren Hatch will also provide uh some uh information and comments. And so they'll be talking about the status of legislation that was introduced during the session. What made it? what didn't make it and why. Um the status of school funding in House Bill Two, which is the General Appropriations Act, and then other legislation that has a direct impact on the operations of school districts and our employees. We have a a hard task for the board this evening. Uh that's a time of year for the student scholarship nominees and the board will

011be asked to consider submitting a name of a Rio Rancho student for the in New Mexico schoolboard association scholarship award. Uh five student names were submitted to the board for their consideration. Everyone is a great nominee and I can tell you it's a difficult task that the board has to identify uh the uh the person we will nominate uh to this to the school boards for this award. And then Mariah Afendanger, our director of counseling, will present the information on these very deserving student nominees and she does the work in coordinating and pulling all of that together for the board. we uh will have a a presentation as I mentioned earlier um on the adoption of the workshop. Uh we will have the uh official uh action by the board this evening on the adoption

012of the elementary and secondary mathematics curriculum. Uh as I said detailed information was presented during the board workshop uh on the work of the uh of the elementary and secondary adoption committees. What is the process that they follow? How do they get community input? It's all the things they take into consideration related to uh standards and the the rubric that they use to identify which materials will be recommended to the board. And the recommendation will be presented by Dr. Stephanie Moore uh and Joy Morales. Uh there, as you also know, we have a vacancy on the board due to um the uh resignation um Beth Miller uh for for health reasons. And so, President Galbreth will lead the discussion regarding the approval of a set of interview questions for the currently vacant seat on the

013board of education. And uh the board will be selecting questions that will be used when interviewing individuals who are interested in this board's service. And uh at the time as of right now we have four interested candidates for the position and application materials are due by the end of the week on the 27th and then we have another resolution that the board president uh will present at the end of the meeting. Are there any questions or comments or >> questions? Anything? Okay. Thank thank you. >> Okay. What I did forget is to do a roll call and so Jason will you do that for us now? >> Okay. President Galb >> pres. >> Vice President Muller >> present. >> Secretary Murray >> present. >> Board member Barry, you have a quorum. >> Okay. Thank you.

014I apologize for for not doing that. And we'd like to um uh board member Barry, he is um on a long planned trip that that he is with his family and so we wish him the best tonight. Um so we will start tonight um with approving our prioritized agenda and proposed time allocations. >> Board member Muller a motion to approve the prior prioritized agenda and proposed time allocations. >> Board member Murray second. >> Motion a second. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. It's like weird because I feel so one-sided like we're very heavy on one side. Um okay. Um our first uh for tonight is our commendation um from Senator Martin Heinrich's office. We'd like to invite Annie Canana um from his office to to come up to the podium.

015>> Good evening. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Annie Kintana from Senator Heinrich's um Albuquerque office and I'm so glad to be here to honor you. Dr. Cleveland. The senator sent me this evening to present you with this flag which was flown over our nation's capital as well as present you with this certificate of recognition which says um in recognition of three decades of exemplary leadership as superintendent of Rio Rancho public schools and her enduring contributions to the education of children in her community and throughout the state of New Mexico. The senator wishes he could be here tonight, but um I am so glad to be here to celebrate you and give you this flag. >> I want to go down. pictures. >> Thank you. Thank you for coming. Yeah, we

016just want to thank him again for coming out. I I'm so grateful for that. So many have been so kind and and recognizing Dr. Cleveland. Anything else you want to say before? >> Well, I just uh my my sincere thanks as I I shared with Andy to the senator um for that very gracious um certificate and and the flag and again, you know, appreciate uh the many efforts we've had working with his office. uh to better um the um to better the situation in our schools and uh to work with us on some projects including some financial ones and so uh we thank him for that and uh uh wish he could be here this evening as well but um any thanks for coming. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay, our next commendation is

017actually going to be presented by Dr. Cleveland um for Todd Rash. >> The uh commendation this evening is for Todd Rash. And so Todd, thank you for coming uh to the the front. The um the National Interca Scholastic Athletic Administration Association provides the professional development, professional certifications and leadership resources for athletic directors and administrators who work with athletes at the intercolastic level nationwide. And so um they also work uh very closely with the other uh uh with the association for athletics and other school activities. uh the work of the National Federation of State High School Associations as a partner with this organization. And so Todd has been selected to be a national trainer for the leadership training institute and the professional development academy uh which is again a na a national uh organization and it's

018very rare that we get um uh people asked to um be presenters from the state of New Mexico. I did a little research, Todd. I think there's a couple of others at the University of New Mexico that do the substance abuse training. Um, and uh, but it is it is a real honor uh, not only for our district, for Todd, but also for the state of New Mexico to have him in that role. And so I just wanted you to be aware of that. I wanted to congratulate him. and um you know you have to really truly be recognized as uh a leader among your peers to get this this uh this this invitation to be part of that inter that national uh faculty. So again congratulations. You want to say a little bit about

019some of the things you get to do as part of that uh and the kinds of training that you provide to uh athletic directors across the country? >> Well, good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. First I I'm sorry this is your night so this is going to be very brief. Um so what I what I am is I'm on the national faculty for sports law and also um the creation of district athletics hands handbooks and school athletic handbooks. So it's been really cool to be a part of something like that teaching through webinars uh teaching some face-to-face courses and being uh being provided an opportunity to teach at the national conference uh every December. So, um, but I just I just need to say that none of this none of this would have been

020possible without the support of Dr. Cleveland. And she's the one who is responsible for giving me the opportunity to have what I believe is the best sports job in New Mexico. And uh, for that I am eternally grateful. So, thank you and uh, thank you for this moment. Have a nice evening. >> THANKS, TOM. UM, YOU KNOW, to Todd's point, like even, you know, we're doing a lot to honor Dr. Cleveland, but I think when she gets to honor one of her staff, it shows, you know, that's that's her legacy is is those things and so we're so grateful that you were able to honor him tonight. >> I'm glad to have had that opportunity as well. It is wonderful. You got the the that recognition and and uh as I said, it's it's good

021for us. It's good for him, but it's also really good for New Mexico. It really puts us on the map. And so uh again, congratulations to to Mr. Rash for uh being selected for that uh for that role. >> We definitely need to be put on the map for good things. Good things. All right. Thank you so much, Dr. Cleveland and Todd. Um we'll now go into our reports. So our first report for tonight is on safety and security. And we'd like to welcome up Sal Madiachi, our executive director of safety and security. members of the board. Thank you for giving me the opportunity tonight to talk about what the safety and security department does for Rear Ranch public schools. So tonight we're going to talk about the department's organizational structure, physical security, our surveillance

022systems, of course, most importantly security personnel, communications, and then technology. So our orchard is pretty simple. Um, I have a great director, Jose Salazar, and we break up our management section into two areas. We have a security manager that handles just the high schools. High schools are incredibly busy. Uh, takes a lot of supervision to make sure everything's going smoothly. And then we have a lead at each high school. So, they report directly to that manager and that have security officers that fall under those folks. And then on the other side we have our primary schools which are elementary schools which is Sal Gonzalez and he also takes care of CTE which is Riot Tech uh Cyber Academy uh student support center and the middle school. So Sal's a busy guy but he does a

023great job taking care of those schools and again like I said they have a great great branch of security officers working under each of those folks. And then we have our kind of our admin area. We also handle access control and our lock shop is a pretty busy shop. We have over 12,000 doors in the district of Rio Rancho school district. A lot of those are controlled by access control and we do all that with uh two locksmiths and a manager. So those uh those folks stay pretty busy and then of course we have other uh folks that help us on the private sector side. And then uh facility use agreements which is another uh incredible department that uh or section that we work with and I'll talk a little bit more about that in

024in future slides. So, implementing school security, I have to say that um it's when I first got here, I learned a lot and I have to say that the the safety and security department, we really try to do a balance of creating just the safest environment we can with our for our students and our staff and still make it feel like they're coming to school and it's a very welcoming environment. So, but security is always is very dynamic. It changes constantly. So, always trying to adapt to some of the new trends and some of the new threats that are come to our attention. So we use layers and the best way I can describe layers is is that we try to uh look at a school and its security from the outside in. So the

025first thing we do is we want to make sure that the the perimeter of our schools are secure and we do that with fencing. And one of the things that we try to do with our recent fencing projects is kind of getting away from those old um fencing materials that we see the cyclone fencing and we use a product now that we call welded wire. And sometimes when you look at it you almost can't see it. So it's a very nice product because it provides great security. It's difficult to climb. Uh it's easily repairable. It comes in sections. So when we have it get damaged, instead of trying to change the whole fence out, we could just change out a section. Uh very secure. So it's a great product. And um and then we work

026on ballards, right? Because we know that sometimes vehicles have been used to cause damage to schools and and sometimes even personnel. So uh work working with the facilities department has been a pleasure. We work together. We've installed a lot of ballers throughout the school. And then lighting. Uh we work with those folks a lot. And what we're starting to do now is we're actually starting to work with some bullet resistant film. And what I really like about that product is that it's another way to to provide more safety in our schools without even noticing it. So that's great. Like especially in elementary schools, we're starting to use that product more and more. It gives us a great level of protection protecting the the the integrity of the building and and as you're driving by, you

027don't even see it. You don't even know it's there. But it's that level of protection. So we start within a perimeter. And the first thing we look at is access control. I will say that that system is incredibly complex because it uses mechanical systems and electronic systems. As you can see, door hardware is all mechanical. Requires a lot of maintenance, especially when we have hardware that's outside that we use on gates. Uh, one of the things that we worked with a company um, DEX, and we wanted a gate, an outside gate to help us with elopers. And those are students, typically elementary school students, that want to leave the premises. And some of our schools are busy streets. So, we want to make sure they can't get out and and be in a dangerous situation.

028So, as we manufactured these gates, these high security gates, we wanted a mechanical device that would give us a delay. So, if a student was running towards the gate, they wouldn't be able to get out. So, these gates have a 15-second delay on the hardware. Um, as you can imagine, there's some complexity in that in that push bar. But with that comes maintenance, and a lot of our schools are environments have a lot of sand, a lot of dust. So, so the guys work really hard to make sure those those are always working properly. But again, very very complex systems. And one of the things too is our systems rely a lot on our network. So we work very closely with the IT department. Can't thank those folks enough because when we have a system

029go down, they're on it. They're taking care of it so that our systems are always working and working the way they should. Forced entry is a is a system that we use to give another level of scrutiny as visitors want to enter our schools. When they get to the outside of the school, they hit an intercom. They have a conversation with the receptionist. we know what who they are, why they're there, and then we open that door, they come in, and then there's another area that we have surveillance cameras in, and the staff is able to scrutinize that person. Does everything look right? I mean, if it's 110 degrees out, they're wearing a trench coat, that's a problem, right? We want a security now. So, it's a great it's a great secondary access point. Everything

030looks good, then they buzz the next door and they're able to come in and make contact with the administrative staff and and take care of their visit. our surveillance system. We have a really robust surveillance system and I'll tell you it's it's a pleasure to work with it because it just serves a lot of needs. Uh one of the things that we do with it is we have two command centers. We have one at Rear Rancher High School and one at Cleveland High School and those are monitored constantly throughout the day. And the great thing is is that as a security officer who's managing that post, you know, you can tell if kids are congregating at a certain point, okay, maybe something doesn't look right, they can dispatch officers to that location. A lot of

031times we're able to prevent things before they even happen. So, it's a great system to have. Um, we're always monitoring. Like I said, it's great for um being able to investigate incidents. A lot of times we have, as you can imagine, with as many students we have, 3,000 high school students in a high school, it kind of operates like a small city. So, a lot of times we're asked to investigate uh incidents that have occurred. And we use that as a tool to go back and see what exactly happened. Um, and then it's a valuable tool for human resources. A lot of times HR department uses that to investigate situations that they're looking into as well. body warn cameras. You know, it's funny. When I was a police officer, um I was never a fan

032of the body warn camera. I always thought that um you know, the the police officer's testimony should be good enough to to satisfy any any need for any judicial hearings. But you know what I have to say is as society changed and technology has changed, I think it's an amazing tool. And we implemented that because we were just having a lot of incidents of really aggressive student behavior and I wanted to be able to document that to to you know to kind of explain what happens what what our officers and what our staff are dealing with. So uh as a byproduct of that we started finding out that they were coming in very handy for aggressive parent behavior. So it's just a really wonderful tool that we use protect staff from allegations and provides for

033digital evidence. And again too what's great is we use it anytime a student's being searched. We make sure that we have those body war cameras rolling so that we know that if any accusations come up, we are able to to defend ourselves and and know exactly what happened. So, it's a great tool that we use and and um that system is actually wonderful because all that evidence is stored in the cloud. It's protected. It's unable to be manipulated. So, it has wonderful evidential integrity. And then here it is. Here's here's what uh what I love most about the department is our security officers. I believe it's the most important component of safety and security. And I will tell you this, um, we we have such a a strict selection process. Basically, and I and I'm

034proud to say that we can still do this. We won't really hire anybody unless I know them personally, my director knows them personally, or somebody we trust knows them personally because I think that bring somebody in our schools to work with our kids is something that you have to cherish. And we just want to make sure that, you know, we look for folks that have great tactical skills. Um, they're physically fit. They're able to do the job, but they also have that personality that we know they can mesh with the kids. They can mesh with the students and work with our staff. And I think we've done a really great job of finding good people. And here's just an just an opportunity of, you know, they just develop these relationships and we know those relationships

035are what's going to help us when we investigate crimes or where we want somebody to let us know something bad is about to happen. This is key. And like I said, they do a wonderful a wonderful job. We have armed and unarmed security officers. We're the only district in the state of New Mexico now because Farmington was doing it and I guess they stopped doing it. They've had some personnel changes in their district and no they're no longer running an armed school security officer program. But uh I believe that our system is fantastic. I wish I could say I I designed it but I didn't. Um but I was able to walk into a system that was put together incredibly well. I think um like I said, the people that work it are what makes

036it what makes it great. >> Our training is top-notch. You know, we uh I'm fortunate enough to have a safety and security coordinator who was a major with New Mexico State Police who ran the academy. So, what what better person could you ask for to to take care of our training and and help us out with uh instructing even our staff in active shooter and other other important topics? But uh but all our instructors are in house and we're very fortunate to have a great relationship with Rio Ranch Police Department. They're also assist us in uh some of the training. And at the bottom picture there on the slide, you can see New Mexico State Police bomb technicians. They're there. We had them on an inservice training day and they're giving our security officers uh

037training on how to detect explosive devices and what you do if you happen to find something, having conduct those investigations. So, it was just a great day of training. But just goes to show, like I said, because we have officers from Reanch PD and APD and state police, we bring in these agencies, they can do training with us, and it just works out incredibly well. communications. I can tell you that um over 30 years in law enforcement, whenever we critiqued a critical incident, one of the first breakdowns was always communication. So, uh one of the things that we always wanted to work on here was developing a great communication system. And several years ago, we were able to put together a networkwide system in our district for a repeater system. So, any officer from one

038school could talk to another officer in another school and which was a great accomplishment. We're able to get that done. And recently, we took it one step further. We work with the police department. Uh again, like I said, great partners at Reanchual PD. I I want to thank Chief Seal. He has an individual that works for him that is their radio technician. That's all he has their radios. And I walked in there talking to the chief and told him what we wanted to do. And uh so he introduced me to Charles Ross and we walked back to Charles's office and he said, "Charles Salmoniachi with Road Public Schools. You give him whatever he needs." And that was it. So, and and here we are today that we actually have uh radios that talk directly to

039not only Rancho PD, but Bernalo County Sheriff's Department, New Mexico State Police, and Santa County Sheriff's Office. And that's just a just a flick of a just a flick of a button on our radio. So, um great technology. Um but the partnerships is what really made that that come to fruition. So, we're very happy at that. We're going to continue to work on that getting that system even better. So, really happy with those with that situation. And those radios, what's great about those radios is that the dispatchers of Reancho PD, if one of our officers is in a crisis situation and they hit that panic button on the radio, they know who it is and they can send assistance to us just like that. So technology, one of the things that uh that we really

040try to do uh is try to be one step ahead. And the way we do that, we look for proactive security features. What can we put in our schools that keep something bad from happening? And uh so one of the things that we we use is we use gunshot detection. And as much as we hate to say it, you know, it's just it's just a great system to have because what that system does using utilizing two key components. So we try to reduce false alarms. So what this system uses, it uses an infrared signal and a sound detection signal. So you have to have the two simultaneously to activate the alarm. So it really keeps I can't remember the last time we had a false alarm on this system. But if it should get activated,

041uh it works on the access control system. that will put the school in immediate lockdown and then what it does is it accesses the closest camera and it produces that image in our command centers and at the dispatch center at Rancho PD. So that will have an immediate notification of what's happening and if that and then what's even better is that that system will track it. So if there's multiple gunshots, this the sensor is going to detect where that shot is coming from and and activate that camera. So essentially it'll track the suspect if the suspect is on the move. So great system. Again, you know, we're just very fortunate to have these systems and but it requires a lot of maintenance and we always have folks working on things to make sure that it's

042working the way it should. Uh, recently we've implemented the Evolve concealed weapon detection system. Again, it integrates with our access control system and our surveillance system. And the best thing about it is is we wanted a system that we can make our school safer but not impede the flow of students as they come into the school. You'll see the system used at the Pentagon, Disneyland. Uh just you'll be surprised how many people are using the system and the kids can just walk through. Students walk through there. They don't take anything out of their pockets. They walk through with their backpacks. And as we've the more that we've used the system, our students are learning what sets off the system, what doesn't. So the the way getting students through is just getting better and better all

043the time just by virtue of knowing, you know, what's what what it looks for. And essentially it uses I always hate to I like people use the term AI now for everything. um it's not necessarily using AI in real time, but the engineers that design the system, what they do is they collect data. They look at some of the analytics that the system collects and they try to improve on it and they use AI to make those improvements. So, we always see the system getting better and better and it's just looking for specifically identified objects and weapons and that's what it's looking for. So, it's not looking for keys. It's not looking for sunglasses and it's just a really great system. I'm glad that we have it. I think the when we first put the

044system in, I have to tell you, I was anticipating a lot of phone calls and parents were not going to be happy. We did some public service announcements. We did some other stuff. And I got to to this day, I have not received a phone call from anybody who doesn't like it. So, I just think that's a that's a big plus for our community and a great plus for our school. And then facility use agreements. You know, this uh this was something that we took on recently and um I don't know why question that decision often. You're welcome. But, uh, it's it's worked out really good. I, you know, we have a great coordinator that's working with us now. And, uh, and it really is farreaching because our district has a great facilities and whether

045it comes to fine arts or athletics, we just have some of the best facilities in the state. So, of course, everybody wants to use them, you know, schools, private uh, organizations, and it's a lot to coordinate. So, u, like I said, we I think we we do a really good job with it. It's a lot of work and um and like I said, we uh it's got a lot of it's got a lot of things to it. We'll just leave it at that. But it's our department and uh we like it. So with that ending on that, I will answer any questions that you that you know. >> Okay. Thank you so much for doing this. I wish Michael had been here tonight and I'm sure that he'll listen to it because I know that

046he'll have more questions and such for you. So I'm sure he'll listen to it later. But Dr. Clovin, do you want to add anything before we go into questions? Just a couple of comments. One, I as I mentioned earlier, the the issue of student safety never leaves our our our minds ever. It's always there. It's and and uh over the last several years, we've had uh for example u the uh uh the union and others expressed their appreciation for the efforts the district has made to uh keep our classrooms as safe as possible. I know there are people in the building who can handle emergency situations. And uh several years ago on Valentine's Day, we had an incident could have been very bad. Did not turn out to be but could have been. And one

047of the comments that we got back after that was uh how impressed the other entities who were involved in in that incident. uh how well prepared uh the district was. Uh everything went according to plan in terms of how you deal with emergencies and and so it was uh it was a lot of really positive strong feedback and that doesn't happen without a lot of hard work and planning and just that you just on a day where you have an emergency that's not the day you start worrying about all those things. And so, uh, I I really appreciate all the time and effort this department puts in to keeping us safe every day. And, um, and we can't nothing is 100%. We know that nothing is 100% foolproof, but we know we're a lot safer

048than a lot of other places are because we made it a uh, always made it a a priority of the of the district. And I think it's important to our students that they feel safe and they know there's people on campus who can help in case there are incidents and there always are uh some incidents and have to be responded to. So um and the last comment is on facility use uh which uh is a tough area and gets bounced around, right? But I don't know who you're going to give it to because um but it you know in in this city we do not have a lot of public meeting places. which is very limited. And so what that ends up being is they look to the school district to help with some of

049those things. And um you know sometimes folks don't understand why we we have fees for the use of those facilities. And I would want to really emphasize that the fees are just to maintain what we have to try to help with the upkeep. There's a lot of wear and tear on our facilities and um and if we don't get some some support for that, that money's going to come right out of your classrooms. And so and it shouldn't it should not be a way that um that that you know we we fund people wanting to use our buildings. So it's it's trying to reimburse actual costs. That's all it is. Not making any money. It's not something that is a money-making venture for us in any way. In fact, we still lose. We still have

050enough to cover it. But that's the purpose of that facility use agreement. And that's why we come to the board uh with uh approval for th those fees. And it's uh um and and it's still a really good deal, I think, compared to some other places we've compared to some other school districts and and we're still very reasonable in what uh we ask uh people to to to pay when they use our facilities. just wanted to make that comment and also you know again to thank S for a really good report but but for uh putting together he's absolutely right putting together a really fine group of individuals uh that work really hard uh for for all of our students and our staff and our families and often reach out to our families as well.

051Uh so thank you for that. Yeah, >> if I could just say one thing that you know none of this happens um alone and I tell you we would not be as successful as we are if it wasn't for the departments that we work with >> you know especially like talked about network you know it is huge in what we do facilities uh Scott Leman and Patrick Martinez are just great partners uh finance couldn't do without those folks supplying us the funds so I'm just very fortunate to to work in this district because we have such great partnerships and of course you all here you know by supporting safety and security so I just can't thank you all enough as well >> yeah thank you thank you questions from the board. Um, Seth, >> thank

052you for I know it's a lot. I know a lot of your guys I know some of the state police guys are jealous you guys have bird now to help you here. So, yeah, they're excited. I mean, it's he's a great guy for the training and then and all of the personnel and then and then and for as a representative of the district, all of the personnel are outstanding. I also help with the Delorte gun club. I coordinate all the law enforcement military training. We have 18 agencies that participate with us. And one of the better ones that we have is the Rio Rancho public school safety and security. And and the the way you guys come out, your professionalism, other departments have run over gates, broken stuff, and you guys are always above and

053beyond. And we the club appreciates that. And I know that that's just an extension of the leadership here at the schools. Thank you, >> Rebecca. >> I don't have any questions, but I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know my kids are safe and the students are safe and the staff. Thank you so much for everything you do. >> Thank you. Um, it's interesting. I had this conversation with my kids over the weekend. We were just talk she so one of them, she's away at college, but she was talking about high school and and someone was saying they never had any security at their schools. And she was like, "What?" Like that's crazy, you know? Well, and I don't want it to think like, yeah, we have to have

054security because we have, you know, bad students because that's not it. But we want to make sure that our students are protected. And I know my children and two have gone through the district now and I have two still in school um have always felt that they are protected in our schools. And um we have such a great team um that my kids even know many of them by name and talk about them and are grateful for them. Um, and so it just you guys are doing a wonderful job and um, I hope that we can continue to give you those resources that you need so that our kids feel safe. Um, we really are we're living in a time where kids walk in and they think, "Okay, what do I do to escape this

055if I need to and and that's a hard truth, right, for them?" Um, but for them to be able to walk in and to be able to feel confident that they can learn um, because we have a great team that is watching over them and protecting them. So, I guess I have one question for you that if you could think of and I'm sure you're already forward thinking, but what is kind of that next thing that you're looking to something that you would like us to um start, you know, implementing in the district at some point. Maybe it's just something that you're looking at right now that maybe we won't, but what are some of those things that you're looking to for the future? >> Really just improving our fencing at at our schools. Um

056some of the fencing is old and some of our schools there's been so much sand blown up where fenc is now a three-foot fence and so we just really want to you know we've kind of put together a list of priorities of some of the schools we want to address as soon as possible and then the implementation of bullet resistant film I've never been a fan of it to be very honest with you I've never seen I thought was any good uh recently we had a company um presented one of our you know Jose Salazar did a great job putting together this kind of this consortion of of different school district safety and security departments and we would get together meet quarterly and just talk about ideas what we're doing what we are doing and

057what's working at one district and not for another and what happened was we had a contact with this company we wanted wanted to kind of demonstrate a product and I never wanted to use that as a platform for vendors but uh what happened was one of the the principal owners is a retired Mesa PD SWAT officer who I happened to run into over the years so I said well let's give them a shot and see what they have well they brought this this product in and we took it to the range and we shot the heck out of this thing and I don't know if you guys know Jose Salazar He's a pretty big boy. He's about good 300 lb and a big overcharged state police officer. And we gave him a baseball bat and

058told him to break through it and he couldn't. I thought, "Okay, well now now you have my attention." And so far is that I took a personal trip to they're out of Scottsdale. I took a personal trip to visit a friend of mine to go play golf and I visited this company because I figured I wanted to see what they're all about. And I was thoroughly impressed and I thought, "Okay, this is a this is a company that's really got a proprietary product that works." And I want to start using their product more because again, to me, it's a way that we can protect our our schools. We can keep our students safe, our staff safe, and it doesn't look like a a correctional institution. It's nice and what I want. I want our kids

059to feel go to school and feel great about it, feel like they're going to school. And uh and that's important to me. So, that's some of the things looking forward. Those are the two things I'd like to really concentrate on. Um, and then personnel, like I said, I could just I could always use more folks. We One of our biggest challenges is training because I can't I don't I'm not I don't have enough staff to pull five or six guys to spend a day at the range, you know? So, we have to be really careful with how we move people around to do some of our training. So, if I could get more staff, that'd be great. Gives us more flexibility to spend more time. >> Yeah. >> Training those important issues. >> Awesome. Well,

060thank you. Anything else, Dr. Cleveland, from you? Thank you so much. It was a great report. We appreciate it. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, our next is our legislative report. We'd like to welcome up uh Chris Balzano from um Balzano government relations along with Lauren Hatcher, chief legal counsel to present. It's good to see you, Chris. >> Good evening, President uh superintendent and members of the board. I'm Chris Bazano, your government relations uh the good to be here after a rough, tough, and long session. Uh long 30 legislative days, not 30 days. Let's put that way, right? Um, we started on Tuesday, January, uh, 20th, and we ended on Thursday, uh, February 19th. Uh, the governor had until March 11th to act on legislation that were on her desk. Um, a week later after that,

061you receive a report uh from us, from our firm with all, it's called the governor's desk report, and has all the bills there. uh also has a breakdown of House Bill 2 uh with an analysis on education. Uh everything that you need to know is in that report. In addition to that, Laura and I work in this presentation. You're going to see that there is a lot of detail there. We don't want to go over reading every single bullet. Um but there is the information so you can go back there and take a look at it. We're going to just do a a overview on this. Uh on the next slide, you're going to see a little bit of statistics on the session. You can see that um from 815 pieces of legislation which includes

062bills, memorials and joy resolutions uh only two were vetted and 71 were signed by the governor. So it's it's a very small uh percent that makes to the governor's desk and then gets signed. uh from the 815 73 of those were educational bills or somehow there indirectly or directly could impact education. You're going to see Lauren is going to talk a little bit about a tax bill that uh was amended on the last day of the session that does impact uh school districts. uh one observation uh some of the thing I was discussing with Lauren and also the team is that we are seeing that 30-day sessions on on the last few years have been uh just like a six day session. We understand that uh in the constitution and in the rules and procedures

063of uh the parliamentary system that the 30-day session is for budget only or things related to tax that impact the budget. But we are seeing policies uh being dropped through legislation left and right in both chambers. So we my recommendation is for now long we do treat a 30-day session as a 60-day session because uh Lauren's going to talk about that on House Bill 2, how much policy it was in that bill. We took a lot of time breaking that down. Um and then with that I'll take over. >> Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Cleveland, it's a pleasure to address you tonight and uh to work with my my good friend Chris Balsano here. He is right. Uh it was a 30-day session, but it was it felt like the longest 30 days

064uh in living memory. Um there was a lot that was going on. Um there was about 70 bills that were really related to um our business as a school district, but when all the dust was settled, there is really 16 that we're looking at very carefully um and having implementation teams work through those bills to see if there's any changes that the district needs to make in its policies, in its procedures, and its practices. Um, this presentation has all of the bills that we're looking at and I'm not going to talk about every one of them. Certainly happy to answer any questions that you might have, but I want to hit some uh key points. So, on slide number four, House Bill Two, the General Appropriations Act of 2026. This is the money bill. This

065is the bill every year where we're looking to make sure that we are funded appropriately. And uh we had mixed results. There's about a 2% increase in school funding this year. That's much smaller than what we've seen in the past, but Rear Rancher Public Schools turned out pretty good. Um there's a couple things in there that we really like. Number one, uh there is funding in there to increase uh insurance premiums paid on behalf of of our employees to 80% paid by the district. Uh before up to this point, it's been there's a tiered process. Um, some some uh employees had 80% of their premiums paid, some only had 60%. So now it will all be 80. We also received $300,000 in there for to continue our math labs and elementary schools. And we got

066$360,000 in there to continue building out our solar lab at uh Riotech. I want to move your attention to uh slide number seven. Um, I had talked about how House Bill 2 has funding in there to pay 80% of the premiums for employees. House Bill 47 is actually the change in the statute that requires a school district to pay at least 80%. And then it has a very uh interesting provision in there um which all the school policy nerds will be very interested in. And that is um in the statute up until now, it has defined a school district as a as a a school district that doesn't have uh more than 60,000 students. And uh what that does is it defines out APS and they've been able to have their own uh insurance um

067program. And House Bill 47 actually ends that. Um, it's been our contention that uh that APS has had a better insurance package than the New Mexico Public School insurance Authority and that's been a a challenge for us as we're trying to recruit and retain employees. Hopefully, this will result in a better product for everybody. Uh, but it'll make us more competitive. We think I'd like to direct your attention to slide number nine. Um there was a lot of focus on distance learning programs at the legislature. There was a lot of intense debate about that and the legislature passed House Bill 253 was signed by the governor and really what it does is it reigns in uh full-time virtual schools and primarily ones that are what I will call a turnkey school where a contractor will

068come to a school district and say you know what uh either we'll take some of your students or we have our own students uh we will teach them we will provide all the teachers we will provide the curriculum we'll do it virtually and that we will split the revenue that comes from uh from the state. And u there was a a a few particular circumstances where uh the legislature was unhappy with that result and they passed this bill to really rein that in. And we'll see what happens over the next few years as they continue to to look at that and peed uh evaluates these uh these types of programs. Now this bill does not affect any programs that we have at Rio Rancho public schools and we uh for instance the cyber academy it

069doesn't affect that. Uh these distance learning programs are ones where they are full-time uh full-time uh online programs and students do not need to come into a school physical building at all. That's not the model that we use at at our uh cyber academy. Uh we're going to carefully look at this. We're going to continue monitoring this issue going forward. I'd like to direct your attention to um page 12. There's some interesting house memorials that were uh adopted by the legislature as well that we're going to be uh looking at very care uh carefully. Uh House Memorial 2, they want to study the use of screens in elementary schools and that's becoming an important topic. Uh, House Memorial 30 is a study of public education governance in the state. In the last few years, there's

070been bills to change the way that peed works and to maybe go back to a state uh public education commission with a a a non-appointed uh commissioner um as the head of it. And they're going to study whether that's a good idea or not. Uh, House Memorial 47, they want to study teacher workloads. That's something that we're very interested in. Um they have this new idea called gifted in the field which adds extra um like specialist endorsements to a teacher's license. And then we're very interested in the inspection of public records act implementation study that they want to do as well. So we're going to keep a close eye on those things. Memorials are not bills. Memorials are where the legislature is expressing an opinion or they're asking for uh things to be done like

071a study. but they can produce very important results that we like to to pay attention to. Um, next there's three bills starting on page 14. Uh, Senate Bill 29, which during the legislature was called the math bill, and then Senate Bill 37, which has been called the reading bill, and then Senate Bill 64, which is the creation of the Office of Special Education. These are pretty substantive changes in the way that education is done in New Mexico. Um, with math, they're really creating a statewide framework for how you teach math. They're creating new assessments and they're adding additional reporting requirements to parents on very fairly tight time frames, 30 days. Really, the focus is is improving math learning and teaching in the state of New Mexico. We're implementing this right now. We're going to continue

072watching what the legislature does in this area. Senate Bill 37, which is on page 15, uh the literacy bill. This is a continuation of work that peed and the legislature have been doing over the last few years to really change the way um that reading is taught in the state of New Mexico using what is called the science of reading. Uh this expands it to all types of literacy including bilingual and uh it has requirements that we only use peed approved materials and uh also has uh reports that kind of parallel the math ones that when we identify a problem with reading that we're letting parents know on a very short time frame 30 days so that those things can be addressed. like to move to uh slide number 16 uh Senate Bill 64 creating

073the office of spe special education. This has been a priority that uh governor uh the governor has had to really focus on special education. The previous uh proposals have always been creating an entity outside of the public education department. This puts it inside of it. And uh this in in our evaluation, this was the best proposal that we've seen to this point and it has been enacted into law. Um one of the things that we're looking very carefully at is the requirement that they develop and maintain a statewide uniform online system for creating IEPs. Um we're looking at that very carefully. We have an online system that we use. Uh it's a little bit different than what we're anticipating from peed, but we haven't seen what they're asking for yet. Um and then uh the

074the Office of Special Education is going to monitor and enforce compliance with special ed laws. Next, um Chris had mentioned on slide 18, Senate Bill 151. Usually a pay raise for public employees comes in House Bill 2. And uh some of the earlier drafts of it included a pay raise, but then they were struck out kind of at the last minute. the legislature didn't find as a collective group that that was an acceptable uh result and so they amended on the last day a bill that's actually a tax bill to include um some pay raises. So there's a 1% average pay raise for public employees which includes school employees. We'll be implementing that as well. Um slide number 19, Senate Bill 241, child care assistance program. This is another very significant piece of legislation out

075of uh out of the session this year. The governor in about November of 2025 had implemented a system that would uh pay for child care, universal child care and uh it wasn't in the law. She was using budget that she had and they felt like they had authority to use that money. Um I'm not sure the legislature agreed with that to begin with, but in the end they did pass a law that would allow for universal child care. Um, one of the uh the issues that was hotly debated was was whether there should be any deductibles and the bill ended up with a deductible in it, but it's only for people who are 600% of the federal poverty level. They would phase those deductibles in. 600% of the federal poverty level is about $200,000. So,

076it's very a very high level amount before you would pay uh any deductibles. Um, this does affect the district. It affects our employees. It also affects us because we have a a daycare that would qualify that does qualify under this. And so, uh, this is a significant change. Um, we were also very fortunate, um, through work from our staff and work from Chris and his folks, uh, to be able to, uh, get some significant capital outlay dollars. On slide number 20, um, these are all the projects that we, we were able to get funded, at least partially, and it's about 2.6 $.6 million. Uh fairly significant. We are very grateful to our delegation who uh allocates these funds and for the legislature for passing them. It's about a million more than we had last year.

077Uh I think finally I just wanted to highlight uh on slide number 21 that there is a uh referendum that the legislature passed. It will be on the November 2026 ballot and if the voters approve it, it would allow elections for school boards to be conducted during partisan elections and that would be probably a fairly significant change. So that's something to watch and I'm going to hand the microphone back to Chris. Um so what's next? Uh we are waiting uh organization meetings will begin uh next month on May 18th and then on June I uh hit the road and start traveling monitoring all those hearings around the state. Um we will be watching the legislative education study committee working on what uh Lauren stated in regards the virtual learning that's going to be definitely in

078their agenda and the next item their agenda uh they're going to put together the Albuquerque public schools reanch public schools Santa Fe Los Cruus public schools to discuss about transportation that is um uh we're going to fix that on a 60-day session uh that's the hope uh during this interwork and on that fiscal here for for us start on July 1st this upcoming capway submissions as always I'll keep all of you updated October 16 the portal opens and we can submit that the deadline for that will be December 12 end of the year and interim session or inter committees uh will end on December 16 and we start a six day session again so >> you just made time feel like it went really fast so >> with Uh if any questions, Madame President, thank

079you. >> And Dr. Cleveland, did you want to add anything? >> I just, you know, want to uh say it was the wildest session ever for a 30-day. It was not strictly financial at all. There was just so many policy things that came through. And so it was it was like a marathon, I guess, for those of you working up there every every day. But a lot of good things did come out of it. and and uh yeah, I guess one of the questions I would ask Lauren is after you've had a chance to look at it and and having worked with Mike Baker, um do you think that we're going to have sufficient funding for the 8020 that the state will pay for that or that we will end up having to um support

080some of that with uh with just local district funds or do we know that yet with >> Thank you, Dr. Cleveland. I according to the legislature we have sufficient funds to pay for it. Um we're looking at that now. Um we have found >> that's really assuring >> we're very grateful for what we get. Um >> but unfortunately sometimes the math doesn't always add up. >> Um and and there's some uncertainties too because um we kind of know who has insurance now. This is a better deal. And it could be that we have more of our employees who are saying, you know what, at this point, I wanna I want to join. And uh those types of inclusions would probably begin about uh about January 1st. And so that would be in the middle of

081a budget cycle. Um we're looking at that very carefully. Um hopefully we have enough. >> One way or the other, we're going to make do. >> Now, they talked about it a lot when we were up there in February for the schoolboard conference. And of course we get to talk to you know they have different presentations and they kept assuring that yes of course this is going to be be funded but it doesn't always show that way and even those districts who had already been doing that too that they weren't going to get hurt by that as well. So hopefully >> well and the 8020 as you said is a really good deal and is better than anything that's been proposed in the past. In the past, it was 8020 for the employee only and

082uh and this 8020 is for the family as well. Family plans are very expensive for for families. And so, not only does it help with the short term now, uh but prices will very likely go up in healthcare. They've been going that way for a really long time. And so, you at least know that whatever those increases are, 80% of that should be um funded through the state and 20% u by the employee. So it was of the 1% was very nice. It it helped with some inflationary things, but the real win for school employees was the 8020 and uh and I know that u you know our union worked very hard for that. Uh many other organizations across the state worked very hard for it and um it it it's it's it's a real

083plus in terms of recruitment and retention of staff. Lauren kind of alluded to, we don't know uh whether uh we'll pick up more spouses now, you know, that maybe have been on separate policies and this is a better deal. uh we don't we do know and and for me that's you know I think that's a a a real shame and and a shock that we still have some people who don't have health insurance and uh will now be coming on to the the the the roles because this is a better deal for them and they can a make it's more affordable and they can make it work for their own budgets. So, uh, this was an extremely important, uh, bill for public school employees, and I think everyone's very grateful for the time and effort,

084work that went into making that, uh, making that happen. And the 1% came at the last second, you kind of kind of surprised at the end, but again, that helped with inflationary u um, certainly we get the 8020, but health care costs are going up and so helped offset that as well. So those were were were very important uh things for for us. The other thing I wanted to just comment on is the u the whole discussion around that office of of special education and as uh Lauren said this is the best of of the proposals. Uh originally they were going to move it outside of the whole public ed department and the reality of that would have been we've got early childhood, we've got the public ed department, now we would have had the

085department of special ed would have had three entities that we were reporting to and and that that's that's challenging, but the the argument of needing to have um more visibility for special ed programs in the state is valid. And so putting that under the secretary directly under the secretary still gives it that increased visibility and allows that individual to sit on committees where uh special ed policy and funding are being discussed and someone who is very knowledgeable about those things and and uh while our secretary is certainly knowledgeable about special ed she is the first to say I don't know all the particulars that would really be important to have when you're sitting there negotiating for something. And so she was very much in support of of this position and moving it under the public

086ed department. But we are at a crisis point in this state. And I think that's a recognition of of the fact that we know our special ed funding isn't working as well as it needs to. We know that all the needs of our children with disabilities are not being met. We're not quite sure where we should go with that and how we should fix that. And um and so this this position will help be part of those discussions during the interim >> and uh we do have a new uh person that is in charge of of that area and she seemed very knowledgeable and and so I think everyone's very um very excited about the possibility of those conversations through the interim to begin to really look at special education in our state and how

087it could be improved and how it could be changed. Okay. >> Thank you. And then Seth, any questions or comments? >> Just thank you. I know it can be fun hanging out with politicians all the time, so >> no comment. >> Love it. >> I don't have any questions. Thank you for all the work you do. >> Okay. Um, and I don't know if you guys have had a chance to meet Chris Bzano before, but he's a great advocate for us. And, um, when we're up in Santa Fe during the sessions or we go up for the conferences, um, Chris is up there. So, if there's something that you need, um, you can we can get you together with him. Um, he's done a great job. When I first started, he was great at kind

088of showing me some of the ropes and at times sitting in the hallway as we waited for other people to go and do things. So, we're really grateful to him. So, any last things? Any last things? Any things that we really need to worry about right in the moment as we move ahead? Are we getting any whispers, I guess, of anything that might be coming up in these these next sessions of things that we should be concerned about that you're hearing? >> Um, we're hearing that they want to take on uh transportation funding formula, which is an important issue for Yeah. >> public schools, >> some of the other larger districts. It's really important for all districts. >> Yeah. Um, we're also hearing um that uh they're interested in possibly looking at that 30 60

089hour professional development >> change that we uh pursued last year. >> Uh looks like there's more interest in in maybe looking at it at that again um >> going into the next session related to >> teacher workloads at Memorial. So I don't know. Do you have anything else you want to add? I think the next thing we should really watch as you know is an election year. Um I don't do politics, I do policy but when I'm off the session is my responsibility to monitor what is happening in the political world. >> And I think as we know um I lost the counts how many times we had a secretary of education um and that impacts the whole education agenda in the state. So we're going to have a new administration coming in. could happen

090it stays the way it is or not. So we just should monitor that >> and then be prepared for the six day session and see what it comes. So >> okay well thank you appreciate it. Um yeah >> but just one other quick comment. I just want to make sure I clarify something. Um, and again I I also want to thank Chris for for all his hard work. And it really works well I guess to have the team Lauren and David and others here working uh and working with Chris in Santa Fe and maximizing that community communication back and forth. And so we do appreciate all of uh uh all of your hard work and and being available to help us when we have we have needs. Uh I just wanted to clarify on the

091universal child care law. The 600% is a trigger, right? It's triggered if the economy goes uh goes starts to decline for any reason. Uh or is it is it co-pays regardless? >> Dr. Cleveland, my my uh Madam President, Dr. Cleveland, my understanding is that um they'll have sliding scale uh um co-pays for people who whose revenue whose uh income is at 600% of so if you have an income above that they will be implementing >> we can we look into that because I got something that came in recently that said because we just look at that because I think there are different some different opinions about it. I I I and I don't know, you're probably right, but I I do think that there's some different opinions about it. So, if we could just look

092at that >> and uh again, thank you both for all the time and effort that you put in. And uh um the legislature is such um you know, it it's one of the things that is so different in other states. If you've worked in other states, the legislature in New Mexico functions as a super school board. And that is not the case in other places. And so it's they have such an impact on the decisions affect almost every single thing we do as a district that you do as a board and um and 95% of our funding or more than that now. It's probably 98% of our funding for our budget comes directly through the SEG in Santa Fe. whereas in other states that's very different. So the legislature is a huge priority for us

093because it impacts every single thing we do. Everything from transportation to classroom instructions. You could see new new rules and regulations regarding um lit literacy and and uh and and mathematics. And so it it's uh it's really interesting the the function, but we pay an awful lot of attention to it because it impacts every single thing we do every day. So, thank you for your hard work. >> All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> I know you feel like we need a cop. I know. Sometimes it's so quiet in here. I feel like the same. You guys should be loud. No, I'm just kidding. Um, all right. Um, we do not have any public comment for tonight. Um, for those who would like to give public comment in the future, please sign up before the

094board meeting starts or you can use our public comment form. Um, we'll now go to the consent agenda. If we can get a motion on that. >> Board member Mari. Motion to um to accept the consent agenda. >> Board Mer second. >> Okay. We have a motion and a second. And all in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Okay. >> I keep trying to write numbers for how many board members we have. So, I start with five. Nope. We don't have five in here. We start with four. No, we only have three. Sorry. Okay. Um we'll now go into the business portion of our meeting and we'll start with our first item which is to consider the nominations for the 2026 NMSBA um student scholarship. And so we have there she is. I was kind of

095looking out there for you. We have Mariah Aendranger. So she Yay. So she'll present these to us tonight. >> Good evening Dr. Cleveland, President Galbreth and members of the board. I am so excited to be here this evening to celebrate the accomplishments of five because we have five high schools of five of the amazing seniors in our school district. I know you have the student nominations before you, but I would like to highlight each student in turn and share some of their accomplishments as well as the guidelines for the New Mexico School Boards Association scholarship. So, the nominees must be a senior graduating with the class of 2026. They must be pursuing a degree in higher education or a career in technical degree or certificate. And the senior nominated by the Rio Rancho School Board

096will be selected based on the following criteria: leadership, academic performance, community involvement, and extracurricular activities. Okay, there's number one. Um, Xavier Jet is our first student representing Independence High School. In the words of his counselor, Josh Garcia, Xavier has demonstrated strong leadership while attending Independence High School. Due to the diversity of students who attend there, as with any high school, there are ample opportunities to be distracted or to participate in unh wholesome talk or negativity. Xavier has consistently distanced himself from negative behavior, choosing instead to focus on his academics and what he needed to accomplish to graduate. Upon enrolling in Independence, the environment and support from his teachers made a meaningful impact on his academics. He gained confidence in his ability to learn and achieve his goals. And as his grades improved, so did his

097motivation. Xavier will walk in the May graduation, but he actually completed his coursework in March of 2026, an entire quarter early. He is planning on attending CNM and/or a trade school. Our second senior is Melee Grace Cers from the Rio Rancho Cyber Academy. In the words of her counselor Ashley Salazar, Melee consistently demonstrates strong leadership among her peers. Throughout her years at Rio Rancho Cyber Academy, she has been a steady and positive presence who leads by example. Mey has extended her leadership beyond the classroom through participation in National Honor Society and Associated Students. She also mentors younger students through the cyber scorpion success academy and through her work as a mentor with our own Rio Rancho public school safe program. Mele's commitment to excellence is reflected in her 3.97 GPA and her recognition as this

098year's saludiatoran. Beyond school related service, Meley actively supports her church community and plays a significant role at home helping to care for and support her younger siblings with disabilities. Melee will be attending Eastern New Mexico University and plans to major in early childhood education. Our third senior represents Rio Rancho High School, Aspen B. Lee, nominated by her counselor, Anne Chapman. Aspen currently serves as a student body president for the class of 2026 and the historian for the National Honor Society. Aspen has been an active member of Best Buddies, an organization dedicated to supporting opportunities for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and currently serves as their vice president and co-president of unified sports. In addition to her leadership roles, Aspen excels academically and was recognized as an AP scholar and inducted as a member of

099the Science National Honor Society. Aspen was also a member of the RRHs varsity track team for two years and currently serves as the track manager. I do not want to fail to mention that Aspen also works outside of school at our local Schlotskys where in addition to her regular duties, she serves as a trainer for new employees. Aspen is currently considering attending the University of New Mexico in the fall. Our fourth nominee is France Marlen Guwenurin from Riot Tech. In the words of his Riot Tech counselor, Ellie Ortiz, France has taken on responsibilities and leadership roles in a new school that have helped establish norms, expectations, and a strong culture for the students who will follow. Fron's decision to join a new school in his final year of high school demonstrates initiative, courage, and a

100commitment to building something meaningful. When Fron graduates in May, he will have also completed 62 CNM credit hours towards an associate of applied sciences in computer information systems network administration. Fron has been on the honor role every semester of high school and in the fall he made the deans list at CNM. Fron was also an active member of the VU Cleveland marching band drum line and a member of the wind symphony. He also actively participates in church groups through faith church and regularly participates in soup kitchens, clothing and food drives and community events. Fron would like to attend New Mexico Tech and pursue a mechanical engineering degree with a minor in business. Our final nominee, Emma Bastale, I had to figure out how to pronounce her name, comes from VU Cleveland High School. Maxine Cordova,

101transition specialist at CHS, describes Emma as a dependable and self-motivated student who leads by example. Emma demonstrates strong academic ability, has taken several AP classes, and currently maintains a GPO above 4.0, pacing placing her in the top 6% of her graduating class. In addition to her coursework, she is working towards completing her OSHA 10 medical training certification, which connects directly to her interest in the healthc care field. Emma is a member of the National Honor Society and is actively involved in the CHS symphonic and marching band. Through the National Honor Societies, she participates in peer tutoring to supports other to support others success in the classroom. Emma plans to attend the University of New Mexico and pursue a path toward becoming a surgeon. All righty, that concludes my formal presentation. What a wonderful group of

102RRPS seniors. I am a counselor and I wish we could nominate all five of them. Um, but you do have to make one of those amazing students our RRPS nominee. Um, I'm glad that's not my decision. If I can answer any questions, I'm still here. But >> here you go. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And you did a great job with those, Maria. This is like my love hate because I love to see all these students and they're all so good and capable, but then we have to make a decision off of um who we would like. And so, not always. So, we're going to nominate and we're going to send this to the New Mexico School Board Association, but not always do our nominees end up um with the scholarship, but we

103have had in the past. We've had a since I've been on the board, I think at least two or three. Um so, that's pretty that's pretty good. Once usually, unless they change it, if they get it this year, then we won't be eligible for for it next year. But anyone want to start a discussion or or make a motion on on our young people here? And I'm loving your slides here too, Maria. Just so you >> Yeah, it looks it looks it's amazing actually what it can do these days. Um, any thoughts? Their faces are very very thoughtful. Yeah, >> it really is. >> Um I I would actually love We have Riot. I would love um and and I can put that um that out there, but I'd love Fron's um I his last

104name is so really hard. Um Fron Marl, you said it's Gwyn and Taran. Gwen Taran. I think that he's doing so many great things right now in his life. he's already moving ahead and um is going to CNM and has some good things going on. Every single one of them would be fantastic. But um I wouldn't mind him. Um Seth has some thoughts. He's even holding his hand over the >> I also consider myself highly introverted. >> There you go. Any thoughts on that? I can >> I will >> unless you have strong feelings towards someone else. I can I can make a motion if you would like. >> I think this is a really difficult decision >> every year. Every year >> I will. >> You think that that we could we could do

105that one? Okay. Um Seth, are you what are you feeling? >> That's I'll motion that we nominate France Guinitaran to be the New Mexico School Boards Association nominee. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> You want make a second? >> I'll second. >> Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. Um, all in favor of this? >> I Any opposed? Nope. Motion carries with the three of us. So, thank you so much. So, we'll have some paperwork to sign on that I think. Do we all sign on that JC? That paperwork? Can't remember. I have it here. No, I don't have that one. So, we'll just >> Okay. Okay, sounds great. Thank you. Okay. Um I see Joy already ready to come up. Okay, so we're going to go to our next which is to

106consider the approval of the math adoption. Um this is for elementary school. So Joy Morales, our executive director of elementary um for CNI. >> Good evening, President Galbbert, Dr. Cleveland, and members of the board. Thank you so much for letting me um introduce you to our next set of recommendation for our next set of adopted materials for elementary math. I know we got a chance to speak with you during our workshop already. Um so this next part should go pretty quickly. We've already gone in depth about our process. So I'll go through and just give everybody a general idea of what we do for the the year that we go through this. So, our adoption process begins with a committed group of educators, and they're charged with identifying materials that are aligned to our New

107Mexico state standards. The end goal is to adopt a set of materials that support teachers and prepare our students for success in K12. I forgot I had the clicker. >> She gave me She gave you the clicker. >> I forgot. >> Thank you. I I'm good. There we go. Um the the recommendation tonight will represent the written component that's grounded in standardsbased instruction. This guarantees that every student will be provided an equal opportunity to learn our core curriculum with the time necessary to develop prof proficiency in the standards. Part of the review was to ensure our materials covered both our content standards, which is the what, as well as our standards for mathematical practices. And that's how we have students engage in the math. Um, we have eight mathematical practices and they are the same

108for all K through 12 students. I keep forgetting I have the you know, I'm not used to this. I'd like to introduce the uh I always like to acknowledge the members that serve on our committee. This year we had 31 elementary math uh teachers. Um they range from general education and special education. We also had 11 instructional coaches and we're fortunate to have several math labs in our district. So we were able to bring two of those math lab teachers on. They provide a very unique lens for us and could really give some good feedback to the materials that we put in front of them and how they could be used in the math lab classroom as well. Um we our committee we've got pretty rigorous expectations. Our committee members actually sign a contract committing

109up to eight sessions with us as we go through vetting materials. They also pilot materials. So they get to take those materials back into their classrooms and actually use them with students and get feedback from students. That learning is shared with peers on their campus throughout the process. Again, the intent is that we adopt materials that have a strong alignment with the standards. They're rigorous and have teacher supports as well as meet the needs of of our student diversity. I won't go as indepth with this process. You got to see it in depth right before the meeting. U but we always start with the New Mexico public ed approved list and then we go we have a a rubric that allows our teachers to very um with a laser lens basically look at the materials

110we put in front of them. We started with six sets of materials this year and then it took the entire year for them to get to where we had two for the publisher presentations. This entire course throughout the year, our teachers are building consensus. So by the time we get to analyzing all evidence, we usually have a pretty good idea of which set of materials is going to come out on top. And so with that, I come tonight to recommend Eureka Math Squared. With this adoption, we're looking at purchasing hands-on kits for students to actually manipulate to deepen their their conceptual understanding of math concepts. We would also get student print journals and of course our teacher resources which include print and online materials. So it is an investment of about $2.2 million. We are

111looking at investing about $27,000 in professional learning. I will have to tell you we have been working with Great Minds in the past. They understand that this is a very large investment and they have gifted six professional learning sessions for our district. So we will have six sessions um provided and so the 27,000 will cover the rest of what we feel we need for year one implementation and with that stand for questions. >> Okay. Um Dr. Cleveland, do you want to give some comments on anything else? We'll go into >> We we covered a lot of this. I as I mentioned at the earlier part of the board meeting, we covered this in in great detail as well in in the the workshop which was also streamed and available. So, uh but let's just go

112to the board. >> Okay. They did have us do math and fractions >> and I might have nightmares tonight, but we will we will make it through. It is funny. >> Great math discourse. >> Yeah, we did a great math discourse. Thank you so much, Rebecca. Any questions on I know you haven't been through this before, so any questions or comments? >> We learned a lot earlier. >> Yeah. >> Did we get the math questions right earlier? That's I'm joking. >> We didn't I did my math wrong. >> Okay, never mind. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry. >> And Seth, >> I don't think you have anything additional. >> No additional questions on anything. Okay. It really is an interesting process to watch and like even though I've seen a different one, but they really they bring

113in all of these teachers, they go through all the material. It's really impressive and they put those questions together. They when they have um the publishers come in and they're able to ask those questions. Um but it's really impressive how our teachers the way that they they talk about those things. and they're very critical and thinking and all of those things about it and they really think about our students and it's really an impressive process to watch and it takes it. How long were you guys doing um the the math implantation? When did you guys start and to this point? >> So well the process starts internally with Karen and Cara who are here tonight as well um really whittling down the state list. So we probably start late summer, early fall, August and then

114we bring the first time we bring our team together is in September. Um if I counted correctly, we met eight times >> total. And so it is a very heavy lift. There's a a a >> time in the middle where we really allow them to take materials back and pilot them in their classroom and get a lot of that feedback of what it actually feels like to teach them. That's when we really start to see the list of materials dwindle down when they actually go to apply them in their classroom. >> Yeah. >> So, it's a huge commitment. >> It is. It's a big commitment and they have to take time away from their classrooms and all of those things and so they take it very very seriously, but um it is a good and

115we have the community that's able to give all of that input as well. And I was really happy to hear how many people came in from the community to to see those materials. >> We had a really good turnout this year and we were very proud of that. I think having offered that open house a little bit longer on both sides before normal work hours and then after work hours really helped to allow people to get in. >> Yeah. So, thank you for all of that. Anything else, Dr. Clinton, before we go to motion? >> Well, I I just again, as we said earlier, it's a it's a major investment for the district. >> So, a lot of time and effort goes into making sure that the materials that that are selected align with the

116standards. that if they don't align with standards, we use those in classrooms and it's not uh does not reflect well on our state assessments. And so it's a very complicated process. It is to your point a very heavy lift. And um and I really appreciate people are willing to give the time and effort to really carefully go through all those materials and to make a recommendation. uh as you said during the the presentation, the the the really key drivers of this are our teachers, our math teachers, and uh those who are are willing to come and and and work through this this rather lengthy process. So, please express our thanks to everybody who served on that committee and uh for your leadership in in that effort. We're pretty optimistic that the materials are are going

117to serve us well. They have to serve us well for six more years. And so uh it is important that we we get good materials and um and we should be able to get it in the order in by the end of the month and therefore these materials should be in our schools before the start of the next school year. >> So okay with that we can go for a motion on this if >> motion to approve the math adaptation for elementary >> and then can you add Eureka math squared? >> Eureka math squared. >> Is that correct? Okay. And do we have a second? >> Mother, I second the motion. >> We have a motion and a second. And all in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? There's no one else here. So motion

118carries. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> All right. Our next is to consider um the approval of the math adoption for secondary. We have Dr. Stephanie Moore, executive director of secondary CNI. >> Good evening um Madame President Galbra, Dr. Cleveland members of the board. I'm here today with recommendations for the secondary math instructional material. While the first part of this will be very simple for you, your nomination or your recommendations and motions will get more complicated with secondary. is actually going to be >> um my two lead coordinators that uh help facilitate this work um from the district level are Renee Byum and Susie Siddig um with the help of four instructional coaches at the school sites and that team. This is the same for elementary secondary Joy

119and I work very closely. We were fortunate to follow people that worked very closely previously in this job. So lots of our work and is in alignment. So a lot of these things repeat for you. Um our GBC our guaranteed and viable curriculum is very important. We this is foundationally how we decide on instructional materials. So the ensuring as Dr. Cleveland has mentioned several times today that there's an alignment between what is written and what is assessed and taught in our classrooms. We focus and ground all of our work in the New Mexico Common Core State Standards and the math mathematical practices and ensuring that all the materials that we bring forward to you today in alignment with those so that our students have the best opportunity to learn. This is our secondary team. There

120are 38 teachers on this team, four instructional coaches, and our coordinators participate representing um uh EL coordinators, uh English language development teachers from our school sites, our um special education population, um ensuring that whatever we recommend is able to support all of our diverse learners in the district. We were really fortunate this year. There were a lot of materials that scored very highly um in the through the state process over the summer which meant we reviewed five or six depending on the content um different instructional materials but we didn't score anything that scored below a 94 in um on the state reporting if like you had you had to be a really strong A to get in front of this team. So that was encouraging. uh we were unsuccessful in getting to two finalists. You'll

121see um when we move forward. We actually brought in three different publishers. The team the team did agree both middle school and high school teams that we wanted a single program for our core instruction for middle school and a single program for our core instruction for um high school. I'm a I'm have from a social studies background. This is not a common practice in social studies. Publishers often come different courses pick different publishers because you have experts in different places but it was really important for math that we pick a single um for a band a single program I so we brought in um Ed Gyms Amplify and I Ready for middle school for high school we brought in Envision which is Savvice um HMH and Um, >> Carnegie Learning. Sorry, they weren't selected so

122I didn't remember them. Um, our recommendations, our middle school um, recommendation is Edge Gyms Math. This is new to the state. I I want to say this out loud for um, board member Barry who will listen to this later, I'm sure. Um, we have elected to go with their enhanced version of their text to further reduce screen time in the classroom. It embeds this particular consumable text embeds more of the tools in the consumable text so we're not referring kids to Chromebooks as frequently. Um they also felt like this program um provided the both the most um flexibility while so still maintaining integrity to serve all students for for K for our district. Uh they were also the highest rated from the ed reports in our process. Our next recommendation is hootin methane hardcore into

123math. Um this will be for our core instruction of math which is algebra 1 um algebra 2 and geometry. As I mentioned before they are will also adopt a statistics books that is in later in the um offerings because of the change to the new math courses by the state. So in conjunction with this they will use a stats book in geometry and algebra 2 to meet those need those um standards. Uh, one thing that the committee was very excited about when it came to this particular p um, publisher is the amount of support and resources for parents and families around math. So, uh, then we get into electives. We have um some text out of Singage and some text out of McGra Hill for our what has traditionally been our fourth year math and

124for the majority of our students will remain as their fourth MA year math option because kids get lots of choices in what they take for their fourth year math. We will also have a handful of kids that will choose from these choices their third year if they do not take algebra 2 if they're not on that pathway or if they started if they were in an accelerated pathway of middle school. So these are the two publishers for our electives. We also have a robust offering in AP and College Board has a requirement for um textbooks for all students for AP and so the selections are out of Sage and BFW for advanced placement recommendations. Um costs. So my have my costs broke down by band and area. The estimated instructional material investment is $1.8 8

125million. Um that is the portion that we are thankful Carol McDall handles and processes for us. And then an estimated um professional learning of investment of $41,000. Uh both of our core materials offered um what they call onboarding initial implementation training for free. Um, Edgens is going to fly out to do it, but when I told HMH that I needed them to come in person, they said they only offer it virtually. I won't. This is not proven to be a successful course for us. So, um, we have some additional fees for professional learning with H.M.H. because I'm requiring them to come out for that training. So, it's a little bit more expensive for our um, for our professional learning time for secondary. We also are working with a number of different publishers. And with that,

126I stand for questions. >> Okay. Dr. Cleveland, do you want to add anything to this? >> I I pretty much said uh all the stuff for the previous one that I would want to um thank Dr. Warren and all of the the secondary teachers who worked on this uh put in tremendous amount of time and effort. And so I just want to express my appreciation and acknowledgement of uh all all the effort that went into this process. >> Yeah. Thank you. Whenever you give us these reports, I always like to see all the different teachers and it probably shows that I have high school students just these days because I knew a lot more of the high school and middle school teachers. Um but really good individuals that um that were a part of this.

127And so thank you for selecting that that group. Just for just so you're aware, we do have representation from all of our schools involved in including all of our alternative high schools that participate including cyber so that they are in alignment with us and those teachers are all selected by their instructional leaders and their administrators as the best voice for that content area to be on this team. >> Yeah. So thank you. So any other questions from from you all or comments for this? Do you want me to make the motion or are you guys feeling >> Do you feel like you have it? >> Yeah, I think if we just and I guess I'll ask Lauren as we make a motion. Lauren, um are we good to just go through each of those? They

128have a slide that has like edge gems for middle school. Can we just kind of do it generally that way with each of those? Okay. >> You have to do each each. Do we need to or can we just >> I think to but Lauren, why do you think need to do each individual one or >> I can put them all in one motion? >> Yeah. I was thinking we do it in one motion. Do we need to name each of the things or can we just say that we're adopting what the recommendation? >> Either way. >> Okay. >> Better to name them. Of course, >> it's up to you. >> Board member Mer. I motion that we accept the middle school recommendation of Jim's math. Algebra 1, geostats, algebra 2, Hartton, Llin, Hardcourt. Elective

129math course recommendations from the committee with Sgage and Mcgura Hill. Advanced placement recommendations from the committee with Singage and BFW. >> Mar second motion in a second. And all in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. they've been here with us all day today. So, we're really grateful for all of that. Thank you so much. Okay, for our next um um so, of course, we know that we have coming up, we're going to be doing some um interviewing for a new board member. Um and so we have some questions. Everything that we do, we have to do in the public meeting for this. So unlike when we did our superintendent, we can do a lot of those executive sessions. We can't do that with a with a a board

130member coming in. So we did want to have an opportunity just to look at the questions and make sure everyone is good with the questions um and see if we need to make any changes with those. So if you guys had a chance to look over those or do you have any discussion with that? I think I'm gonna invite actually Lauren to come up. Is that okay? Um just in case we do have questions and I make him come up for everything. He's he's good. He's good. I'm actually gonna go back into mine. All right. So, we have it looks like we have five that are on here. I'm not going to read through each of them. You have them in front of you. They're also up on the screen. Um, you have questions, you

131can ask Lauren. I might be able to answer your questions, too. Give them a moment. We can add to these. And we want to be thoughtful, I guess, on how much time um, you know, we spend with each with each board member or with each potential board member. Um, and we want to make sure that we give them I guess that's the other question too. When we were doing like our superintendent interviews, we had we had a set time and so we got through as many questions as we could in that set time. is that would we like to do that where we have more of a set time or give them each time to go through each of the questions. If they talked too much then they didn't get through all the questions and

132that was just kind of how how we did it and thoughts. You can also have like a scoring sheet like sometime when you like a new employee, you can have a like question one is 10 points and then depending on how they answer or what their answers are as we individually rate like one through five or whatever and then try and figure to help us decide because at the end of it you're going to have a hard time remembering what everybody said and your notes to go back and be able to >> um mad madam president Mr. vice president. The board could do it any way that they want to do it. There's no set guidelines on how to do it. >> Oh, >> that would be an organized way to process it. >> Yeah.

133So, we can do that. >> So, did you meet with time times per question like two minutes per >> So, we can just say we will take 30 minutes. We could take 20 minutes. We we don't have to that we can just go through each of the questions. Um but that's something too that we can talk more about. We don't have to talk about it at this meeting, but maybe just keep that in your mind when we come back for that. I think it's April 7th. Um, and we make sure that, you know, we'll look at all the papers, see if there's anyone that we, you know, we'll set up interviews and all of those things. We'll have a quick discussion so we can talk more about that there at that meeting, too. If you

134need >> propose a if, if the board would like, we could propose a scoring sheet at that >> seventh meeting. >> Okay. >> For the board to consider. make I think it'll make it easier. >> Yeah, I think >> Yeah, that's not a bad idea. I like it. >> No, I think it's a great idea. So, how do you feel on the questions? Do you feel like these are appropriate? And um I think so. And then like the number six would just be if anybody has anything >> based off of their responses. If you want >> Yeah. >> more information or something that is completely different than what's on there. But as this is public, right, and they're the people that are coming that apply for they have an idea of kind of prepare their

135answers and not give us a 30 minute speech for each one. >> I think there's some here with us today. So here they are. There's the the cheat sheet right here. >> Questions. >> The answer to C. >> Well, with that, if you want to make a motion on these questions, we can make a motion to approve these that these will be our questions unless you want to make any changes. No, I'll motion to approve the the draft. Board member interview questions. Board member Murray. >> Okay. >> Board member Mo. I'll second the motion. Have >> a motion and a second. Do you have any thoughts or anything on this? >> I I think they're fine. >> Okay. >> And then just can I add to for this process? I had talked to Lauren. I

136think if so once the the districts are just for the election so that you know where you live and who you're going to vote for for this there's nobody from district 4 that's going to be able to vote for this person. So we're not going to have a banter back and forth. If you use the public comment option through the school board, email us or reach out to us and let us know so that at least the people that live in district 4 or in any of your Rancho because once you're elected, our district numbers don't matter. We are here for the entire district, all of your Rancho, all of the schools are for all of us, right? It's not like I only handle the six schools in my district or it's for everybody. And

137for us to make sure or feel that the people that live in that area, they're not voting, but they want their voices heard. To make sure that they feel that way, we want to be able to give you the opportunity to reach out and give us input on how you feel for the process so that we're not just making a decision on our own and then like just, you know, in essence cramming somebody down your throat and you have no idea who they are, what they're doing. And this is an opportunity for you as well to provide your input as the community. >> Thank you. Thanks for adding that. So with that, we have a motion and a second. And all in favor? I. >> Any opposed? Okay. So motion carries on that for those

138questions. Um any other questions just as a whole as we our next meeting will be kind of the deep dive into these things. Any other questions on it? Okay, Lauren, any other um thoughts on it on that part of it? Okay. Okay. Um and I I am with um with Seth on that. Please please if you have thoughts, we would love to hear your thoughts. So, please feel free to to um email us and all those things. Okay, we are wrapping up our meeting for tonight. Um and we kind we have a couple of last big things. Um and so we'll start with um this item number five um which is to consider the approval of resolution 25-012. Um I've asked Lauren Hatch to be here to introduce some things and he'll he'll introduce um

139another great part of our team here in just a moment to to go over this more. >> Madame President, members of the board, Dr. Cleveland, it's with a uh mixed feelings that I address you tonight. And I know there's a lot of people in this room and and certainly within the community and our school community that would have welcomed this privilege uh to be able to address the board in preparation for the um the resolution tonight. Um I think Charles Dickens probably said it best in his famous opening to a tale of two cities that it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. What I'm talking about is the last six months. >> Um, the privilege of working with Dr. Cleveland is one of the honors of my life and I

140I know there's a lot of people in this room and in our community that would have the same sentiment. um she has done so much for the children and families um in our community, including my children specifically and my spouse who's also a an employee of the district. And I don't think that we can um I don't think words can express the gratitude that we have for for her work here. Um, and I hope it's it's not an end to her involvement with Rio Rancho Public Schools. Um, Winston Churchill when during World War II when the Allies finally defeated the Nazi forces in northern North Africa 1942, the end of 1942, he had this very famous quote. He said that um, this is not now this is not the end. It's not even the beginning

141of the end. but perhaps the end of the beginning. And uh we uh we have the opportunity to take the torch that you have so able carried um and continue on. Um we're never going to be safe at home. We will always wonder what do we need to do next? What do we need to do to continue the the great legacy and tradition of Rio Rancho public schools? Because Dr. Cleveland, uh, as she talked about today at the tree planting ceremony, uh, literally started this school district with like a broken cabinet, maybe a roll of duct tape, some bailing wire, and some very, uh, grand visions and people who really wanted to make this happen and and it has happened. And um, we honor you for that. We honor you for that. Um, Robert Frost

142has many famous very famous poems, but one that I really like is The Road Not Taken. And it ends um with these words, "Two roads diverged in a w in a wood." And I took the one less traveled by and has made all the difference. And Dr. Cleveland took a the less traveled by road. Um, I don't think there's anybody in this country that can say that they started a school district from scratch and led it for 32 years. Um, thank you for taking the road less traveled. >> Um, we've had the privilege of uh seeing many different organizations over the last few months uh recognize Dr. Cleveland's contributions um with different resolutions, the legislature, both houses of the legislature. um some of the our business organizations. Um this week on Thursday night, the city

143will be recognizing her contributions and tonight the school board has the privilege um to express the words that we all feel about the tenure of Dr. Cleveland. Um I would like to uh invite Kim Nestle to come up. Uh Kim is a longtime employee of the district. When I started working here and I first talked to Kim, I thought I know her voice from somewhere. Where where do I know that voice? And I suddenly realized it is the voice that would call me in the morning. Rear Rancho public schools are not open today because she is the voice of Rear Rancho public schools, at least in my mind. So, I'd like to turn the time over to Kim. Thank you, Lauren, Madame President, members of the board, and Dr. Cleveland. This is a great privilege,

144and uh I didn't know I was going to be doing this until uh till I got here tonight. So, uh but uh I as a point of personal privilege, I would like to mention a couple of things. I I met Dr. Cleveland 25 years ago, which is amazing because neither of us are that uh old, you know. certainly not. >> Um yeah, we were just youngsters then. Um and she came in on a Saturday to interview me uh for a position with the district and I I think I spent the first five minutes of the interview apologizing for the fact that she w had come in on a Saturday. Well, little did I know she's here every Saturday, you know. Um, so, uh, since then, um, I retired from the district about two and a

145half years ago, but, um, for all of the time I was here, uh, I worked very closely with Dr. Cleveland and directly reported to her for the majority of that. And, uh, I learned so much from you. It was such an honor to work with you and uh you were a terrific mentor and a good friend and I really want to express my appreciation for that. Uh and with that um I have been asked to read the resolution uh that the board is um has under consideration this evening. This is resolution number 250012 recognizing Dr. Visu Cleveland Ed for her outstanding service as the founding superintendent of Rio Rancho public schools. Whereas on July 9th, 1993, the board of education for the state of New Mexico established Rio Rancho public schools as New Mexico's 83rd

146school district. And whereas in February of 1994, Dr. Visu Cleveland, a native New Mexican and graduate of Sandia High School in Albuquerque, who received her BA degree from the University of New Mexico, her MA from New Mexico State University, and her doctorate in education from the University of Houston was chosen from among seven finalists as the district's first superintendent of schools. And whereas Dr. Cleveland returned to New Mexico to assume leadership of our RPS after gaining experience as a teacher, administrator, and superintendent in New Mexico, Texas, and South Carolina. And whereas in a matter of months, Dr. Cleveland assembled a leadership team, hired staff, and established the support structure needed to operate the new school district. And whereas RRPS officially began operations on July 1st, with approximately 5,900 students in five elementary and two middle

147schools. And whereas today Rio Rancho's public schools enrollment exceeds 6,500 students or 16,500 students, sorry folks at Shining Stars Preschool, 11 elementary schools, four middle schools, and four degree granting high schools and of course also Riot Tech. And whereas Dr. Cleveland has provided stable student centered leadership to Rio Rancho public schools for more than three decades and is currently the longest serving superintendent of schools in the state of New Mexico. And whereas under Dr. Cleveland's leadership, Rio Rancho Public Schools has earned state and national recognition for academic achievement and its athletic, fine arts, career technical, and co-curricular and extracurricular activities and programs. And whereas since 1994, Dr. Cleveland has maintained collaborative relationships with the members of the district's boards of education, implementing board policy while providing mentorship and wise guidance to the 30 individuals who

148have served on the board. And whereas Dr. Cleveland has played an active role in shaping educational policy in New Mexico through her service on numerous legislative and educational task forces and advisory committees. And whereas Dr. Cleveland's many recognitions and honors include recognition as an AASA National Superintendent of the Year finalists, the Governor's Award for Outstanding New Mexico Women, and induction into the New Mexico Coalition of Educational Leaders Hall of Fame. And whereas Dr. Cleveland fostered cooperation among governmental agencies, local business and educational institutions to benefit the community and help each student ignite his or her full potential. And whereas Rio Rancho Public Schools under Dr. Cleveland's leadership has been credited as a major force in encouraging industry, businesses, and families to choose Rio Rancho and Sandaval County as a place to live, work, and raise

149children. And whereas Dr. Cleveland emphasizes education is a collaborative effort. And whereas she expresses her gratitude to parents, teachers, students, colleagues, board members, governmental partners, and community members who contribute their time, talent, and resources to the goal of graduating students as responsible, ethical, and productive citizens equipped with a solid foundation for individual success. And whereas Dr. Cleveland has recently become a firsttime grandmother and looks forward to traveling and spending time with her family in her retirement. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Rio Rancho Public Schools Board of Education congratulates Dr. Visu Cleveland expresses its appreciation for her three decades of service to RRPS's children, teachers, and staff and the citizens of Rio Rancho and wishes her all the best as she enjoys retirement. Thank you. And we present this for your consideration. >> Thank

150you so much, Kim. I move to approve the resolution 25-012. >> Board member Murray second. >> Okay. And all in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I I'm I want you to have the last say here in just a moment. Um and I want everyone to first just applaud that beautiful resolution. And so I'm going to give you a chance to talk. Maybe you'll hate me for it later. I'm not sure. But um we have some pictures up here of some different events that have been happening over um the last, you know, little bit. And in our district, um we have some ribbon cutings. I have to thank Windom for pulling these together. And we've been trying to figure out the right um the right

151pictures to to pull up. Here's some different ribbon ribbon cutings that we've had in the district and um and thank you so much for for for pulling those together. Here's some more recognitions that we um that you've had over the years. I um I don't know what else to add. So many beautiful words have been said and we had that a wonderful opportunity today. Um and I love that picture in the middle with um with you and your son and and I know your other son wasn't able to be with us as we planted a beautiful tree this afternoon. Um but truly um on behalf of our community and on behalf of our board, Dr. Cleveland, um we're so grateful for you and for your service and for for all that you have done for

152us. Um I over the last six years, I think I could just sit in awe and watch you. Um my plan was to run and to to be someone that could support you. Um and I've gotten to know you. Um Dr. Dr. Cleveland and I get to meet about every other week for the last six years and and we go over agendas and and sometimes we just catch up and sometimes our meetings I think go a little bit long. Um but as as we have spoken and as we talk about the community, as we talk about the students, as we talk about the teachers and the staff, there have been times of tears, times of hard things that that have happened. And there have been great times of tears of of joy. And one of

153those greatest joys was the birth of her grandbaby. I think that was one of the sweetest moments was to to sit there and to talk to you about those things. Um, but just once again, I want to say um, thank you. I I really thought this day would actually not come and here it is today, this this last meeting with you. Um, I also want these are some flowers. Um, thank you Rebecca for picking these up for the board. But here's some flowers in a card from the board. And so I want to give you an opportunity to to say some words and have that last >> Thank you. You know what she knows is I always like the last word. >> So, thank you for that. >> You're welcome, President Gworth. I uh I

154I do want to to to say a few words. I I do want to recognize a couple folks who are here. Uh we have two former board members. Um Don Schlicky, Trish are here this evening. Uh Don served on our board. He corrected me. I didn't have it right in my in my memory but uh he served 16 years on the board ais president and uh and then Ronaldo Garcia Dr. Garcia is here. He was one on one of the earliest boards time we were really building that foundation for the district and was I was sharing some of the challenging times we had with that and then he came back and finished a term uh for Senator Brandt and uh u we were really glad to have him uh come back and and another person

155I would want to mention is is uh Richard Bruce who uh was one of the original members of the of the admin team. He was a executive director of IT and then a chief operations officer for the district for many years. So glad to have him here this this evening. I'm glad all of you are here and uh thank you for coming. We had a wonderful ceremony this afternoon a tree planting and uh we had people from day one of the district through today and uh every one of those people had really made amazing contributions to our district. Teresa SC is here. She uh was our transportation director and then our lobbyist for uh for a good number of years and very important person in the uh start of the school district. But everyone was

156important and everyone contributed and and and we had people from the business community, we had um we had staff, we had friends of of the district. And so it was it was wonderful. you know, when when we did begin, as as it's been mentioned several times, we started with with just very little. And um and and as Lauren has said, you know, we did have a file cabinet didn't work and a desk that was an old metal military desk. I have no idea where it came from. And Intel loaned us the first computer and we raring, one of our local businesses gave us a copy machine and uh and we had a map of the district on the wall and we were in a condemned building. Um it was the only building available in Rio

157Rancho at the time and it was going to go down um they were going to close it down for Uner Boulevard for the winding of Unser and um we were moving out of that building into this building as they were tearing down the back literally and we we had some amazingly difficult uh times and yet from from the very beginning it's always been a team effort and we have had a fabulous team uh over the many years that We have been a district and worked so hard to make the district what it is today and and really worked hard to build the district to the kind of district that we all wanted in this community and we grew right along with the city. I mean, the city was brand new then and and so um

158partnerships with the city, partnerships with the county, um the uh the the the history of building the first high school which we thought wouldn't come for for 10 or more years and Carla Walker was there this morning uh this afternoon and she was the first member of the school uh first president of the school board but had worked 10 years on a committee 10 years of working the legislature and the state board to get this district created. And so, uh, it's just been a labor of love and it's been the most amazing journey. And one of the things that I have said on a couple of occasions is it truly was once in a-lifetime opportunity, and you probably don't want to do it more than once in your lifetime. So, um, it it has it

159has been a a wonderful experience. I also and I didn't do it um this afternoon, but I sure meant to. I wanted to thank my family, certainly my son who is here. Um one of my other sons is uh tied up with storm baseball, but um I also want to mention my my husband who uh gave a tremendous amount of time to this district and um I think he liked it better than I did at times, you know. Uh but he was the one that went out at night. He didn't want me to go out at night when the alarms went off and our facilities person lived on the other side of the mountain and uh he would go out and he would check and he would check the buildings and he he just did

160so many things. So I want to thank him as well. But uh I try not to cry today. It's really hard. Thank you all. It has been u an amazing opportunity and and real honor to work with all of you, every one of you. And um I wish you well. I I wish um Dr. Don I told you today um certainly I think we have many wonderful things to look forward to in the future in this district. And one of the things I was already enjoying was saying I don't think it's my problem. He's right down the hall. So he is picking up some of those things now and has a lot to carry on and uh it seems very excited about uh the new opportunities and and uh seems to be um working his

161way into the community um and and and enjoying the opportunities he has to meet and work with some of you. And so uh again thank you all for coming and uh it has been just a wonderful uh opportunity wonderful boards over all the years and uh wonderful board members and you know it it's um you know just an in terms of being a superintendent. The board is just one of the most important uh factors in in a successful superintendency. And we've been blessed with board members previously currently and um you can't have a great school district without great staff and without great teachers and administrators and uh and we have wonderful ones. And one of the things that Dr. has said as he's come in is how um how impressed he is with the staff

162that is here with the people and what they know and what they're willing to do and what they bring to the table. And so he has I think a great group of folks to to build that team as we we look to the future. And I do believe the district has a very bright future. And um so again, thank you all. appreciate you coming this evening and appreciate all you have meant to the district over uh 32 years. I can't believe it's been 32 years. I just sometimes think my gosh in many ways it's like yesterday and then in many times it feels like 32 years. But um again I do appreciate each and every one of you and uh and for all of your many contributions and the tree lighting was wonderful. Thank you

163for uh for for that wonderful experience this afternoon. and we had a a great turnout and it was wonderful to see so many people there. >> Thank you. >> I unfortunately have to say a couple more words to a join our meeting tonight. Um but we have um some cupcakes I believe that are just right outside. Um and thanks Claudia for for getting those things together. Um so I want to thank everyone again for coming tonight. Um as I adjourn this meeting tonight, I welcome you to stand once more and to applaud Dr. Cleveland for all of her work that this meeting is adjourned for tonight. LET'S go have cupcakes. >> Let's go have cupcakes >> and we can chat and talk out in the