001Good evening. The Rear Rancho Public Schools Board of Education special board meeting for Tuesday, December 9th, 2025 is now called to order. If all would please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Beth Miller will lead us. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, we'd like to welcome everyone out tonight. Um it's two nights of meetings for us this week, but um well well worth it. So, um, we'd like to go ahead have JC do a roll call for us. >> President Galbreth >> present. >> Vice President Morgan >> present. [snorts] >> Secretary Tyler >> present. >> Board member Trip >> here. >> Board member Miller >> present. >> We
002have a quorum. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Um, so we'll go right to approving our prioritized agenda and proposed time allocations. >> Madam President, this is board member Tyler. Make a motion to approve the prioritized agenda and proposed time allocations. >> Member Jeff Morgan. A second. >> Motion in a second. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Uh we do not have any public comment this evening since we just had a meeting last night. Um so we do not need to go into that. So we'll go ahead and jump right into the business portion of our meeting for tonight, which is to consider the approval of the top candidates um for our superintendent position. Um, I will just go ahead and go for a motion. I don't think
003we do we need discussion. Do we want to explain? >> Before I make a motion, I will just add that we did receive 31 total applications that were presented to the board by Ray and Associates. Uh, the board spent quite a bit of time going through those. Um, and a top 10 was determined. Um, we actually brought in an 11th application. So saying that to say that we didn't have Ray and Associates make all of these decisions for us. We did make um some changes there. That first group of applicants was reviewed last week and we completed interviews this week with the top five and we are ready to announce our three finalists. Um with those being named in alphabetical order. Uh Dr. Robert Dodd from Maryland, Mr. Todd Rush from New Mexico and Dr.
004Heather Sanchez from Washington. And so I would like to make a motion to approve the top three finalists as being Dr. Robert Dodd, Mr. Todd Rash, and Dr. Heather Sanchez. >> Miller second motion. >> Okay, we have a motion in a second. And let's go ahead and go to a roll call vote for these. >> Vice President Morgan, >> yes. >> Secretary Tyler, >> yes. >> Board member Trip, >> yes. >> Board member Miller, >> yes. >> President Galbreth, >> yes. >> Motion carries 5. >> Thank you. Um, I want to just I want to thank everyone for going through the process. It's been um a lot up to this point. I do want to thank um board member Tyler for going through some of those statistics. I got a little like ahead of myself
005and so I'm grateful that she was able to go through some of those things. But um you know we have such a wonderful superintendent that we've been able to have and so as we've gone through this process you feel the weight of that on your shoulders because it's a community of people. Um Rio Rancho what brings people to Rio Rancho a lot of times is our schools because they're good. And so every single board member as we've worked through these over the last um couple of weeks as we've had the applicants um has really been putting in the work um and the time and the passion um to ensure that we have you know really good top candidates. And it was hard. You know we talked about there was 31 there was a top 11
006that we looked through. Um, and every single one there was just such good things that came from each of those candidates. And so, and that shows that Dr. Cleveland has done so well with Rear Rancho that people want to come to this school district um to be able to do that. And on top of that, there's there's a couple other people just as we're going through this process. Um, we have Windham Chemley who's he is here today, just had a baby. [laughter] So, Windham's here. Um JC is here and we have and and Lauren Hatch and um JC Oliver, sorry JC, I just get used to just calling but they have put in so much time and Kim Besley has helped a lot with that and they put in so so much time um to
007to making the schedules that are happening and we've had um Rain Associates who have done a great job in working with us and helping us come up with these things. um uh board, you do not have to say anything and we we're still in the middle of this process, but I do want to give you an opportunity um if you would like to. Um Dr. Cleveland, did you want to add anything before that? >> I would just I would reiterate um that we thank people for putting themselves out. This is it takes a lot of time and effort and courage at Christmas >> to step forward and do this. And so uh would want to thank all of the people who expressed an interest and a desire and uh we're we're part of this process
008and also want to thank the board for what's a very difficult very challenging uh decision always um when school boards go through this process. So I just wanted to express my thanks to those who put their their names in into the board. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a it can be, I think, a scary thing to put your names out there, but so we're so grateful and it's just great to see all the people who want to be a part. So, I'm going to go through the board. If you want to say something, you can, but please do not feel like you have to have to say anything by any means. Um, but Gary, if you would like to give any comments, you're welcome to. Any comments on this side? No. Or Jessica? >> Yeah, I'll
009just again echo the thanks to all the candidates who took the time and effort to apply for the position. Um, and I guess that's it. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. >> All right. Um I'm going to just double check with Lauren Hatch who I we cover everything that we needed to cover in that in that. Okay. >> I think the district well I that's what else I wanted to say. I think we will be posting additional information for what the finalists will be doing um for the process early next week. So that definitely will be made available to the public as um we take the finalists through the rest of the application or interview process. And if you're wondering, already up on our web page, you can find the community event that will be taking place. Um,
010and it's there's been it's been up on Facebook. So for anyone who's interested in being a part of that community event, we would love to have you there. There will be opportunities for everyone who would like to to give feedback. And as we um as we go through those those next those those few days next week, we will be looking at all of that feedback that comes in um through those in the community, through those in our schools. Um and so please feel like you can do that and that your voice will be heard with that. So I think with that that we are adjourning our meeting for tonight. Thank you everyone for coming in. I'm a totally