001school public uh for schools public oh my goodness we're going to start this all over again how many years have I been doing this uh the Rancho public schools board of education meeting for Monday October 13th is now called to order if all please rise for the pledge of allegiance >> I pledge allegiance 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. >> All right, JC, will you take a roll call for us, please? >> President Galbre, >> present. >> Vice President Morgan, >> present. >> Secretary Tyler, >> present. >> Board member Trip, >> present. >> Board member Miller, >> present. >> We have a quorum. >> Awesome. Thank you so much. We'd like to welcome
002everyone out. And hopefully the way I started doesn't go through the whole meeting tonight, but wow. what a rainy day it is. And so we're grateful that everyone's here. We have some fun things this evening as we um will at the end of the meeting um do our hall of honor. So that's really exciting. So we want to welcome all those family members who who came out for that tonight. Um tonight we'll start our um meeting with our introductory comments by our superintendent of schools, Dr. Visu Cleveland. >> Thank you very much. >> Okay. Thank you all for being here this evening. Uh just a reminder of a couple of very important events that are coming up. Uh there will be an election for three seats on the board of education this November. Uh the
003district encourages voters to go to the polls and cast their ballots on November the 4th. Uh board positions are really very important to the overall direction and the well-being of the district's students and staff. Uh the district has really benefited over the years from strong leadership um in on the board over the past 32 years history of the district. The candidates are as follows on district one Rudy Galinda and Seth Miller. District three Michael Barry. District five Quinton Middleton, Rebecca Murray and Donna Tilman. On the same day, we also have a bond election. Uh if approved by the voters, Rio Rancho public schools will receive 80 million in funding for critical infrastructure projects, safety and security upgrades, athletic and band facility improvements, and several other projects. Uh most important thing that people generally want to
004know, um this um bond will not increase the current tax rate. Does it mean your taxes would never go up if they reassess? if the county reassesses your property, but the actual rate that the district um has has been consistent over the history of the Rio Rancho public school district's 32 years. Informational presentations are being made to comm um to community members at various businesses, parent and community groups. Norin Scott is the board uh committee chair for this particular election and she has been assisted by other community members including uh two individuals who have chaired uh bond elections in the past. So they were very knowledgeable uh and has been assisted by other community members and um and many of those community members are also parents. We will have um on the bond is a
005new prek facility uh 17 million. Um we have interestingly enough the highest percentage of underserved pre-age pre prek age children in New Mexico. Currently we are only able to offer prek services to a fraction of the eligible students. And the reason for this has been that uh many other districts have had uh empty facilities. Many districts have had empty schools and they have had places to put their programs and we have not. And so that's why we have not been able to serve as many students. The future of the district is going to be critical to serve as many children in um as we can in prek and daycare uh because it helps them get ready for school. when we see the difference in children who have particularly had an opportunity to go to shining
006stars prek and their readiness and their success when they go to uh kindergarten. The total cost of this facility would be approximately 41 million if approved by the voters. Our cost would be 17 million and uh the public school facilities authority PSFA could potentially match approximately as much as 24 million. So, a really good deal for the community, a really good deal for taxpayers as the state would pick up the largest share of that uh new facility. Uh, one of the challenges that we're looking at in the future as we surveyed our parents uh young parents in the in the community, many made it really clear that um they really needed a full day program. The half day was really hard for them. Some parents were able to do a half day uh and really
007liked it. I thought that was enough and and wanted to only do a partial day, but many of our young families simply can't do that. They're both working and they may not be working in the community and so there's no way to come back and get their children midday or bring them um to uh prek after lunch. So we would be looking at least this facility would uh be a full day program. If we are forced by the state to go to full day, we would have to reduce the number of children currently being served by 50%. So we wouldn't even be able to serve all the children that we're serving right now. So this is a critical need. Um our children are coming to school um further behind. These are the babies of CO
008and uh many of them had a slower start in getting ready for school. And our teachers say that many of our children, not all, but many of our children are really behind the curve uh when they they show up for kindergarten, especially if they've not had that opportunity. We also um were not able to complete all of the 2023 bond items and uh inflation has completely changed the construction industry and all uh public entities including public schools and private sector businesses have all felt the effects of of this increase. Projected cost for the new Independence High School has reached over $800 per square foot, four times of the cost of construction for Joe Harris Elementary in 2020. So that's amazing increase in the costs of of labor, of um equipment, of supplies, of materials, and
009it's really frankly making school construction very difficult, very problematic. Uh this item uh will include the completion of the Independence High School facility. It will also help us finish some roof replacements, some drainage repairs, and electric infrastructure upgrades at several other schools around the district. We are hoping to um put a steam magnet school at Rio Rancho Elementary School. This will be the first phase of that project. Most of you are very much aware that it is the oldest, the first public school building ever built in the city of Rio Rancho and it just celebrated its 50th anniversary. It is time for some significant uh upgrades to the campus and perhaps a new new mission. When we had the 50th anniversary celebration, it was extremely well attended. Lots of people in the community that I
010knew, I had no idea had had gone to Rio Rancho Elementary. But the consensus of everybody there that day was they hoped that we would save this school and continue to keep it operating as a school because of its historical significance in being our first public school. It started initially as a school with a few um portables dug up the hill from Coralis Elementary and put on that site and that was the beginning of public school buildings in the Rancho. Our hope is to transform the school into a steam a science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics magnet school and to offer learning opportunities that are unique to the school. This will not keep children who live in the neighborhood and want to continue to attend that school. Will not force them to another school, but
011it will allow other students who are interested in these areas to voluntarily go to Rio Rancho Elementary. Some potential programs include a state-of-the-art planetarium. Uh many school districts have built them. They're not terribly expensive anymore. Software is really quite affordable and it's all softwaredriven. Maybe that's something that we could look at in the future. But definitely a permanent home um for the community uh partner National UFO Historical Records Center and perhaps some science labs that all of the elementaryaries could access as well as maybe some of the middle schools. We want to have a community committee that will look at that and we'll kind of help plan what they would like to see. this would just be the initial phase in in starting that uh that process. One of the things that's unique to Rio
012Rancho Elementary. Uh it certainly is in one of the older areas of the community, but uh it's a very large site and so it's one of the few sites where we still have lots of room to put something there and it would we hope would would give that school a new life and keep it functioning as a public school building in the uh city of Rio Rancho. We also have uh the ongoing forever uh projects related to uh roofing, HVAC, drainage, intercom, and bus loop upgrades. And there's a couple of things. Roof roofs are, as you well know, um it's pay now, we're pay a whole lot more later. And so keeping our roofs uh serviceable is really important. And some of our roofs are are are getting to be quite quite old. The um
013drainage is just uh we see it with every little bit of rain. Uh drainage is always an issue in Rio Rancho. We are we have we are a city that's built on the sand and um and so we're always needing to keep that repaired to protect the integrity of the buildings that we have. Uh intercoms are huge safety issue. You want to be able to call for help anytime there might be a need in a classroom. In addition, that's the primary way information is shared with students is over the intercom system. And many of our schools, especially our elementary schools, um we have some wonderful programs or the students do the presentations every morning over the intercom system. Uh but intercoms are a a very basic safety issue in this day and time. And then
014we have a a bus loop upgrade. Uh we have a situation in which uh at the time the building was built, we did not have sufficient funding to separate the buses from the cars and the parents. And this will allow us to um to do that almost 20 years later. Land acquisition uh and in Shanna Daycare. Uh we would like to purchase some land on the south end of Rio Rancho for construction of a new middle school and um you know we we really hope that we can we can get that uh some land out there before it goes up even more. The the land is uh at Gateway we're seeing a huge amount of development and uh we have a high school site already out there paid for. We have Joe Harris Elementary out
015there. We have students in it. It makes a lot of sense to have a middle school out there as well. This would not build a school. This would simply provide enough funding to purchase the property, but we do have a really good site in mind and hope that we are able to to do that. And then the also the item is in China Mesa Daycare. We are in a rated facility. We've known for a long time um that we would eventually have to um move out of that site. We've been very grateful to have it the years that we have um been able to have our kids there. The daycare serves two groups. Uh the primary group is uh our staff. It has been a really major factor in the ability to recruit and retain
016um teachers and other personnel to this district. Several years ago when we hit I think it was great recession and money was so tight. Um we we talked about whether we could continue to do it and I will tell you this room was packed and overflowing because it is such an important part of some of our our our young families who are staff members to have a place for their children to be able to go. It is self-supporting. The district does not support the operations. It is paid for by the parents. Uh but we need a bigger facility and I'm sure you've been following the um the governor's initiative to fund prek universal prek and so what is anticipated is all prek um um I'm sorry daycare not prek um to to fund all of
017um universal daycare. there are not enough spots and there won't be enough for us I'm afraid uh when um the the state pays for universal daycare. The um the advantage of that of course will be a guaranteed revenue stream. We saw that when we had a guaranteed revenue stream for food services. It did improve the quality of the program. Um but you know the operations will not and I really want to emphasize that will not come out of the district's operational budget. So it will not impact our classrooms. It will not impact the the spending for other um for other programs. The money will come directly from the state to the center to pay for that that care. And but we do need a better facility. One other um one other thought too as we
018begin to discuss this is whether or not the district would create a career pathway, a a career technical program for for for daycare. And we have been approached by several key businesses, uh manufacturing businesses, retail businesses. I hope we might consider a program because they don't think they're going to be able to find enough people. I saw in the journal it was anticipated there'll be a shortage of about 5,000 slots statewide. So we'd like to kind of think a little bit ahead of that. And um the other group that can access this and we don't have a large number but we do have participation and that is the children of young parents who are still students in our district and u they often struggle to find a place and particularly a place close enough that
019they they could access. And so it's also open to students in this district who are already uh young parents. So it serves both groups. Archenna Mesa Daycare has been just a wonderful uh program and uh it does provide much needed relief to these two groups. We have a couple of projects in terms of athletics um and band field repairs. This would allow us to uh make some significant repairs for the track field and main soccer fields at Rio Rancho High School and the soccer fields at Cleveland. It would also provide funding to repair the band marching facilities as both of our high schools and they have been they're really in bad shape and the and the parents worry about students twisting an ankle uh falling um and um you know if you know marching band
020they have very intricate uh programs and and uh they need to have a safe and decent um surface on which to practice. So uh this would this would help both of those groups. That's a small they're very small amounts but very much needed. So, uh, on November the 4th, we encourage people in the community to vote vote for both the board and the bond election. Are there any questions or comments, concerns? >> Okay, >> please vote. >> Yeah, thanks Dr. Now, I want to second please vote and please go out and vote. These are really good projects. Um, if you've been in our schools, I think anyone who's been in our schools sees the need for all of these things that we're hopeful for. So, please get out and vote. Okay. Um, next we'll go
021to approve the prioritized agenda and proposed time allocations. >> Madam President, this is board member Tyler. I'll make a motion to approve the prioritized agenda and proposed time allocation. >> Member Jeff Morgan. I second. >> Motion, a second. All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. All right, we'll now go to our reports. And so we have two reports tonight and board member Gary Trip is going to go through these reports. Our first is um the NIPA resolution and issues. Um and Gary, I'm just going to give announce the second one too, which is the NMSP board online training. And so we will turn the floor over to board member Trip. >> All right. Well, thank you, Madam President. Um, we had our our New Mexico school board directors meeting over all the
022legislative initiatives that uh school boards across the state of New Mexico are are going to be addressing with the 30-day legislative session. And I wanted to bring to the the board's attention that of course all the things that Rancho proposed were approved but particularly there was what u a very big topic and that was resolution uh proposed resolution 29 at that meeting and I wanted to ask and and uh if Lauren uh would like to make any comments while I'm talking please uh please help me out but at the meeting if if uh At our meeting, if you remember, we talked about the increases that MISIA is going to possibly be bringing on to school districts across the state of New Mexico. Um just to give the uh community a little bit of a background,
023we're paying a lot of legal uh cost in sexual abuse cases uh physical abuse cases against children in this state and deductibles have highly increased. So, as the as the debate was going strongly and Nimsio was at the uh at the New Mexico school board director's meeting Newton and and demonstrating all the facts that they were figuring out and presenting, uh the legislature has paid $28.9 million in a special appropriation bill to help bail out these kinds of cases. Also, uh it was it was noted that that um House Bill 128 has been enacted to really try to convince everybody under Nimsia that we need to do a better job with background checks, very detailed background checks. As the as the debate was moving forward, since it was our proposal, I was asked to to
024speak on the matter. And so what I basically said, and some of this is opinion, so I wanted to make sure that I paraphrased it that way, but I wanted to thank the governor. I wanted to thank the legislature. I wanted to thank every human resource director in the state of New Mexico, especially from the public schools. Not before House Bill 128, there was other two other legislations proposed in the last decade. Maybe Mr. Chavis can correct me if I'm wrong, but I I basically said I wanted to thank the school districts because they do a due diligence job of making sure that the people that that we hire for our classrooms and around our our buildings and our districts are the best quality people we can we can um we can hire. And and
025we believe in and we and people do a great job with background checks in our state. But Ruby Bridges at the National School Board Conference basically said, "We still got to remember that there's good and there's evil out there in this world." And basically, I said, "When you charge this large of a deductible to a school district, you may be bankrupting one of us in the future." So, I would hope that we could have a maybe a joint resolution, a study done because of the fact that people are doing the best job they can, but we do have evil people come into our our district from time to time. And we don't want to bankrupt any district. So again, I repeated the fact of thanking the legislators for coming up with the money that it
026takes to pay some of these uh cases, thanking the governor again for for signing off on that and asking that the possibility exists that we come back to the table in a very transparent way, discuss if there's what problems they might may be coming forward from hiring these evil people in our world and how better we can possibly possibly do. But the fact is the legislature has taken care of that for districts. I hope they do that in the future. I hope I hope uh Nimsia continues to do a good job. However, we can't be facing these high deductibles every year on the backs of school districts. It's going to it's going to bankrupt our our budgets at some point. So, I don't know if that helped or not, but I we won the vote
027where we then we didn't approve of supporting the NIMSIA charge and really looking at the schoolboards association and the school boards across the state of New Mexico, working with superintendants association to really maybe look at some more deep thoughts about how we're going to address this issue. And I I and again I I think uh I'll ask Lauren if he has anything to add on that. I know you weren't there, but I know that the topic is is going to be a big one in the state of New Mexico this legislative session and in the future. So thank you for allowing me to talk about that house res that resolution. >> Yeah. Do you have any I know Dr. Kubman wants to give some comments. Go ahead, Laura. I'll >> don't feel like you have
028to give a bunch of >> madam. Madam President, members of the board, I'm Lauren Hatch. I'm the the district's chief counsel and uh I worked with the school board on preparing this uh resolution that was ultimately adopted by the uh New Mexico School Boards Association. I think um I think member uh Trip I think he did a really good job of covering the issue. There's still some uncertainty around it. We've heard presentations from the New Mexico uh school board um insurance authority um that they're going to implement some deductibles. But what we haven't seen is our insurance policy for this year. Every year they will issue what's called a memorandum of coverage and they still haven't done that yet. So we don't know the total scope. What we've been told is that there'll be certain
029deductibles particularly for cases that involve sexual abuse of children and that they will be the deductibles will be tiered based on the number of students at the school. The highest tier we fall in the highest tier and it's $500,000 deductible. Um which is a very significant amount of money. Um like remember uh Trip said, we do a very thorough job of uh vetting people who we hire. We do a very thorough job of following up on complaints where you know things have been raised uh concerns or issues um in order to avoid these types of claims. I think it's really important for the legislature. I know that they have funded the insurance. Um, I think the concern I think that most districts have is, let's say they do get caught in a claim and maybe
030they've done everything right. Um, $500,000 is hard to come up with on the spur of the moment. And, uh, in particular, in the last few years, there's been concern from the legislature that school boards and school districts are holding too much in reserve. And uh this is another reason why school districts would need to make sure that they have adequate reserves to be able to address these deductibles. This is an issue we continue to to look for look at. I agree that it will be an issue in the legislative session and um we'll keep working on that. >> Thank you. >> Thanks Dr. Coleman. >> Yeah. One of the the things I hope in this process as it unfolds is that there are two levels of how they look at these kinds of cases. One
031of them would be failure to follow the established rules and procedures to do your due diligence to check your references to to do a thorough job of that and um and to be and if anything comes forward to report it immediately. We've tried as a district to be very good at doing that. um particularly when something is reported we immediately report it to law enforcement and we immediately report it to the state and we never failed to in my knowledge to do that. I think that there are uh if on the other hand there are districts that don't do that, they don't do the background check or when something occurs they do not report it to the proper authorities. I mean that's a very different situation. The consequence should be very different for those who
032don't follow the rules. But on the other hand, if you have done a background check and everything came back clear. Now, there are there are predators that honestly have never been caught. Doesn't mean they've never done it, but they've never been caught. And so, there's no um there there's no record to be found. And so, what what we know is of of folks who do this kind of horrible thing, they generally have done it many times, but eventually they do get caught. So I I hope that there is a difference between well we cannot read the minds of people who may come and work for us. All we can do is do the best we can to find out if there's a history of this kind of behavior the pattern of this type of behavior
033and if there is to not hire them. But if we have done all of that and then we have a situation like this uh are you know we are not really to blame. Um, we have a lot of this horrible stuff in our society today. Our larger society is dealing a lot with this kind of really uh sick behavior. And so, you know, it it's um we need to be very careful. But if we have, I don't think we should deal with the same kind of consequence as a district who deliberately doesn't do their job in looking into a candidate or they've had something happen and they did not report it. We did have a major settlement in another district that was $44 million. And so some of that was driving this right now. It's
034just kind of a panic. How are we going to manage that? And um and so it is a problem both sides. You can understand the concerns. But we can you know insurance is there to protect you against this kind of thing. And if you up to $2 million, well that would make a huge dent in our budget. we would have to cut a lot of things to pay that. So it, you know, I'm just hoping that they'll look at two levels. One is willful um uh failure to follow the right procedure and then the other is you could not have possibly known and therefore we don't hold you responsible for that because you did everything right. And that's what I think I hear the most of of superintendents across the is if we could have
035known and didn't do the right thing. Okay. But if we did, then there needs to be protection against, as Gary said, bankrupting school districts and finding a way to to address that. Long-term, the solutions are going to have to be solutions we find as a society for people who fall into this this category, but it is an awful thing that they do anything like this. And and it is hard to say what's what's the fair reparations for something like that. But it doesn't it doesn't help to hurt all the other children in the school district if the district did everything they could reasonably uh do to prevent it. >> And Madam President, I think that's the debate that we'd like to have. >> Yeah, >> we we take this issue very very seriously and um
036we appreciate the work that we do with the the public school insurance authority. Um we think that they've done a good job. They've been deal a very difficult hand to deal with. Um, but we'd like to work with the legislature and uh and them to to resolve this issue in a way that's fair and equitable. >> Thank you. Any other questions for Gary? Go ahead. Or anyone? >> Just more of a comment, I guess. Um, you know, it's not something that's unique to school districts. These nuclear verdicts are affecting the way insurance risk pools are handling any public sector entity across the United States. It's different, I think, a little bit here in New Mexico that the bulk of our funding comes from the peed, but then the school districts themselves are going to be
037exposed for this particular liability, which I think is interesting. However, I say that that it is a challenge that risk pools, the underwriting process is becoming more and more difficult to even ensure law enforcement, detention facilities. So, it's not just school districts that are facing these challenges, but unfortunately, as we've come to, I guess, allow or expect our judicial system to deliver verdicts that are unimaginable in a lot of ways. Uh, it's put everybody at a disadvantage that are, to your point, Dr. Cleveland, people that are trying to do the right thing. And yes, there's evil people, but when people do their due diligence in their processes and policies and procedures, it puts people in a really hard spot. So, Yeah. Thank you. Any other comments or questions or >> I don't have anything. >>
038Well, and I just want to say to board member Trip, I appreciate your comments that you made and I think it is important for us to I don't know to have that discussion. I, you know, both to to Lauren Hatch's point and to your point, what more can we do? What else do you want us to do? You know, and so because it's not great. So, but thank you. Thanks for bringing that and thanks for for all the comments. And then you have a second item and Lauren Hatch can go sit down. Thank you. >> This one will be a a lot shorter. It's a little bit more controversial in-house and uh this was um this was uh the PE the public education department recently started approving uh schoolboard hours training uh with other companies
039besides the New Mexico School Boards Association. So I just wanted to report again through my opinion the controversy that that arose at that meeting one that um the the feeling I got in the room from school boards around the state especially rural school boards is that the public education the department is trying to really take away local autonomy. uh they feel like the what I heard a lot was is that we come to these conferences together to get training because we kind of can unite on on issues that affect our our kids here in New Mexico. And they feel like the online reporting and other trainings since the legislature have adopted that school boards have to receive hours has not really come from veteran school boards members. It's really come from superintendent and from attorneys.
040And so so they feel like the lane that they're being told to be in is not coming from a colleague. And the other thing that again opinion what I what I felt like like I like I heard was the fact that the schoolboard position that these great people that are going to inherit in a in a couple of months and for those that you that stay is that they are a whopping great salary and but yet they're the only voted position that has to go through training. So, so you do not see city village officers or city councilors or other elected positions. Not one other elected position in the state of New Mexico has to go through training. But on the on the main the but just to this school board the one the one
041thing they did say that they really highlight uh Joe Gian the executive director that he's that he's used Kurt Steinhouse our former secretary and former superintendent uh a great deal more in the last year and if you were at the the recent local I know the president was there um and you saw his delivery of training uh it's really quality and it's appreciated when there's a great presenter or a great educated leader like like like that and um and we're capable of having those people from within our own state. We just would need to utilize them more. But they they really will oppose and they hope that school boards take that position maybe down the road at future uh at the 60-day session the following year. So just uh and that a lot of that
042is is hearsay from Gary Trip from other board members around the state. So I don't want to say that's coming from the New Mexico school board directors. >> No, it's good to it's good to hear that report. I have I do have to say that um yeah Stein House he did such I I actually told him he out of the six years I've been on the board that was the best training I had been to that he gave. He did a great job >> and so thanks for for keeping us updated on that. any questions or anything like that for Gary or Dr. Clovin? You want to give some comments? >> I I would just emphasize a couple of things um that that board member TR raised. A lot of the training uh focuses around
043groups of board members having a chance to talk and interact with one another. We learn a lot from one another um when um when when we come together. The other is over the long haul, the New Mexico Schoolboards Association has been a powerful force for legislation in this state and the way it funds its organization as the training. And so if that goes away, then uh it may not have the same uh ability to advocate for the needs of school boards that it has in the past. The other um and I and I have appreciated over the many years that I've worked with um uh with Joe Gillian and others is the collaboration among the education partners group um to push things together and uh and I may or may not agree with everything that
044Joe's always proposed but his voice was always one worth listening to and he always did advocate on what he thought was in the best interests of not only school boards but but children and um and districts. And so it's it it's it's a question of the services they provide and how would you how would you provide them if you do not um have um training services available. So um there's a lot of things to think about with with regards to it, but I think about the the lost legislative vote uh voice that might influence some votes. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you for that. And for sure that collaboration that happens in all of those aspects is so important. So thank you. >> Okay, we'll now go to make sure I'm in
045the right place to our public comment. We're in our public comment section. Um we have two public comments tonight. One in person and one that came in through our um form, our online form. So first I'll give the one that came in through our online form. It's from U. Patricia Camp and it was just a question about our um upcoming community sessions uh for our superintendent um as we're looking for our new superintendent. And so those are on the she writes those are on the 15th and 16th. Um later in the meeting as we close I'll give some updates on times and all of those things for those sessions. And I believe that we followed up with her already. Um, our second our in-person comment is from I wrote it down, so he's gonna laugh
046at me already, but um, so our next one is going to be in person and it is Chris Vanden. Oh, I'm ready to get I told him before he came up I was going to say it wrong. Vanden, say it for me again. >> Hugle. Vanden, I lost my note that where I read it. So, we'd like to welcome him up to the podium. Um, reminder that you have three minutes. Stacy will start the timer as soon as you start speaking and then when that timer goes off, we ask that you sit down and >> Okay. I was going to talk about Rio Rancho High School again. And before I did, I I was rereading that article about your maintenance. And uh past 30 years, I've worked for private contractors at Albuquerque public library, Albuquerque
047public schools, UNM, UNM hospitals, UNM clinics, Los Alamos National Laboratory. And what they have in common like Rio Rancho, it's it's the policy is run to fail. Run to fail. So, in the past 30 years, I haven't had to miss a day of work because all the schools, hospitals, they run stuff until it doesn't work and then they call Cruz. So, the only exception was Kirtland Air Force Base that has a a real preventive policy. And uh most places it's either a lack of concern, a lack of money, or a lack of expertise. And in your case, I think a lack of expertise uh would apply probably as well as money. Uh Patrick Martinez is not well served. I I'll say that from my my brief 32-day period at Rio Rancho High School uh last
048year. Anyway, as a former mechanical inspector for the state of New Mexico, um, Rio Rancho High School has been out of code or against violating the code since the first day. And uh, I don't know how it ever got permitted or inspected and passed because I I never would have done that. And the evaporative coolers that I mentioned last week that were added on to those train units, the 14 train units. These are not your master cool units that you get off the shelf at Home Depot. These were like 8t tall, 6 feet wide, 4t deep. And uh I figure they probably cost you about $150,000 to build those. And the other thing kind of weird is they were never used except to obstruct the fresh air vents on the train units. And you don't
049have to get very far into the code book here. Uh the first paragraph under mechanical v ventilation mechanical ventilation system shall be designed, constructed, and installed to provide a method of supply air and exhaust air. There's no exhaust air at Rio Rancho High School, those train units. I mean, you can you have some bathroom exhaust fans and laboratory exhaust fans, but you have no building exhaust. So, when one of those train units is supposed to pump 3,000 cubic feet a minute for the 10 classrooms. Well, that went fast, huh? >> Yeah. Yeah. There's no way. There's no way that can work. If you're not exhausting 3,000 cubic feet when you're supplying 3,000 cubic feet, the system simply doesn't work. And >> thanks for coming out of it. >> Appreciate you coming out tonight. >> Exhaust
050system and but I'll be back. >> Thank you. Thank you. Uh thank you. We always appreciate having public comments. So, if you desire to come into the boardroom to give public comment, just remember that you need to sign up before we start at 5:30. So, thank you so much for that. Um, our next item is the consent agenda. Madam President, board member Tyler, I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Okay, got a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. 5 Z. Okay. And for our last item of the night, um it's for we have all these wonderful people here in the boardroom who have been waiting for this moment. So, we appreciate you um being here with us tonight. Um it's our hall of honor
051recognition. And um Lyndon Kenley, our executive director of communications, is going to go through this item for us, which we appreciate. And then we we have some great things happening out in the foyer right after this. >> Yes. I'm gonna Oh, did I Here we go. I'm going to keep this brief, but I do want to mention that we're very privileged and honored to have um some family members of our class of 225 is what we're or 2025 is what we're calling it. Um Hall of Honor inductees in attendance tonight. And what we want to do is just recognize and celebrate the wonderful achievements of these these fantastic individuals. So, uh this is typically um known as kind of like the plaque hanging ceremony. So, um, what what we want to do is just invite
052everybody to go out and enjoy some time together and, uh, enjoy some live refreshments as we hopefully, you know, extend and share some stories of of the wonderful achievements of these folks and, um, remember them for the the wonderful things that they did. Just as a kind of a recollection item, um, the 2025 inductees were uh, Miss Joan Bivvens and Mr. Mark Leonard. Um Joan was a powerhouse in the public school really industry. She was uh employed at both Lincoln Middle School, I believe, but most of her time with the district was spent at Mountain View Middle School. She was also the first vice president of the Rear Rancho School Employees Union. So we all know how wonderful that union is and all the fantastic things they do for us. So um Mark Leonard, of
053course, was a a legendary science teacher within the district. He taught at both Lincoln and Rio Rancho High School. um the latter being where he spent most of his career with the district. And really, you talk to anybody who had any connection with Rio Rancho High School during his employment, they'll say that they knew him and they appreciated him and they could probably tell you a story about a class that he taught or something. So, um that's that's really it. We again want to invite everybody out to to the reception. Dr. Cleveland, if you'd like to say anything, of course. >> Thank you for saying that. And and I want to emphasize a couple of things. One, this goes to very few people. uh these are individuals that have just provided extraordinary service uh to
054the district over a period of time and really made a significant difference. And so um we had a major event uh that recognized them with videos and so forth. Tonight, the the purpose is simply to show the uh mounted um plaques for the two of them out in in the uh uh in the foyer and to as you said have an opportunity just to to visit or or whatever. Uh in the past we have mounted them during the event, but we had some challenges with that last time. So, I've gone ahead and put them up so that we didn't have that same challenge and and we'll go out and and see them. want to encourage um again, you know, we we thank the families of of Mark and Joan um for for um for sharing
055them with us the years that we had them in the district and for their outstanding contributions and glad that we have some representation here this evening. We also have nominations coming up very soon. And so if there are other individuals uh that should be looked at, should be nominated, please uh bring those names forward. We have a committee, community committee that will look at that and read that and then they come back to the superintendent and the board. Um but um these two individuals are really special to this district. their impact was long lasting and um and made a huge difference in the lives of both staff and colleagues that were privileged to work with them. So, it's nice again to say one more time how much we appreciated um their many contributions to the
056Rio Rancho Public School District. >> Thank you. Anything else on your end? >> Yeah, if I may. Um President Gal, Dr. Cleveland, members of the board, the nominations will open this week. So, we we want to emphasize to everybody in the community, our staff members, um anybody who has an idea of who they want to nominate, even if they've nominated them in the past, please uh go through the process again and let us know that that um you'd like to nominate them this year. The great thing about the Hall of Honor is we were looking at this just the other day is we're already running out of room on that wall. There's so many fantastic people who have worked in the district and within a couple years, we're going to have to rethink of, you
057know, how we how we hang those plaques because we not going to have any more room for them. So that's it's it's really a wonderful institution that they're a part of. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Most all of them are individuals, but we do have one on the wall that's a corporation and uh uh and that corporation is Zintel uh who built Rio Rancho High School. um not only funded it but actually constructed it and um but most of them are individuals who have worked in in the district or uh it doesn't this year we we are very blessed to have two of our staff on the wall but you'll also see when you're out there I would encourage you to look at all of the ones that are up there a good number of
058them come from the community as well people like Don Chamers uh people who uh contributed over over many years to the district's well-being and so as you go out and look for names. I want to be sure that everyone knows it can be people from within the district, staff who've served. It also can be community people who have supported us in in in many different ways over the years. >> Thank you. I I actually I love I I was looking at, you know, we have Mark Leonard and and Joan Bivvens and her son I see in the back there. We went to school together. And so, you know, I just as I as I stand out there and I look at those plaques, there's so many people. We have such a sweet community here in
059Mirror Rancho. And I don't think there's anyone up there that I haven't known or heard of or any of those things. It's we have just a great community here in Mirror Rancho. And I'm just so grateful for all those who contributed to it. I'm so grateful for the families who came out tonight so we can put these plaques up. Um, but I hope that we can continue to just have these wonderful people who who do so much for us. So, um, thanks for that. So, in just a moment after we adjourn, we'll go out into the hallway and have a little reception out there. Um, but before we do that tonight, is there any other things with that I need to announce? Okay. I'm going to go through advanced planning because we have some crazy
060things happening and I just need to go through a couple of things. Um, so coming up, this is next week on October 15th and 16th. Um, here in this >> this week, >> oh, it's tomorrow. I'm I was out of town all weekend and I'm off. >> It is. You're right. So, that is on the 15th and 16th. Time is going by quickly. Um, we have some stakeholder meetings that are going to be here in this building. Um, and I just want to give some of the times for those for those who are interested. And this is for our um new our search for our new superintendent. So, we have a community meeting that will be at 9:30. And JC, is it here in this room here or is it going to be across the
061hall >> in these boardrooms? Okay. So, we have on the 15th, we'll have a community meeting here at 9:30 for those who are interested. Um, this will be an opportunity just for your voice to be heard and those characteristics that you would like to see in um in a new superintendent. We have a parent meeting that will take place on the 15th at 5:30 p.m. And then on the 16th, um we will also have a parent meeting at 1:00 p.m. If you weren't able to make the other one and a community meeting at 5:30 p.m. So hopefully we can cap capture um those who can't make one of those times, they'll be able to hopefully make one of those times. Um and one other thing, there's also surveys that were sent out for those who
062would like to have their voices heard through that. and the deadline for those is October 19th. Um, for the rest of the dates coming up, please just refer to the agenda. Any questions on advanced planning or anything else that I said wrong? >> Okay. All right. So, with that, we're adjourned for tonight. Thank you, everyone.