00110 good evening the r ranal Public Schools Board of Education meeting for Monday March 24th is now called to order um if all would please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Jeffrey Morgan our vice president will lead us pledge algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One Nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you JC can you take a roll call for US president galber present vice president Morgan pres secretary Tyler pres board member trip present board member Miller present we have a quorum okay thank you all right we' like to welcome everyone out to our meeting tonight um a couple things as we get started first I'm pre- apologizing I was very sick last week and I still have a
002lingering cough and so if I cough through the meeting I promise my fellow board members and Dr Cleveland I won't get you sick um but I am I do still just have this cough that will probably be with me now until June unfortunately um another thing is right before I came to the um board meeting today I was on KOB news and they were reporting that we're changing our Bell schedules which I want to put out there that that's not happening today we just have a report looking out our transportation um and how how that affects our transportation and so I just want to put that out for those who are listening and waiting for that that that's what not what we're talking about today um so uh we'll go ahead and get started tonight
003we have introductory comments by our superintendent of schools Dr Vu Cleveland thank you so much and thank you all for being here and uh I I I have allergies but I don't think I have anything worse than that but um this has been such a high allergy season so anyway but we appreciate you being here this evening okay I just want to give you a heads up this is not something that is going to be on the agenda this evening but we are looking at some Pro proposed changes to Middle School attendance boundaries in two weeks from tonight uh there will be an open house uh before the the the board meeting to review relatively minor changes to the boundaries for next school year and then next year the 2025 2026 school year there will
004be a major study that will be assessing attendance boundaries for all areas of the community and all levels the proposed changes uh for next week are looking primarily at giving some relief uh to Mountain View and looking at U just a small area on the far north end uh parents are all being notified they're all receiving a letter uh that will tell them that this is going to be discussed so that they are also aware that that will be discussed in a couple of weeks we have finished the legislative session um I would tell you that many hours were spent monitoring analyzing discussing and testifying for legislation that would impact students and District staff and families uh school board members Administration and staff spent many hours attending committee hearings as well as speaking with our
005delegation and as other uh key legislators to advocate for those bills that would have been beneficial to our district I have to tell you there was some positive outcomes and there was some disappointments and that's normal uh time ran out before some bills made it through all of the committee assignments and um so there'll be some that we'll probably be looking at um in the years ahead we will present a a a full summary to the board once we know what items will be signed or vetoed by the Governor until that's done and really don't know for sure what things are going to look at look like and she know the governor has 30 days from the end of the session to sign our veto bills and um so we'll be looking to see what
006what items make it all the way through uh with the governor signing uh or vetoing those individual items we want to thank all of our legislators who carried in supported key bills um that were important to our district we had some of our legislators as worked really hard to try to get some of the bills through and we really do appreciate that also I just want to say we had a lot of Staff uh who helped with that I would want to mention luren hatch and David who assisted the hours and hours they put in looking at every Bill monitoring every bill um and then helping with the actual process of contacting legislators and speaking with legislators and uh we were doing that as late as uh Thursday of uh of last week and that
007I think Thursday evening we came back and said we probably done all we can do but we were ready to go back on Friday for one more effort and then we heard that bill probably was not going to be heard it appeared that they um that the decision would be made to not hear it and not send it to the floor it's a very interesting process uh very frustrating at times uh but you think you don't know what might be better so um but it it just a lot of people helped we had staff members who went and testified um we had um uh I think we put out every bit of effort that we could we appreciated we had board members who went and spoke to people they knew uh also really made an
008effort to try to to share our story and I said we had some good things that came out of it we had some disappointments that there are some things we'll definitely uh work on again we'll give you a complete report and U and not the next next board meeting but the last one in April we should know at that point what made it through and what did not as I said the session ended on Saturday at noon after having done 60 uh very long days there is discussion uh right now about the possibility of two special sessions uh one for juvenile crime and the other for federal cuts that can impact New Mexico's budget uh Lauren and I had the opportunity to sit through the discussion on juvenile crime one of the Committees it was
009very interesting very uh thoughtful uh a lot of frustration that they could not address the issues that they wanted to address short period of time but um it it I thought it was a very interesting session to be able to sit in and listen to that Medicaid um is one of the areas that we're very concerned about Federal Cuts in a lot of areas but uh Medicaid is one that everyone in is watching very carefully as you know only about 30% of the people in New Mexico have regular employee based Insurance two-thirds do not and so Medicaid is a a powerful factor in our in our state we have for but in our district for example all of our nurses in RI Rancho public schools are funded through Medicaid and we have some other things
010that we fund as well with Medicaid so looking everyone is really interested in what will happen with that and we just simply don't know yet I mean we just don't know uh we also um you know are very interested in what the closing of the Department of Education will look like and how it's going to impact New Mexico school districts we are particularly interested in what functions might be returned to the state of New Mexico concerned about whether they have the capacity in Santa Fe to pick up a a lot of additional work uh because they struggle right now to keep enough employees to keep the ship afloat now so um really being concerned about how much might be returned to the state and then some of the uh functions are already being assigned to
011other Federal departments and so kind of watching that for example special education has being reassigned out of Education to Health and Human Services and so the question is will some of the people go with that that have that experience in that area or not and um we're just kind of sitting back and watching what fence hires in the next few weeks so that we will have a better better picture um some of the functions for schools are already not in the College of Education like the student nutrition is not so it's not like that's not been done before and and in many years past uh it used to be U distributed across many agencies so uh it'll just be interesting it'll be something that we we're going to watch and monitor very carefully but I
012think everyone knows it will have an impact uh on every state and New Mexico is not an exception of that we have some commendations this evening uh Janice chanal our elementary school Improvement officer and Emily ke our new principal at Kus still North Elementary will present some information regarding International technology excellence in education award for Brenda helisa diis Das is a steam teacher at Kina still Norte um congratulations on this really wonderful recognition how lucky our students are to have you and they'll be sharing a little bit about um about this award and about the um about missas a little later in the agenda we have another Commendation uh we have Todd rash our executive director of Athletics of Phil Keller uh the real Rancho High School cross country coach will once again introduce Charlie
013Voss you may remember that he was recognized previously for his win at the Nike uh cross Nationals the first New Mexico student to ever have that honor uh this amazing Rams athlete was uh recently recognized as the national Gatorade player of the year for boys cross country and so congratulations on yet another well-deserved National recognition we hope he will also share a little bit about what his future plans may look like and then we have a third Commendation a very wonderful one again uh Todd rash and uh High School girls wrestling coach uh marcario bgo will share some of the experiences and highlights regarding the 2025 girl State wrestling championship that they brought back to uh Cleveland High School congratulations to the storm for bringing home yet another State title um girls wrestling has been
014really expanded over the last several years has become an amazing competitive sport we have uh our science materials adoption is up for the state of New Mexico this year and each district is going through a process of uh looking at um science materials and so they will be sharing some things about the adoption process uh th this um this year as we select um science inst structal materials they will be used I believe for the next seven years and so it's really important that we choose very carefully and very wisely uh because we have to keep these and as you know in New Mexico that there's just a rotation one year is English language arts and one is math and one is science and so this year science and that is a major a major
015adoption and one of the reasons it's so comprehensive covers so many different um areas you whether it's biology or chemistry or you know so you go it's a whole lot of different areas you'll see on the slide that they had an open house inviting the community and parents to come in and review the materials and provide any feedback uh for the adoption and the the team that was put together uh reviewed and considered that input and as you can see that was held in January at the end of January Joy Morales our executive director for elementary curriculum instruction will discuss the process and recommendation regarding the adoption of science materials for grades um k6 that's a mistake and then uh Stephanie Moore executive director of secondary curriculum instruction will discuss their process and she will
016present the secondary recommendations for this adoption cycle as well and is a very thorough process and they will give you idea of the number of people that are on it and and how they go about reviewing and seeking input uh before the recommendation is made to the board and then uh you know as we we move into spring one of the sh signs of spring has always been daffodils and um and and it's uh it's wonderful I was actually out walking the other day and I saw some just coming up in the field I thought I don't know how they got there but they were they were just out there bright yellow and it's such a always a um an indication that spring is coming soon soon we had students from R ranchel high school
017and Cleveland High School uh that helped to assemble the flower arrangements for daffodil days and um let me kind of just say what this looks like that the daffodils are put on a train in Washington state and they are rushed to New Mexico and then they rush to pick them up and then they take them to a warehouse to assemble all of the daffodil uh arrangements for daffodil days and um the it's truly a warehouse kind event I mean it's big and it's all everybody's putting them together it's a lot of time and it's a lot of effort and you you have to move pretty pretty quickly to get it all done and um so it it's it's a a big operation every year uh Garcia Motors provides a free warehouse space for uh the
018daffodil construction and all of this goes to support Hospice Services a presbyterian so they're prepped and then they're distributed um the latter part of this week the 27th you pre-ordered they go all over the entire metro area and you can buy some of them if you miss the opportunity to pre-order and they have several sites around and people can buy them but again all of 100% of of this effort goes to providing hospice and particularly for a hospice house there's a special house that is um that serves the purpose of providing a hospice environment for people who are dying and have no family are totally alone and um and it provides that opportunity for them sometimes it has provided for others as well uh they had a story of a young man who was dying
019um did not want his children to see him die in the home then not want to die in the home because of them and ask if he could go to the hospice house and so um it it serves uh just a a wonderful purpose and then just regular home based hospice match of hospice is provided through um through volunteers and through um this this fundraising effort so this year we did have um some students who volunteered to go from both R Rancho High and Cleveland uh high school and it was coordinated by um the two activities directors uh Christopher Solace from R ranchel high school and Kathy schellenberger from Cleveland High School uh and they pulled a a team to go and I got a uh an email this afternoon saying that they had worked
020so hard and they had done such a great job and uh they wanted you to know that and I told them I would definitely bring that the board this evening and so you should really be proud of these young people they just put out an amazing amount of work uh to help the other volunteers as well we also have some dedicated staff volunteers from facilities who will be delivering daffodils as well um it just real Rancho public schools has always had a strong commitment to giving back to our communities and this is just one one wonderful example but we have them in all our schools our schools do a lot of things to help the community as well district office does a major effort to raise um food at at Thanksgiving for uh the pantry
021and um so it it's an important part of who we are as a district and these students just were wonderful examples of stepping forward and and doing that I would be remiss if I didn't mention Claudia who has really been the the coordinator of the the district level effort uh with support from executive director wendam kimley and the rest of the communications team so um they they really did a wonderful job we've got a picture of of the two groups on the next slide that uh that we at and I thought well how appropriate it's not storm blue and it's not uh RAM blue navy blue it's just kind of right in the middle so uh but we thank the the students who did take their time to go and be part of that and
022I'll answer any questions or any concerns or anything that the board might have all right thanks any questions from the board okay thank you you thank you Dr CL appreciate it all right um we'll now go to approve the PRI prioritized agenda and proposed time allocations Madam president this is board member Tyler I'll make a motion to approve the prioritized agenda and the proposed time allocation board member Jeff Morgan a second okay we have a motion and a second all in favor I any opposed motion get my motion carries all right we'll now move to our commendations uh we'll start with our first which is um the international technology excellence and education award oh and I'm gonna for Miss Diaz that's where I'm going to go Miss for Miss Diaz um we have Janna chanal
023our elementary school Improvement officer um along with Emily key our principal at Kus who will be presenting good evening Madame President members of the board and Dr Cleveland we first of all want to thank you for supporting steam as an additional option for students at every Elementary School in our preschool the valued opportunities for students to extend their knowledge of science technology engineering math and will be heavily utilized in their future and the future of our society so having the exposure as ear as preschool is extremely appreciated tonight we want to honor one of our steam teachers from cleanis Del Norte and it's Brenda Jalisa Diaz who has been recognized by the international Technology and Engineering Educators Association for a teacher Excellence award you may not we probably don't know but Miss Diaz is actually
024an electrical engineer by trade and has a MERS in electrical engineering and will be starting her PhD to pursue steam as her PhD in education she shares her expertise and skills with our students at kenis and she will receive her honor in St Louis a week from this Saturday for the it EA conference we are proud to share her recognition with the board and to express our gratitude to her for her commitment to our students in our district in addition she has also on her own taken up the charge to get kenas dorte certified as a stem School through cognia I believe you began this work in October I yeah so she's taken that on all by herself to get them recognized as a steam school she is ambitious dedicated and influential I would like
025to introduce Emily key she's our new principal at kleist Del Norte and Laura Fox who's our assistant principal as they have a few more things they would like to share about msas good evening board members superintendent Cleveland thank you so much for having us here today I'm so excited and honored to um present this award to Brendan julisa Diaz who when I first met her came to me with about a 12 slide presentation as to the efforts and initiatives that she started at our school site um and I could say a lot about her dedication and empowerment to student achievement at kinas Del Norte however I've always believed that students say it best M helps me um how if I forget my code to my Chromebook then she figures it out when I ask her
026help she comes and she helps me and she explains what I need to do and like I like like that I like her because she helps us when she needs when we need help I like Miss Diaz because um he she does um very fun stuff like turtle art she does really cool things and like if I get something wrong she she lets me know I got it wrong and then she helps me get it right super nicely my favorite part of steam is probably whenever we can do like a lot of experiments she shows us new um cool things and I like it she put on a video and then we copied the code and then she lo I learned a lot from Miss because um like he's like the funnest teacher I'm happy
027for you Mr thank you for all the fun we have in class [Music] [Applause] oh that is so sweet I know I just have that's so sweet [Applause] so oh sorry I'm not too tall um no I just want to say thank you so much I never expected this um but I want to add something that this recognition I want to share with the staff all the staff from colas because every project every idea every crazy and fun idea is not going to happen if you don't have the support from all the staff especially there suppor me everything the principal the assistant principal everything so uh I appreciate that thank you so much and yeah we're going to keep going with the fun and crazy stuff yeah thank you just have anything else I just
028want to say thank you on behalf of our schools for all that you're doing I think that I love that you guys had that video because students really do say it best right because we have to have kind of a balance of those things like we can be so smart and know all the things and but if our students think we're mean or anything like that we're not getting the message across it doesn't help and you really have both of those you're able to to show both of those things to your students so thank you so much for for all that you're doing Dr Liv Jo add again just congratulations we're just so proud for you and for representing your school in this District in such a wonderful way and making such a big difference
029in the lives of our students so again thank you and congratulations thank you thank you thank you so [Applause] much that's awesome our next Commendation is our national Gatorade player of the year for boy cross country Charlie boss for Mirano high school so Todd Rush our executive director of Athletics is here along with Phil Keller our um Cross Country Coach to present good evening board president Garth superintendent Cleveland members of the board get up here it is with great pleasure that I have the opportunity to present to you Mr Charlie V from Rio Rancho High School Charlie was recently named the Gatorade National boys cross country Player of the Year this recognition caps a tremendous senior season where Charlie also won the National Championship at the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland Oregon this past December
030I want to share with you and with everyone else in the room the magnitude of this honor so I'm I'm going to provide for you a list of names of some former Gatorade National Player of the Year Award winners from other sports Alex Rodriguez Emett Smith Payton Manning Kobe Bryant and LeBron James so in my humble opinion LeBron James is the Charlie vowe of men's basketball ladies and gentlemen Mr Charlie V bous and his coach Phil Keller uh first of all I thank you for having us here today much appreciated appreciate the support that the board and the Administration staff uh uh Todd Rush included uh give us to do what we need to do to uh be a successful program but first of all uh know that Charlie's not just a fast runner he's
031also a good student he's got a 4.2 GPA he's ranked top 10 in the in Rio Rancho for the senior class this year uh so we're proud of him for that too he's got a job he works at the pool he had to take time off today to come here uh he teaches swimming to little kids right uh so likes doing that uh but uh of all the athletes I've coached I've coached for over 20 years he's one of the most dedicated athletes I've ever had came to us a year ago from Ohio uh and already was a talented athlete already was dedicated and just really took to uh our program here and what we try to accomplish and I think he said it best in uh one of his interviews they asked him the
032reporter asked him uh like what makes R Rancho such a strong program and and he goes it's not that we focus on success we focus on hard work and I think I think him and his family too uh they believe that success comes from hard work and that's what he does he he runs 60 to 70 mile weeks most weeks out of the year uh and the race he won the national race he won that Mr Rush alluded to that probably won him the award uh was a rainy cold muddy day it was it was a workman's day and it wasn't a day for for weak Runners and he he went out there didn't complain just did his job and it went from and I I have like the splits here so at first K
033he was in 13th Place the second K he was in 11th place and then he moved up the third K he was in third but in a group of like eight to 10 Runners the fourth K there was about five or six Runners that were then that the pack whittel down and then uh really went from fourth from sixth place at 4K to winning it at at the fifth k at the the end uh so that was huge uh when he won the award we had to keep it a secret from him it was tough for us and his parents his mom's back there uh to keep it a I don't know how they did it at home but we had to keep it a secret from them we to keep it a secret from
034all the athletes and so we shuttled all the athletes up all of my distance Runners up to the track and then uh we had a we had an unfortunate like timing issue uh Grant Fischer who was goingon to give him the award if you don't know who Grant fiser is he won the bronze medal for America in the 5K and 10K at the latest Olympics and he's multiple like I would even write it down multiple American record holder and events so he's running late so coach uh vix and I another coach of ours we had to talk to Charlie and he was going to be late he was worried he was gonna be late for math class uh and he kept trying to get up and leave I'm want to sit back down boy uh
035so but we finally Grant Fisher got there I got the text message we went up there and gr Fisher was able to give him the award and it was just a really cool experience and a really cool day and all our athletes and all the admin that were there and coaches got to meet Grand Fisher and uh experienced this this neat that he had uh just really cool I just want to say I'll tell you what he's doing next year I know you asked for that uh Dr Cleveland but one of my favorite moments and I'll remember this you try to with your athletes you try to get moments and I know our other coach back there will tell you this with each athlete where you can remember and it was the day before Thanksgiving
036I don't know if you remember they before Thanksgiving you remember that day maybe I'll remind you uh he had a temple run a temple runs where he run a little bit farther but a little bit slower it builds up your endurance and we he was going to do it on Wednesday and and I was like hey I can come down and meet you and I can bike with you like I'm not fast enough to keep up with this dude anymore so I'm like I'll bike with you and we we bike I bike together and he did this Temple Run and we talked I was able to push him and it was just a a really cool experience before he won nationals uh and and I like we just talked remember we talked about like music
037and and and movies that my kids were watching I a seven-year old and a 10-year-old so just really cool neat kid I'll be sad to see him go he signed with BYU so he's going to go to BYU and compete for them uh and we're just excited for everything he's brought to our school and our program so Charlie do you have anything to say yeah I do we do have a gift for you so you can talk um well I'd also like to say thank you very much uh to the board and this recognition and my coach um you said I moved here about two years ago from Ohio so my family's moved around the country a couple times um but I'm a firm believer that you just got a bloom where you're planted uh
038but it helps that I was planted in such amazing soil here in Rio Rancho I've really experienc such amazing coaching and um support from everyone even my especially my teachers actually I travel quite a bit for a lot of these meets and I'm on such amazing terms with all of my teachers at school and they are are so supportive and it really means a lot to me um and I'm just so blessed and I love being a part of this team I love everything I've been able to do and Coach is right it's all about um that hard work and finding joy in what you do and um yeah I'll be going to BYU fall of 27 uh because this summer I'm going to start my two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of
039latterday saints and actually right before I got up when I was sitting in the back I was received the notification that uh I got my mission call meaning I'll go home and figure out where I'm going to spend two years of my life and I'm so excited for that so um that'll be what I do and then I'll come back get in shape and I don't know if I could ever measure up to the LeBron James comparison but I'll do my best so thank you very much [Applause] congratulations so if you guys saw I don't know what day it was well it says right here Wednesday December 11 uh Nike took out an ad after he won it was a full page ad in the Albuquerque Journal and this was the picture and I'll show
040the people back there uh so we got some posters of it and framed it uh the school district did and and real ranal high school did so uh this one's for you one's for your family so you can bring it wherever you end up and they can hang it in your house and so yeah that's awesome congratulations all right you can't sit down yet um Dr Cleveland did you want to add Dr Cleveland did you want to say something well again just congratulations and it is a magnificent award and uh it's just so exciting to see um all of your hard work come back and be rewarded in this way and so we we hope to hear great things about you in the future know that we will and uh again we just are very
041proud for you I'd like your parents to stand too I you cannot you just cannot underestimate the power of parents who help and support our students so we appreciate we appreciate that and I'm sure it was hard to come to a new District sometimes though one of the things we learn is that changes and all is bad and it helps us grow even when it's really difficult and so we're really glad you came our way and that you came to Ria Rancho High School and again congratulations just so you know his mom's a third grade teacher in the district too so yeah she is I just want to say congratulations and yes you are part of a very elite class and be proud of that you should so again congratulations and the sky's a limit
042looking forward to hearing about you in the future thanks Beth yes congratulations Ohio's loss is certainly Mexico's game and ours specifically and I know that you are just going to bring theia Planet I love your attitude and um I just know that you're going to continue to make yourself proud and the rest of us so very best wishes to you thank you justess yeah congratul ations and you have a great head on your shoulders if more people could know that's about you know the joy of the journey not just the destination and the hard work we'd have a better a better place so congratulations for already having that part of life figured out uh congratulations to go home tonight and find out what your mission is and um these awards are are amazing and congratulations
043I'm definitely a sign of your hard work so congrats Gary trip did you want to say anything from I'd like to say congratulations and thank you for your hard work work and dedication but most of all thank you for being a humble good person and I hope you uh spread that during your two-year Mission um what a you're a fine human being and thank you for everything you've done for our school district and our community thanks and then I get to talk to you last really fast I have to so show that picture one more time that picture that's on your plaque or on that thing okay I swear that there was a young man all these guys came in and they started hugging him and I swear one of them like passed out on
044you as he like slipped down you I was like I think that guy just like passed out um but it was a hard race and in the galberth house there's a lot of watching Charlie's races and somehow I think we're like in the car often trying to all gather around a phone and watch it but truly you've just done such a great job and I hope that it can be a lot of pressure I think sometimes right all of those different things but you you've done really well with it but just remember like even in those bad times like we all have your back and we know what you're capable of and we're always going to be here for you I watched him race just over the weekend we were all out in Arizona and
045I don't know if the race went the way you wanted it to go um but what I did see I thought was cool we didn't get to like debrief right after I didn't get to talk to you um but what I did see is even if it maybe it didn't go the way you thought you wanted it to go he was out on that field and I watched him running around cheering on his teammates who are out there and you just are such a great leader to all the boys and the girls um on our team and so thanks for for being that and that's you know when we have those those days or you know whatever it may be when we can like kind of get out of ourselves and go and cheer on
046other people like it makes a huge difference in our life and so just thank you we're going to miss you at the end of this year so and now I'm really sad that you I'm glad you got your call but I'm sad because now I can't watch where you're going because I'll be here but um I am just excited for you so thanks for being here tonight with [Applause] us okay we have one more right so our our next one is going to be the girls um State wrestl wrestling championship and this has been so fun to watch so once again Todd rush and I'll let him introduce all those who are with him yes ma'am again board president gorth superintendent Cleveland members of the board now I would like to recognize the Cleveland High
047School girls wrestling program and head coach maio BOGO for winning their second consecutive girls wrestling state championship this Championship marks the 51st state championship for Cleveland High School and 102nd for R Rancho Public Schools mardio continues to do an amazing job with this program in regards to education teaching coaching and recruitment as the girl wrestling participation numbers have risen 500% from five wrestlers two years ago to 30 this season ladies and gentlemen coach mardio bgo and the Cleveland High School state champion girls wrestling [Applause] team guys got come up here with me uh hello good evening you come up here and all of you face back out there so the people in the the audience can see you there you go they like to they like to yeah that's perfect that's kind of good job
048okay thank you guys for for having us here tonight uh superintendent Dr Cleveland uh the rest of the Board of Education thank you guys for taking the time to uh have us in tonight and recognize us um really want to say thank you to uh Todd uh thank you for all the support that you have given us over the last couple years he's been uh very instrumental for me as a head coach coming in in the last two years um we' been one of the biggest supporters that we have there in the program um so yeah don't don't don't really know what else you guys want me to say about them um these girls work very hard uh the senior class that were graduating right now um some of them have been here since they
049were in eighth grade so they've spent a lot of time in the program helping uh develop the culture and the and what we have in the room um kind of like coach Keller said uh we focus more on our on our process of becoming better wrestlers becoming better athletes focusing on our character more than we are focus on the results of things um that just happens to be a product of of doing everything else that they do the right way uh we have several girls standing up here and not on the varsity team that were academic all-americans 3.5 and above um multiple girls sitting at a 40 um so very good group of young ladies very uh than F to be here thank you Dr Cleveland you want to talk to these I just think
050this is incred aome I mean I really do you know tonight we have seen outstanding teaching Excellence we've seen an individual award Excellence one person and then we've seen outstanding teamwork Excellence while there was Excellence on some of the individuals as was part of this wrestling team you were a team and you were powerful team and it's just amazing that you took that that state championship and so again we're just so proud for you we're proud to see how this program has grown and developed and uh it's just it's exciting and you know taking home a state championship that's just pretty pretty great and so again congratulations to all of you and uh we we how many of you are seniors okay we wish you well as as you go from here to whatever your
051next plans are but look how many of you will be back so that looks very good for for the future of this program but again congratulations to every one of you and as the team you really showed what teamwork was all about just want to say congratulations good work thanks for representing that District thank you Beth yes we're just so proud of you many many years ago my first year of teaching is when Title Nine came into existence which gave young women same opportunities to play sports as young boys and so it's really been incredible to see how this has grown over the years we're so proud of you and what you're doing proud of your parents and your teachers and your coaches and just wish you the best in the future Jessica yeah love
052that you brought that up Beth and love to see you girls knocking down the door and you know grilling a sport that has been traditionally just a a Men Sport and then to bring home another championship to our district is amazing so congratulations to your hard work and go get that third state champ next year right yeah Gary trip you want to say anything I'd like to say congratulations to all the girls in the coach and I'd like to uh let the girls know that uh I hope you're um your your wrestling days aren't over because I know that New Mexico Highlands University is is about ready to recommend to start girls wrestling next year so so I really hope to see a lot of kids from R Rancho in at Mexico Island University on
053the mat continuing congratulations girls thank you guys I've been I've been watching videos all the moms you know who post the videos from you guys on Facebook and it's just you guys are tough you guys are super tough and so congratulations on everything that you're doing I'm excited I'm really excited what board member trip just said and I hope that made you guys think about that in the future but you can get some really amazing scholarships and such with doing that so sky the limit just keep working and keep growing and thanks for coming in and congratulations you yeah go ahead coach com um this team was the last year we finished the season top 100 in the country this year in January the team got ranked 48th in the country by USA national rankings
054um so pretty big accomplishment for this group of girls and we have a young lady here that uh she's a three-time state champ twice in Hawaii once here she's getting ready to go compete at world team trials next weekend in Spokane Washington who is it oh congratulations I'd like to say one more thing though it doesn't happen without good coaching and so we thank you for all the time and effort energy you put into growing this team and growing the program as well so we certainly want to recognize coaching Excellence as well thank you thank you thank you [Applause] thank Youk you okay always have to settle myself after we have all these great commendations so thank you all for coming in tonight um we're going to start we have a couple reports tonight our
055first report is a bond project update and Mike Baker our chief of operations will report on this good evening president gber with Dr Cleveland members of the school board um so we'll start off on our reports with the excuse me I'm also fighting a cold and a sinus infection so bear with me this evening um I'll um I will be giving an update on the uh the the 2024 Bond projects and so before I start there I want to give a an update on CTE I mean that's really been uh primary focus for for the board and and uh for staff to get that project um completed uh we are on the verge of completing that facility and so we're quite pleased about that uh we did uh give the contractor an extension for substantial
056completion to April 19th um the reason for that was very reasonable weather conditions uh changes in um scope as the progress um continue throughout the job um the bottom line is I know we have many reiterations of the project from when it started but right now essentially we are on time within budget um our budget was just under 48 million for this uh project uh we will come in uh at that number uh that also includes a couple of the Alternatives that um we had in the project that being um the solar cells that will be on the roof in one of the one of the canopy so we're happy about that um with that project um our partners at CNM uh are planning the groundbreaking uh for the auto center in June uh and
057then to be opened um the following year so that's um CTE uh next uh high priority project is the Independent high uh project uh we are still in design development uh 100% completion of the design work should be done by this September however there are early work packages um that will be submitted before then so we're anxious to break ground uh we should be breaking uh ground by May so we get that project um uh up and starting uh RI Rano High School is another very very significant project uh that project project um does have psfa funding and so because it is linked to psfa um we have to abide by the rules and regulations of psfa that unfortunately slows things down quite a bit we were awarded the funding uh in January the uh
058split is 63% RI Rancho 37% um uh uh psfa currently for reenal high school really complete renovation to include new HVAC new um um classroom uh buildings um and other major upgrades um really due to an aging aging facility um fortunately this building fell number was ranked number 99 um which allowed us uh this uh psfa funding uh currently we are in the planning stage so this is a this is um one of those things psfa kind of um put in front of us to get to get this planning completed and so what psfa wants to see is they want to do an analysis of current enrollment and current projections um and that will take approximately six months so unfortunately the project will have to go through that process before we actually begin the design
059work it's a pretty significant project $28 million uh is our cost that does not include the cost of a new uh Fine Arts area and security upgrades that cost is approximately um5 million so our cost is uh 33 million and psfa Sh share will be approximately 16 million um this project again um because of the economic impact really to our state um and and you know and to the USA um the the construction cost has just gone up significantly so from our original budget we're looking at approximately $9 million more uh for this project uh next project is uh Cleveland High School unfortunately there's no psfa funding attached to Cleveland uh so we are beginning that project um now Architects have been uh awarded a contra contract to begin the design phase uh the original
060budget was 5.5 uh the new budget is approximately uh $8 million the new Architects are in the edpc uh phase right now um design work typically takes approximately year followed with approximately a year of construction um next project uh prek uh also will has been awarded psfa uh funding um again psfa wants us to go through this planning study an enrollment analysis uh contractor has been um obtained in order to conduct that analysis uh the cost of that is approximately um $2 million the award has been specifically allocated for cafeteria uh and kitchen at shining star preschool um and at the same time although not necessarily psfa funding uh we'll also be looking at the um the renovation work at at pesta um next project is Lincoln Middle School uh fortunately uh Lincoln Middle School
061also was awarded psfa uh funding once again psfa is asking for an a M study um and that enrollment study uh will begin shortly the original budget was 2.5 million uh we are looking at a budget now of approximately 4.5 million um other projects um projects miscellaneous projects electrical upgrades uh drainage uh mitigation and the like a cenus Maggie Eagle Ridge sanyia Vista Stapleton desert pathway um it Network and the athletic department um we will be looking for additional funding to complete those projects uh we'll be going to the voters in November of this year uh asking the voters for a bond issue to finish up those projects and also for asking for uh funding for uh prek and uh potentially a magnet school and so we'll be coming back uh with those details so
062um in grand total uh we're looking uh the the economic impact on construction um put set us back approximately 23 million or about 30% on our projects um we are fortunately looking at obtaining approxim imely more than 21 million from psfa to to do these projects so that's where we stand at this time and so I will entertain questions I do have a question so I was just up at the track last weekend um up at rear raner high school so that was one of our projects did that one get kind of pulled out with everything else that's going on or is that still something that we're going to be working on we were supposed to like resurface the track and some different things I think get a PA system in over yeah that is
063that is one of the athletic projects so that one's going to be pushed back because of all the other things it it was um it was designed to go later in the year anyway okay okay on that one too I don't know this is and I think I brought it up before but I'm really interested on that track because it has that um those stairs that go up to it it really makes me nervous I was watching some of the older people in the throughout the state come up those stairs um we have that upper one but it just doesn't have enough part work and I don't know if we can look into more what land we own up there versus what land is owned by other people but I think it would be beneficial
064for our for us to to look at that and see if we can extend the parking up there so that we can offer more I'm just I'm really nervous honestly as I was watching some of those things just that someone could get hurt trying to get up to that to that track so anyway I don't know that's you know as we look at those things and as you're looking at redoing some things up there that's just something that that I'd like to have looked at too um other questions from the board Jeff do you have anything on on the yeah Mike I was taking notes um after the CNM there was something in between our uh before the r rear rental High School I missed one of those I was taking notes I'm sorry you
065had CNM then there was something else Independence maybe is that what it was yeah between yeah Independence High School all right and he he was about to tell us what it is all in but you told us what the setback was so all in what is this again for Independence High School no no for the whole thing you was getting ready to tell us that but I think it was the 23 million is that that's what the setb is so what was the total amount that the the total project was 80 million for for all the projects was 80 million so now that yeah the total projects was 80 million so to complete the same list of projects we're looking a bit over excuse me we're looking over 100 million about million and that's where
066the 23 the set that's the setback you me okay all right yep now is that minus the psfa that does not include psfa oh so so if we back it out we SFA if if you're to if you're to take a look at you can add on another 21 to that 103 oh added on to that yeah oh really okay yeah I was I was just citing our cost so if you take the 103 you know you're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 124 125 million in total project costs all right and then be you have anything thank you no thanks for the update no questions and then hold on one second just Dr Cleveland you wanted to add something I I and I'm putting you on the spot so I apologize um but
067I don't remember the bill number but there was a bill that was going to extend till 2029 uh could could you just briefly address that and I assume that would be waiting on the governor's approval as well but it it is important to know related to the overall uh picture we will try to Bullet these out for you and attach them to the superintendent's report on Friday if that would be helpful okay we'll try to do that as I'm trying to um Madam president members of the board Dr Cleveland I'm trying to remember the bill number but my understanding and recollection is that it did here it is uh Senate Bill 82 um and uh that that was the one that continued the reduced U match local match for construction projects for public school districts
068that go through psfa um that was passed by the legislature and is on the Governor's desk at this point so it extends it down to 2029 is that correct correct y so that's that's really positive in terms of the big [Music] picture I think it's 2029 I'm almost positive it's 2029 I think it was 2027 and it's now extended to 2029 Madam president thank you anything else for Lauren while he's here okay and Jessica no question thank you and Gary did you have any questions on this I just had one question for Mike and I just didn't catch it is a reenal high school um there it was an additional five million for Science and upgrades I think Mike if I got it wrong I apologize but yeah no problem yeah the additional five million
069was uh Fine Arts um so we would essentially kind of reconfigure that area of the school uh build a new band room if I remember correctly and then create um space um in order to put together material for for Performing Arts so there there it's you know there's quite a bunch of areas in the Fine Arts area that would be affected uh essentially band and and Performing Arts um that project is 3 million and then the security upgrades were 2 million for a total of five milli million for those two projects that uh will not be funded by psfa thank you okay Dr CL do you have anything else through this one Mike anything else on this specific I think we're good um fortunately we did uh on this these projects by far the most
070significant uh we did you know get under the wire on that the the old legislation so uh on the upcoming projects though that the new legislation is going to help out that's good okay thank you all right thank you um you can just stay there because you have more uh so now we'll look at our transportations um study we have Mike Baker of course and then Nicholas Brooke from our executive director of Transportation okay uh president galberth Dr Cleveland members of the school board so uh before you uh you will see this Transportation um study or valuation uh by Alpha route and so this has been taken up um originally uh some time ago and um as you know we have this little conflict with peed over transportation and it has to do with costs
071and it has to do with the formula and it also has to do with uh efficiency and so for quite some time ped believed that our system was not very efficient or effective in um delivering students to school and um at one time they actually sent down a few people to take a look at our system uh they were here for a very short period of time we never did receive a report uh or no recommendations on how we can improve our system this was not the only that peed came to visit rear Rancho Transportation uh peed did make a recommendation specifically uh the company that we're talking about and um to actually pay for a complete evaluation of our system and to make a recommendation on how many buses we would need to do
072our current system um as well as move to a three tier system so um as you know I think we are all frustrated having to move to a or having to be on a four tier system uh which puts a lot of the elementary schools on a very late start so um the outside vendor uh was hired to to do this analysis and before you is the uh written report so I just want to highlight um some of the report findings so specifically um take a look at the introduction and I I do want to read a couple of couple of these items here but the last sentence of the introduction it reads it would seem that the Rio Rancho public school team is taking full advantage of its current four tier structure particularly in
073light of the national driver shortage and the efficient utilization of their buses compared to other fleets across the United States this statement is in opposition to peed statement um but this was an independent outside evaluation um also I want to bring your attention to the same page at the bottom of the page and that is the footnote just for clarification purposes um it says here in the in in kind of in the beginning the study um we had 63 buses but um uh executive director um obtained four additional buses from APS we went up to 67 um buses so that is our current um our current Fleet stands at 67 so if we can go to page seven so on the chart you'll see um the contractor was basically given you know this is these
074are our resources as it currently stands we are on a four tier system and as you can see this is called the Baseline and then from there if we can go to page eight next page please no it's all right next page is you'll see um no no maybe um yeah so we we wanted the contract to say how many buses do we need to do a three tier system they call this framework number one three tiers and then next page is they came up with framework number two and framework number two is just like framework number one however um in framework number two they increase the efficiency by putting Stapleton and Maggie on on tier two um instead of all the elementaries on tier three um if we can go down to page 11
075[Applause] um so page [Music] 11 uh in the conclusion you can see that they do their analysis and in framework number one that the framework that we would want to go to they recommend 95 buses the more efficient framework number two would be 86 buses and so we would need for framework number one we would need 28 buses and number two 19 buses and um in the report also uh Al out when they looked at our Baseline system they were amazed that we were able to do what we do with 67 buses so essentially that is the report um and essentially that refutes the arguments from ped Transportation being that we do not run inefficient system now that being said there's there's a lot of components to Transportation it's not just about school buses the
076challenge of course is getting the bus drivers and I know you all are aware since Co we've had the challenge of getting bus drivers since Co incrementally it has gotten better every year every year this year correct me if I'm wrong it has been the best year since Co so um anything else did good all right so we stay we stay up for questions Dr do well yeah I'd like to add several things I think that um I I would want to underscore that this was done at the public head Department's request it was done by a vendor that they they approved and recommended so it's not that we went out and found somebody that would agree with us we took their recommendation for the vendor it is a reputable vendor uh and has done
077others so um feeling pretty confident about the work that was done and the and and the uh the findings you one of the things that uh you know when you look at bus drivers yes they've been hard to find But realize what our drivers a lot of our drivers deal with they have to be there before six o'clock and many of them are wrapping up at a little before 6: in the evening what we're really requiring our drivers is to be on call for 12 hours a day if you didn't have to be on call for 12 hours a day you had a regular work day with three tiers or or maybe a little bit longer uh you would probably be able to recruit and retain more drivers 12 hours is a long time you
078they're not driving every minute but you can't get another job you can't go out and do something else and so it makes it very um it makes it very hard for drivers and you know unless you just like to have 12 hours five days a week taken out of your schedule so I think part of our driver shortage is the working conditions of having such a long day with Fortier the other thing and in our conversations uh we had with uh with the Secretary of Education um she was very concerned about a 915 920 start concerned about the loss of some of the best instructional time for young children she said as a mother of young children I could not I could not do a 920 start it's what she told us in our meeting
079with her and so she said I I would like to see us not doing a 920 start for elementary children uh for any district and uh we believe APS is the other District that is doing that we're not aware of anybody else that's had to do it in the state except our two districts so um we also had a conversation with the protim of the Senate um she is very interested in Transportation uh it was her bill that went through on the electric school buses uh that finally got incorporated into House schoal 2 um but she said the same thing you she by background is an Elementary reading teacher and so um the same thing very concerned about starting so late and she she asked what time then do you really start well if if
080if you don't get there until 9:20 uh and then you feed children breakfast and many of our children need breakfast by the time they eat breakfast it's 9:35 or after before we even start the school day for very young children on the other end she said and she's absolutely right um by 4:00 they're pretty tired the Lov ones are really pretty tired the other thing that we've heard from families is and when when they're on this kind of schedule no little league no after school music classes no anything because at that it's so late in the day they go home and they have dinner and they do whatever else but all of those after school activities they can't participate in if they have if they're in one of those schools with a late start so
081we've eliminated them from some of the things that make the very best part of childhood is is playing at least for my kids it was little league it was soccer it was other kinds of of things so we had two individuals who said we really hope that we can continue to work to do away with the fourth tier get back on a three tier so now it's going to be our job to continue through the interim uh to be meeting and talking with these folks and looking to to the Future and possibly looking at this appropriation for uh some school um some Electric school buses but it it's um it's really gratifying on one hand to see that they recognize the arguments that we were making were valid and fair but it's also just very
082frustrating that we have had over and I'm not exaggerating and for every time we did Bell schedules every time we did any kind of change in curriculum instruction this District what has driven that decision has been Transportation school buses that has driven every instructional decision we make we shouldn't be making instructional decisions based on on schedules but I I I I really commend the the really good work that our transportation folks have done and this report basically said they almost accomplished you know a miracle with what you've done with what you have so it it also I think really affirms the hard work of our transportation staff over that many years to take just an almost impossible situation and make it work it also has contributed to the four tier has contributed to the loss
083of some of our students whose families can't wait till 9:20 to send their Elementary children to school they go somewhere else it starts at 8:00 or 8:30 so it it's it's an important study in terms of what we need for transportation but I really want to underscore what it really impacts is the teaching and learning in the school district every day and so we will work hard in the inter them to continue to to to uh to to push this issue um and um the uh LFC uh I guess assistant director thank us for having this done uh we hand carried these copies to LC to LFC to the proam to the secretary um and made sure that everybody had a copy of it and then just to be sure we send it again electronically
084uh in hopes that people would have a chance to look at it and read it but we'll begin the process now um of following up on it but um I I you know in hindsight I wish we did this study earlier uh because we just couldn't um couldn't get people to move I I do think too there's really unfortunate a lot of careless comments were made about the efficiency and effectiveness of our transportation system when in fact those comments were not true and they were not accurate so um thanks for all the time and effort that went into the study but I think the study has implications far beyond uh when we start in school so yeah Mike it would have been nice that uh I'm reading the conclusion here they kind of threw out
085some recommendations but not once that they ever say they were going to give you the bus count difference I mean that they say we're going to send you all these buses that you can use so that was one of the things I was thinking about they recommend that we go to the different tier but we don't have enough busers correct so what I'm asking is we Prov them wrong we shown them that hey man we could do a lot with little that at any point in time they come back and say we'll give you what you need I mean and and I think that's what Dr Cleveland was uh referring to is that's that's our next step okay now I get that but they didn't commit to anything at all I mean no well this
086was a this was a private um alphar rat is a private organization so they made the recommendations to us and so we we're taking a report to ped oh so you haven't done that yet no Dr Cleveland has right so but we haven't gotten any now yeah we haven't we haven't completed that process okay that's okay okay all right we um we even sent a follow-up letter that said we're looking at um you know we know that the the session is ending very quickly and there's not time now to be able to to do much we want to get it on the interim um uh session and I think we have a um I don't I think we have an argument under the yai um settlement to provide for transportation for every school district and
087I think we now have some pretty good evidence that it's not providing very effective transportation for ranal public schools and we'll definitely make that argument the secretary did say something that I thought was very welcome and and uh What uh secretary pillas said was I think we need a complete revamping of our entire transportation system for the state of New Mexico and I'd like to have that done next year uh she actually made the comment I'm also tired of the structural decisions being made um based on on Transportation shortage shortfalls so we'll see where they go with that um I I don't know but she was committing to a study honestly truthfully I'm pretty studied out I was going to say how we've been studying it for a long long time yeah um we even
088had a meeting here maybe 10 years ago with uh with L LC uh trying to resolve this Transportation issue but the chair got so frustrated she just took all the paper and just threw them I said this is the biggest mess I've ever seen and um so hopefully we will get a study hopefully we will get some additional buses in the budget there is a money this year for 60 new buses but um when you sit down and figure it out you also have to take into account the infrastructure so it's probably not 60 uh electric buses are more expensive uh far more expensive to purchase they come in I learned this at the session so the session turned out to be a good educational experience for me in lots of ways but the um
089there are buses electric buses that would go 100 miles on a charge 200 on a charge or even 300 on a charge but as you go up they go increasingly expensive buses and starting at tier one they what about double the price of a diesel bus to start with so that's at the starting what we heard was probably around 300,000 for a bus probably the starting figure um so you take 60 million and divide it and how many buses that will will buy but you also have to provide the infrastructure the charging stations which can be very expensive today but I did that there are electric buses that will go considerable distance if you if you buy the better ones thank you Mike thanks for all the work man I appreciate it yeah thanks for
090the time to you as well thank you so much Beth any questions well I think this has been a really important first step unfor fortunately they didn't believe you so you had to do we had to do this but um I'm glad that that you did and you approved uh that you were correct uh Beyond doubt so thank you to the transportation department and Mike and um yes just keep dogging us through the through the summer please thank you Jessica I just wanted to call out a couple things from the report because at first glance people might say well you know on our current operating system of a Fortier there recommending that we have 83 buses to basically essentially still operate at that same system that we're doing now and so how are we doing
091it with 63 buses so their three- tier system recommends at 86 buses um for their a framework too so it's like well people might ask can we do it with the 20 less buses but essentially it's important to to read the rest of the report that shows the data as to why we're able to do things uh with the fewer buses than than what they are recommending for our current Baseline operations such as over assignment kind of taking into account that certain kids aren't going to be there um room for error as far as like being on time with our bus routes Etc so I just don't want people to come back and be like well just go to the three tier because it's you know only three buses more than what we're currently operating
092at um appreciate the the information and hopefully we'll start chipping away at um working towards being able to move to a tier three thank you Gary no questions thank you okay thanks you know one of the things that just when I sat through different reports during um this last legislative session what was said is that we are no longer a poor state but yet we still look like a poor state in so many different ways and this is one of those things I think that could make a huge difference I know you know I know it's important to rear Rancho but making sure that throughout the state that our students are able to get to school School in time and so when we talk about that that we that our state does have money now
093we need to we of course we want to save some of those things but also there's there's children that need to get to school on time and so I hope for our community that they will reach out um to our representatives and let them know that this is important to us that it's important for our kids to get to school on time and our buses are important and so as we go through our your next session or whenever it may be that that's one of their top priorities is making sure that our Public Schools can function way they need to so last comment I would add is that one time we had close to 90 buses in the school district and so what happened was that the contractor um for both RI Rancho and Los
094Cruses left the state they said they could not make enough money did not justify them staying there and at that time we were contracted rather than home uh house own so it's uh when they pulled out the buses then they went District to District trying to find any spare buses in order to give us enough to get to to keep going um believe it or not they didn't send us their best buses but we had buses and um but there were just not enough and so at that time they said well we'll try to make it up you know as we go and get back up to that number but that never ever happened we had Great Recession we had some other things that happened you know financially to the state and it just never
095did happen but there was the time this District had 90 buses and and so it's less than what we had several years ago and so at that time there was a recognition that we needed those buses that's why we had that many allocated to the district so I think we're in a good place now to go back and really begin to discuss that with the state um also and I don't want to overplay that but certainly the the the decision by judge Singleton said each district should have their transportation needs met and so we believe now we have a good case to say this is what we need to be able to to really meet the needs of our children well thank you anything else Mike that's it thank you all right thank you I
096appreciate it okay we'll now go to our public comment cough excuse me um so we have a public comment that's in person tonight we also have one that came in through our online form so really quickly I'm going to go through our online form one that came through um it was from Joseph Smith um with concerns over board policy 736 and 7:46 um so that was that public comment and then our public comment here tonight is Andrea and Andrea I'm gonna say your last name wrong gory paga you're gonna have to say it oh that's awesome okay please come up you have three minutes um JC will start a timer and when that goes off we ask you to sit back down but it will start when you start thank [Music] you good evening board
097president board m and superintendent Cleveland my name is Andrea Gaga I'm a High School junior living in Ray Rancho and I'm here today as a member of evolvement evolvement is a youth like movement working to decrease the harmful and addictive use of tobacco one of the campaigns we've been working on since 2015 is the 247 campaign the 247 campaign is helping New Mexico school districts adopt Implement and enforce truly comprehensive tobacc free school policies under to under truly comprehensive policies tobacco use possession and distribution is prohibited by anyone anywhere at any time 24 hours a day 7 days a week in November of 2023 the New Mexico public education department approved a rule requiring that all Public educ public school districts adopt a comprehensive tobacco policy this was in large part due to the efforts
098of students like me across the state pushing for this change the rer public schools is doing a good job to commit to healthy students staff and visitors but needs to renew the new renew this commitment by updating your tobacco policy to be truly tobacco free and meet the PED standards we've reviewed the current policies for staff visitors and students updated in 2018 in order to have a comprehensive policy the following updates are required the tobacco policies for students staff and school personnel must read that all that you of distribution and possession of all nicotine products is prohibited at all times same for visitors the main aspect to add here is at all times and adding to distribution and possession of these products are also prohibited the school policy must specify that schools will provide referrals
099to students and resources to help students and staff overcome addiction and requires Progressive and supportive discipline measures for students we have examples of what it means for the 24/7 tool kit that I've brought with me today and I'm happy to leave this here with the district lastly each School District advertising policy shall prohibit the promotion of all tobacco and nicotine products on the school property or off on off-campus school sponsored events as a partner of the school of resource of Rancher Public Schools we are here to offer help and update your tobacco policy to be complet completely comprehensive we have policy language and language that you are free to adopt completely or use as a reference to help revise your current policy the 247 campaign has great ways to support your school in the process
100of making these updates the new ped rule requires districts to supply their schools with proper signage we can provide bilingual tobacco free signs the 247 School kit and faculty training resources to all schools in your District at no cost we also offer free presentations to middle and elementary school classes on behalf of evolvement we thank you for taking the time to learn more about the 247 campaign thank you thank you if you have materials you can leave them right here with JC thank you okay our next we'll go to um the consent agenda we have a motion for the consent Madam president this is board member Tyler I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda second motion motion by Jessica Tyler and a second by Beth Miller all in favor any opposed okay motion
101carries all right we're to the business portion of our meeting for tonight and we have a couple of items so our first item is to consider the approval for the recommended Elementary science instructional materials so Joy Morales our executive director of Elementary curriculum and instruction will present and we want to welcome all those who came with her tonight usually we have some teachers and such here good evening Madame President Dr Cleveland members of the board thank you for having us this evening um the first person that I want to uh introduce you to is the one person that I could not do this without and that's miss Karen delay she's over here in the audience today she is our math and science uh coordinator at the district level for K5 and she is the one
102that puts together all of the math and the science uh process processes for adopting our materials so very fortunate to have her all righty that said we will go ahead and get started so yes this is for Science grades K through five so the purpose is to ensure that we are putting together a committee that comes for a full year to ensure that our materials support our teachers and students in the acquisition of our science St standards um along with the standards there might be additional resources that'll help guide our selection to support our teachers and prepare our students you've seen this graphic many many times so what we want to ensure for science is that our standards are our GBC and the the instruction materials are how we meet our standards uh that said
103the guarantee is that every student is provided the equal opportunity to learn the Core Curriculum regardless of school and classroom and the viability piece is that the time necessary um to teach the standards is available and protected for our teachers we focus on the nextg science standards along with the six additional New Mexico specific standards so part of the review is to ensure that our materials covered both the nextg as well as the New Mexico St standards um for elementary there's only two additional New Mexico standards that we were looking at both looked at scientists specifically from New Mexico and scientific advancements that have happened in New Mexico and so we'll move into what we decided that met those needs for us this is our committee we had a combination of K5 teachers we had
104instructional coaches as well as Steam lab teachers and you can see one of our Miss Diaz was on the list as well so she helped support this work we're very fortunate to have her um this is our process so our process actually started prior to looking at the approved lists um M brought the teachers in day one and they really did a deep dive on understanding the standards making sure they knew that any set of materials that was put in front of them they were able to vet them through the lens of the standards being the focus so we start with the standards and then from there we look at the New Mexico approved list once we have identified those uh Publishers that are in the improved list Karen reaches out to those Publishers to
105get sample materials from there we bring teachers in again we go through the rubric that helps us narrow our Focus even further to ensure that it's aligned appropriately teachers are uh they take and they um implement the materials they do a pilot and then they come back and they report out to their peers once and then again we narrow down even further as soon as we get narrowed to the final two then we call Publishers out to actually do their presentation and then from there we narrow down to our final winner so it takes a full year it's in full alignment with policy 403 and I have to tell you every time we do one of these we have a publisher a Publishing Company that's always surprised at the extensive nature of our vetting process
106so pretty proud of that process so out of five we initially narrowed it down to these top two New Mexico stem Scopes and amplify science these are the two Publishers that came in and presented to our team and then we brought our teachers back and they did their final vote 89% voted for stem Scopes and so what you see here is the recommendation today that we're coming with is to go ahead and adopt New Mexico St Scopes it does have our Hands-On kits our student journals as well as online resources um we have a Scopia which is the textbooks as well as additional teacher resources and we did meet with them today and they do provide the PD in as part of the um overall cost so this is our final recommendation and I stand
107for questions okay first off thank you for and everyone who helped with that with that um you know I I just kind of sat and watched as they did uh you know the history one last year and I was just like this is a lot is a lot there's a lot that goes into it and so I'm sure it's a very similar process where the teachers really sit around and and look at everything and and play with the software that comes with all of those different things and so it is extensive and so and takes time away from their students and so we really appreciate everyone who put all that hard work into it so so thank you for that first off Dr clevand do you want to add before we go into the questions
108just um again it's a thorough process how many hours do you think you put into this oh gosh we meet for full day once a month right I think we had yeah we had six full days we did a couple of half days so it it's very extensive we do pull them together and that's the point I think I'm Shing it's very time intensive it's a lot of time to go through all the materials look at all of it discuss it all get a really good feel for whether it matches our district and our students and our programs and so thank everyone who put all the time and effort into this as I know that's not something that we take lightly also it's something we have to live with for a really long time and
109so uh that's another reason we ready to be very careful and make the the these decis decision so just thanks to everybody all the committee everyone who put the time and effort to look very carefully um at what you feel would be the very best for this district for the next several years thank you Jeff M I don't have any questions but just want to say thanks uh for all the time that you guys put in and thanks for the recommendations appreciate it Beth Miller um just thank you quite a lengthy process and for the years to come is is it seven years that you years has it been that length of time for quite a while they change that over time or what no that's just the traditional cycle that we have um I
110think what happens with the cycle so for instance with math sometimes we might reopt a set of materials so for math I think we're on year 12 for elementary so we go through the cycle every seven years is when we adopt we start year six going through the process we can choose to readopm our needs or we look at any additional materials that might be published that might fit our needs better okay thank you Dr CL thanks to all did you see any area of this that you're concerned about you feel that we're going to need to supplement on our own or do you feel very very strong it's a good solid comprehensive program that really meets all of the needs and requirements that we have for elementary science yes and it was very much
111as we were looking especially as the last two and we've got experience with amplify already um what we found is New Mexico stem Scopes not only is it very comprehensive but it's incredibly viable and it's got a lot of flexibility so we can look at the topics and we can make some choices and move things around to maybe support our Ela with Amplified it possibly so we've got some work to do still but it provided more flexibility um it was also very clear in terms of if we're crunched for time these are the the non-negotiables and it would identify a few non-negotiables so that we kind of gave you an idea of what you could um either skip or come back to at a later time if you didn't have the time to to complete
112that does it have a a you know one of the things we keep hearing more and more when we visit schools as we visit schools or we we talk to parents is uh the need for Henson and opportunities for for that type of learning is that well integrated into this this system it is yes and it does come with the kits as well as all the refill materials as we go through the process okay thank you absolutely Jessica Tyler yeah so can you remind me so I mean I see it's about a $2 million investment over the seven years uh so it's about 285 can I don't know if Mike is still here but as far as reimbursement or funding from the state Dr Cleveland can you remind us how the funding for the curriculum
113materials is handled yeah we have um we're still I I think I know what you're leading to we're still at a disadvantage because it used to be that instructional materials was totally separate outside the scg then a decision was made to at least put some of it to flow through the scg process well in reality R Rancher gets about 85 cents on the dollar and so we have uh some years very short uh we've been told this year that they've taken that into account and there should be sufficient funding to fully fund the science adoption uh it's one of those things we'll wait and see whether it's really there or not uh but we certainly have have raised that issue science as in all other of the core areas if if you don't fully fund
114everything then you put your teachers at a terrible disadvantage you know they they can't utilize the the tools that they have uh and and they need to have the program as as a package and so we're really hopeful but again you know they're just passed the budget and we don't have any way yet of telling how the science uh adoption monies have flown through and whether we will have enough to fully adopt I hope we have because in some years we've had to come back to the board ask the board to make it up out of the regular operational budget and that's very problematic to do with some of the other things so um we'll see if we have enough but did I answer your question yeah because I I think you know looking at
115both of the items before us tonight it's about $2 million for Early Education as well as secondary and so to me it seemed a little bit high for elementary I know that there's the kits and disposable materials but when you consider how many different subject areas the curriculum covers for secondary schools it just seemed a little bit high for me on the elementary and I know that's one of the areas where teachers struggle to have the time to do it and so like you said at least having the the mus haves of like what you can cover because they are so crunched for time for these materials it just seems like you know of course it's everything cost a lot but seemed like a lot of money for um the amount of curriculum we're getting
116compared and I know it's not Apples to Apples but that was my we were cognizant of that when we went into the after the final votes and we did ask for uh three different quotes three different options knowing that it it is expensive we are finding that instructional materials just like materials for building have significantly increased yeah anything else Jessica and then Gary trip do you have anything no question just thank you to all those teachers for all their hard work yeah thank you I do have a quick question and so when they have those so they give us a list of what's approved in the state now can we go off of those lists or do we need to use those that are on that list we we try to make sure we stay
117on the list it's not we can look off the list the reason why we stick to the state approved list is because they've already done the initial vetting to make sure that it's going to align to our standards and so it you know it allows us to go with something that the state has already looked at we have teachers in our district that actually sit on those vetting committees at the state level as well um so yes we can go off the list if we're looking at something so for instance if we have a set of materials for math next year we be up here again next year at the end of the year um and we know that there's the possibility of a set of materials that might not be on the list we'll
118bring it to the team of teachers and we'll see if they want to consider those materials as part of the process there's also one other consideration too and when you go off the list and you can do that um and we have done that um sometimes in the past but you're not going to get the professional development uh the state is really now narrowing in that the professional development will be provided for those state adopted materials and and their their feedback is it's not that we don't want to it's just that we can barely um provide enough professional development for those that have been selected so if you make that decision you just have to know that you go on your own uh you'll be paying and providing all of your own professional development to
119go ahead pth I'm just curious could you tell me a little bit about this company St in the scope um Karen who is the publisher themselves do you remember accelerate learning accelerate learning they only publish stem material so they are very much a stem focused publisher I don't think Mexico is so the the one that we are looking at is New Mexico like really aligned to the New Mexico standards okay standards but yeah they're not necessarily based here in not necess yeah yeah okay any other questions they're not a huge company either but and that's part of the reason why like the PD that they are able to provide us they're able to do that if we're going to work with them they can they they will customize a little bit more for us oh
120that's nice yeah that's really nice any other questions from the board and Dr Cleveland do you recommend this I do and I I I think the committee has really done this due diligence in in looking at all of the information and uh as you looked at that list of of teachers uh they're very strong as our our own District level folks and I looked through those names and I saw a lot of names that have a high level of credibility and I think uh yes I recommend and again thank them for their work yeah thank you to the whole committee for their work and with that I'll make a motion to to approve the recommended Elementary science instructional materials wel Jeff Morgan a second got a motion by Jessica Tyler and a second by Jeff
121Morgan and J we could take a roll call vote for US vice president Morgan yes secretary Tyler yes board member trip uh yes board member Miller yes president galberth yes motion carries 5 Z thank you thank you so much thank you okay our next is going to be to consider the approval for the recommended secondary science instructional materials and we have Stephanie Moore executive director of secondary curriculum and instruction that will present good evening Madam president Dr Cleveland member of the members of the board I'm here to present the findings and decisions and recommendations from our secondary team for Science and inst structal materials and forgive me because I broke my glasses on Saturday and my ey appointment is very soon so I have not gotten new ones so I'm struggling to read a little
122bit today um sphere heading our instructional material review team was um Renee Byam our Middle School specialist and Dr Paul conlon our um secondary science specialist who are the district level curriculum coordinators also involved in this process were all of our Middle School instructional coaches and our high school instructional leaders Although our instructional coaches nor none of our District staff cast any votes or decision-making power this is something that was really LED and decided by the teachers from our schools so the first part of this we'll move through quickly because it's virtually the same as what you heard from joy every six years we convene teams to review for their review cycles for instructional materials our instructional materials are meant to support our standards and um ensure that all of our students across our district
123have access to Quality education that leads to our G and viable curriculum um we are really working hard to remember that and remind and Empower our teachers in the fact that our curriculum is our standards our instructional materials are the resource by which we teach those standards so our curriculum appap should be material agnostic and we should find the best material to fit those needs um but really we're driven by our standards in our district in addition to the nextg science standards um and the additional New Mexico specific standards New Mexico also has embedded CLR and their secondary standards that is um one area that our high school um is going to that's culturally linguistically responsive teaching and learning sorry that are part of our state standards and that is something that we are going
124to have to supplement in our High School classrooms that none of the materials approved by the state met those qualifications so we will have to address those in the coming months as we um rework our Curriculum maps however our Middle School uh recommendation did meet that tick mark I am forever grateful for the people behind that came before me in this um work because they're the ones who establish this instructional material process that is by far um probably the most rigorous of how process instruction material face in the state I think sometimes what we do when we arano public schools with instructional materials certainly is even beyond what the public education department does and Publishers have to be prepared for this because it's it's a it can be a daunting task on our committee we're
125representatives from all four of our middle schools and all four of our high schools um including um language Specialists special education perspective and support for our diverse Learners so that we ensured that there was a lens to meet the needs of all of our students so our process also started with a deep dive we we've met eight times this year already um and we'll meet on Wednesday again for the next steps a deep dive into standards I'm we have to be really proud we don't always um talk about all the great things but New Mexico really or R of public schools really shines in science across the state our performance in science is outstanding and our data shows it so we also wanted to really spend some time with the team highlighting they are the
126experts and they are already doing great things and it's time for Publishers to meet our expectations because we have the experts in classrooms already and we are doing a great job so we took some time to really look at how we already align with the expectations and the standards and with the great things we're already doing before we looked at our Publishers and then we used um equip as a rubric um a modification of the equip rubric to measure the guy poost uh we took us three sessions uh different something that's unique for secondary as opposed to Elementary is we weren't looking at programs we were looking at specific content so first year Middle School had to decide if they were going to do integrated or if they were going to do con content specific
127courses so then we had it would vary depending on what grade level and how many Publishers they were reviewing I think our ninth grade team reviewed seven different Publishers right our chemistry only two because there just weren't very many submissions for for chemistry to the state so it varied throughout um we had an excellent ter turnout for open house probably about 70 people during the course of that day to provide feedback that they Incorporated in their meeting so our process was very similar to um Elementary as they um as we narrowed down and came to consensus on who to bring in you on the next slide you'll notice that our finalist looks different though because some Publishers are better at some contents than others so it there wasn't really much consistency except for a middle
128school around which Publishers were brought in um biology could not get narrowed past the three so we brought in three for them and in in case you're not familiar the ninth grade science course is two different courses kind of married and so they had to bring in an additional publisher to see what they were what would best meet their needs I'm excited with our recommendations so our Middle School team you know um across all grade levels decided on twig uh Hands-On learning experiential learning brand new to the New Mexico um publisher situation they're brand new here so we're really excited about bringing them on board so six seven and eight are all recommending the adoption of twig from Imagine Learning um much more consumable which I think is really un userfriendly for our middle schools
129and gets them a little bit more engaged and excellent kits and resources for teachers because as Dr Cleveland mentioned part of the expense with science that we don't always see with all of our other content is that there's a lot of other things you need to teach science and so we have to account for all of that you'll notice here the justifications from the teams on each of these slides about why as a team they selected these materials we're excited about bringing in a brand new publisher too for ninth grade um biozone they're out of New Zealand and they're also brand new to us um but they had actually an integrated science book that worked really well for our ninth grade team um and really Blended things with what we were already doing so we
130didn't have to look for two different resources for that course biology um this is a returner so this will be a read-option of hmh the biology team really felt like it that it already met um their needs and um provided some stability to that course that course is taught at different grade levels so it's always nice to see when at each High School teaches it at a different year that they can come to some consensus on a material for different aged kids uh for chemistry we are moving to saice this will be a new um not new publisher for us but new for our chemistry team also a new consumable textbook and Hands-On resources for our chemistry students so that will be exciting for them then of course um we also have a gamut of
131electives and AP courses that will be offered that are offered at Riano high school and Cleveland High School Independence and at Cyber I want to point out that cyber did participate in this because we have a um an intentional effort to really bring cyber into the consistent conversation with our instructional materials um we will be adopting from MRA Hill sage biozone and salice for our electives and our AP courses and those teams all also came in to do that vetting and rubric scoring outside of the eight days that are corded because there's overlap on so much that they needed different time to do that work and with that I stand for questions Stephanie this is huge I guess it's it's actually the slide deck says it's $2 million but had a math error so it's
132actually closer to 2.2 so on refillables that were important awesome thank thank you um Dr Cleveland what would you like to add well I just have a question that was sent to me and so uh um trying yeah I got um concern about um going on the the physics one that the um the idea is this digital and work book access concerned about work books and Science and that science should be Hands-On material whatever would you kind of explain what this looks like because it's not just the traditional work book to work on yeah that's a good point much like the chemistry book these are not workbooks they're consumable textbooks so in addition to all the Hands-On resources instead of having a like a traditional hardbound textbook every student will have a book that they're
133able to write in and much like they do for springboard for high school Ela it'll be it's this a very similar concept that does not eliminate their Hands-On resources or lab materials or kits or any of those things it's in addition to thank you and then the other um I guess just a comment is that this is the way many college courses are now structured with this digital kind of textbook and activities that are attached to it and so I think some people look look at that and think that oh my goodness you what we're trying to move away from is work workbook and you know sheets to fill out and that's not what this is at all and so uh thank you for that clarification thank you uh Jeff Morgan no questions again uh
134thanks to you and your group for all the hard work really appreciate that thank you definitely just my appreciation for everybody's work thank you Jessica you anything else no same thank you and thanks to Joy answered the budgetary question so Dr cland did with that round so um and just a big thanks to you know especially all those teachers that are teaching multiple subjects or multiple AP courses so to review seven textbooks is a lot um it's a big undertaking so appreciate their time yeah you guys even have to remember this that Joy got all the hard questions so we might have to like flip it around this is our caveat on this um secondary does huge adoptions every single year right like um we have there there's always something at secondary that has to
135be adopted every year so I'll let Joy handle the hard questions I love it that's just an ongoing kind of thing but as you see and and B member tile you addressed earlier that some of these like science has has so many different areas and there's so many different books require different types of materials to support chemistry is very different than uh geology for example and so this is one of the harder adoptions just because there's so many very different courses that are represented in science and um to to have to go through all of those all the content areas it's a it's a it's a pretty massive undertaking but it is uh we appreciate again your time and all time of all the teachers and District staff uh that went to go through this
136and do a really good job on on matching it you know the one thing I wish we could go back to was that guaranteed and viable curriculum slide um and and I just wanted to emphasize something and maybe you know something you want to jump in or Joy again it's going back a little bit almost right there how really important this is because if these are misalign and then students don't do well on assessments that you know it's it's just critical that these three line up and line up very effectively and you can't do that just based on what Publishers say the only way you're going to do that is sit down and really go through those materials carefully and match it to uh our state standards and match it to our our district program
137but I just want to this you hear F this term around a lot and and maybe I wanted to be sure everybody really knows what what that what that means you do you want to expand on that any Joy do you want to add anything to that so a guarantee and viable curriculum ensures that every student no matter which classroom that they're in has access and opportunity to learn and we really found find that in our focusing on our standards so that what we what we're teaching is in alignment with what is assessed and what is written and that they are able to align those arrows all the time and it it should allow for a student to if there was a need be able to move from one one room to the other and
138still be ensured that they have opportunity to be successful that's not by any means saying that I have to be doing the same thing that you're doing all the time because my teaching style may be different but what we're teaching is universal for those classrooms not how we're teaching it but what we're teaching and and if you have something that's written in assess and I'm thinking of an absolutely wonderful staff members that we had years ago um and and he was absolutely wonderful but he just loved to sometimes talk about things other than what was on the on the exam we've all had a little of that we've probably all been guilty of that a little bit on time but if if you're what you're teaching in the classroom isn't what's the state written curriculum
139and it's certainly not what's on the test but students just can't do very well on that assessment and so that lining up but again you know to your point it's it's the it's the what and it's how we assess it's not necessarily the how the how can be very different based on our own Professional Knowledge and expertise and on the students that we have in that class but we do want to guarantee that every student gets the same uh opportunity and in our district and this term guaranteed and viable curriculum so important in this process of of U instruction material selection Gary trip do you have anything no questions thank you to the teachers for doing it thank you madam president this board member Tyler I'd like to make a motion to approve the recommended
140secondary science instructional materials M now I second the motion we got a motion in a second JC we'll take a roll call vote vice president Morgan yes secretary Tyler yes board member trip abs stain board member Miller yes president galberth yes motion carries 41 thank you thank you appreciate it okay um thanks again just to all those teachers and everyone who put as I as I looked at the list of all those who were helping with that um with the adoption and all those things there's just so many different teachers who have been my kids teachers and just people I know in the community and so just great wonderful individuals so thank you guys for everything that you did on that um so now consider moving to a closed executive session to discuss limited Personnel
141matters as permitted under section 10-15-12 of the New Mexico open meetings act specifically for the board and the superintendent to discuss the superintendent end of year evaluation Madam president this is board member Tyler so moved do we have a second board M Jeff Morgan a second okay we have motion second JC can you take a roll call vote first please vice president Morgan yes secretary Tyler yes board member trip yes board member Miller yes president galberth yes motion carries 5 Z okay thank you um this part of our being adjourned thank you everyone you want a few there first yeah reporter Mike okay okay Mr Baker e e e we ready I good okay um the board met an executive session to discuss limited Personnel matters as permitted under section 10-15-12 of the new mxico
142open meetings act specifically for the board and superintendent to discuss the superintendent's end of 20 2425 evaluation um and then please just take a look at your um agenda for upcoming um dates and with that we're adjourned tonight thank you you didn't do it I supposed to read that on the 21st it was just that it's wrong on