RRPS - School Board meeting - October 14, 2024

001good evening the rear Rancho Public Schools Board of Education meeting for Monday October 14 2024 is now called to order if all would please arise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right J can you take a roll call for us pres pres board member Miller you have a forum okay thank you so much all right we'd like to excuse um board Mill board member Miller tonight she's not able to be with us um and we'd like to welcome everyone out to our meeting tonight um we have not a too long of an agenda but we do realize that Dr Schmidt gets to do a

002majority of our of our meeting tonight and so we're really excited to go through our Fine Art extravagance so um we'll go ahead and start with uh introductory comments by our superintendent of schools Dr Vu Cleveland thank you very much and welcome everyone we are glad you're here well prior to the meeting there was an Arts integration Workshop that was presented presented by Dr Kurt Schmidt executive director of Fine Arts uh also there were um The A Team of uh individuals who had gone to visit two schools in the Denver area and they were also there and uh shared their experiences and their takeaways from that visit the um uh the the school two schools that were visited one was in Jefferson County um and the other was in the Aurora School District both of

003them in the the Denver area and the workshop um described what an integrated arts curriculum uh is and what it is not and that entire Workshop was uh was uh broadcast uh for folks who had an interest in in uh looking at it so it was H it's a very interesting uh topic that we're working on in our district and looking at doing a couple of pilot projects uh on Arts integration in our elementary schools the purpose was uh to uh seek out approaches that enhance student engagement and promote both joyful teaching and learning um and that uh interestingly enough was identified as a priority need in our strategic plan and during our strategic plan we heard over and over we needed to improve student engagement we needed to make learning more joyful more um

004more interesting and it needed to be um just more integrated into our our overall instr structional program and so we were looking for programs that were that were doing that and things that we thought we might find useful to use in our own school district and so those programs provided evidence of a more active type of learning and approaches that demonstrated positive student Behavior as well as strong academic achievement we have some commendations this evening uh we have commendations for the Rio ranchel High School whim Symphony uh they have been selected as the New Mexico music educators Association All State honor band It's a Wonderful um a wonderful honor and recognition and then there will also be a commendation for Rio Rancho Middle School the Phoenix fil harmonic and if you don't understand the Phoenix

005Bas they are Phoenix um at Ria Rancho middle and they were selected as the All State honor Orchestra for the state of New Mexico so we congratulate both of them we also have the uh Ry or relly I'm not sure uh helpman service award Dr Schmidt will discuss the significance of this award and it is a prestigious award that is earned by the Rio Rancho Public School District Fine Arts uh department for this year and so uh we we congratulate everyone in the Fine Arts area uh certainly our district commends the leadership of Dr Schmidt and all of our directors and teachers in our Fine Arts programs across the district we really appreciate the really outstanding opportunities that they provide our students every day and u u this is a another um affirmation of that

006hard work we do have one other um and we'll be bringing that later we did have a u a state fair winner um an art student and she was not able to be with us this evening her name is Miss Kiana Aragon and we will be recognizing her at another uh at another board meeting General obligation Bond sale results uh there will be a a report from RBC Capital markets on the recent 2024 Bond sale that was you know for 20 million um Eric herrian will Pro provide a transaction review uh including information on the purchaser of the bonds there was a sufficient interest there were nine biders for this s which is really good and the interest rate that was proposed was very good good especially given the the the current market so we're

007very pleased with that effort uh we thank U RBC Capital Market uh and uh they are ofers our our financial advisor the module Sperling uh firm which is our bond Council uh our RI Rancho finance department and also our legal department for all their work on this Bond uh issue and the bonds sale and there's an awful lot of work that does go in to that but it was successful and uh we'll be sharing the results of that with the board this evening we also have a report of Renee sedo our Secondary School Improvement officer and Stephanie Moore our executive director for secondary education will present the board proposed changes for graduation requirements for the rearrangement public school district as you know in the last session um House Bill 171 was uh passed and this

008uh bill passed with strong bipartisan support in both the house and the Senate uh the New Mexico senate floor approved this bill by a 40 vote which is almost unheard of um in terms of the New Mexico senate uh and house fille 171 was signed by the governor on February 9th of this year and so I want want to emphasize that these changes will impact students who will be starting in the ninth grade next year so if you're high school student now this does not impact you in any way doesn't change anything uh several years ago a bill was passed that um new changes in graduation requirements can only start with an incoming ninth grade class and I believe Senator Brandt was the author of that bill but it it uh has really saved a

009lot of uh anguish in trying to fit students in to changes after they've already started um the uh their their High School career and then the bill does provide some much needed flexibility ities for our students and um we recommend that RI Reno Public Schools continues to require the two additional units for graduation and we'll explain why uh during the presentation we have an agreement between the Santa Fe Opera and the Rio Rancho Public School District I really want to emphasize that our partnership with the Santa Fe Opera has provided many wonderful opportunities for our students in the school district over many years we appreciate the work of Charles gamble the SFO director of school programs and the board will be asked this evening to consider a continuation of that agreement and uh again this

010information will be provided by Dr Schmidt we have another agreement for um uh between our district that furthers the U Fine Arts programs in our district and that's an agreement between the national dance Institute New Mexico and the ri Rancho Public School District we're uh asking the board to consider approving an agreement between ndi New Mexico and and our RPS and we have had as I said this partnership for many years and uh Dr Schmidt will share with you some of the benefits uh this agreement brings to our students and uh we have our contacts have been Liz and I'm sorry in advance if I don't get your name right salag salag uh ndi uh New Mexico artistic director and Jesse de Bros um Albuquerque Outreach artistic director we appreciate their efforts in making this

011partnership such a success uh this year we have four schools that are being served by this partnership PR Delo uh colen sorte Sandy Vista and Maggie cordiva Elementary and then we have a update on policy 806 and the board will be asked to consider changes to this policy uh and it deals with animals other than School District property there are some significant proposed changes in this policy so this is the first reading uh therefore no action can be taken by the board at this meeting and a second reading um with any changes to the board saw fit to make them will be presented for Action at the October 28th board meeting and these proposed changes will be presented by S am maniai our executive director for Safety and Security and Sher Carver our executive director

012for student service and then uh we are asking the board uh approval to move forward with Arts integration at two of our elementary schools approval is being s uh sought to begin moving forward with this initiative uh we have spent um an hour and a half in the previous Workshop going over some of the particulars of that that commitment this will allow the team to begin working in Earnest with both our our staff and our parent community on this very important and Innovative project and Dr Schmidt will present this item um this would be our first effort at offering some different and themed opportunities for students and families within our school district do you have any questions or comments questions okay thank you thank you thank you Dr Cleveland um I'd also like to recognize

013and I failed to do it at the beginning um that we have representative um Kathleen katees here with with us today and she'll be giv some public comment in just a little bit but we want to welcome her um to our meeting tonight um so we'll now go to approve the prioritized agenda and propose time allocations Madam president this is board member Tyler I'd like to make a motion to approve the prioritized agenda and propose time allocations with the removal of item F4 board Jeff Morgan a second got a motion by Jessica Tyler and a second by Jeff Morgan all in favor I any opposed motion carries all right well now move into our commendations um we now have three tonight um our first Commendation is for the RAR Rancho High School wi Symphony um

014for being selected as the nmmea All State honor band and Kurt Schmidt our executive director of Fine Arts will be presenting okay actually excuse me if we get all the teachers come on up I think they probably save a little bit of time for these accommodations excuse me uh president GTH members of the board Dr Cleveland uh tonight I would like to present uh two ensembles and their teachers and one Department uh for commodation uh the three commendations are recognition received from the New Mexico music educators Association which is the state affiliate of the National Association for music education first I present to you the reanal high school wind Symphony not actually the band but uh the director uh which has been named the 2025 nmmea Allstate Honor Band over the years the wind Symphony

015has time and again performed at a very high level and presented some of the best literature in the wind band repertoire The Ensemble is TP is typical of the band program at R rrhs which strives to give the best musical experiences to the students involved for the director of bands Mr Matt casades right here uh the most important thing is to produce in addition to Fine Young Musicians the best people possible D wind Symphony and Mr casades will perform at the 2025 Allstate conference this January Pope Joy Hall on the campus of the University of New Mexico so I invite him to say a few words if he'd like to or not sure sure okay I'd just like to say thank you for your continued support uh over my now 18 years here in this

016District um I used to be the young guy to him um but now I find myself the old guy um but continued support has always been there from from everybody here so thank you very much uh to the board and to Dr Schmidt and happy birthday to Dr [Music] Schmidt we were supposed to keep it quiet now weren't we no I was just gonna say so that's why it's the Dr Schmidt show this evening because it's your birthday now now we know why you're on almost every agenda I so happy birthday happy birthday that is not a birthday gift I don't I was thinking you might not feel that way uh the rear ranal High School win symphony is not the only rear ranal public school's musical group to receive receive honor Ensemble status the

017reanal middle or reanal Middle School's Phoenix fonic has been named the 2025 Allstate honor Orchestra this Ensemble is a collaboration between the band choir and Orchestra programs at rrms and is the brainchild of Miss Donna Schmidt and Mr Brad dubs band directors Miss Stephanie Wilkerson choir director and Mr Brendan Wright Orchestra director this Ensemble involves around 130 band Orchestra and choir students from rrms and had had its debut last spring the Phoenix philarmonic will also perform at the nmea All State conference this January in popjoy Hall so I will I'm not sure if they're all speaking or or no one thank you this is this is a real honor for for um these ensembles they they they have to submit a recording uh uh in this in the summer to among all the best groups

018in the state and they are judged by three parties outside of the state and then they receive this honor this is a real real honor for for both these ensembles we wish them the best of luck and the I'll give you the information but the the concert's open to the public if you wish to come um uh see these fine ensembles so thank you you guys sure you don't want to talk thank you you can I yeah Dr CL wants to add I just want to say something really quickly you know we have a lot of these have Come for All State um recognitions and I think think we uh it's real easy to underestimate what an accomplishment it is when you you get it more than once there are districts that never achieve that

019never get that recognition it is a high level of Excellence to be able to um to to get um the All State honor so I don't want to get so used to it that we um we don't really appreciate how very significant it is but congratulations and uh it is a wonderful honor and uh we're really excited that you have a chance to to do that over again and uh and and um and and and do uh such an outstanding job every day every year so again congratulations thank you thank you and one more one more accommodation uh the entire reenal Public Schools fine arts department as Dr Cleveland mentioned which comprises 70 teachers and staff has received the nmmea Raleigh halman service award for 201 25 over the years the fine artarts department has

020hosted numerous nmmea events such as a task force on music education the music educator summer workshop the state band and choir competitions Allstate and most recently the inaugural State marshy man competition I get the feeling they just are giving us this award because they want to use our facilities but um but it's it's a real honor to to receive this um the finance department will be honored at the All State business lunch in this January and it's a real Testament to the the fine quality of teach teachers we have dedicated staff who just run this department every day and they're they're just they're phenomenal group of Educators so it's it's it's again a testament to their their dedication and talent so thank you thank you thank you thank you and that is the Schmid show

021to begin we have more you know I have to say I'm just so grateful for rancha public schools and for all that we put into the Arts uh from the very beginning of our district it's been something that's been very important to our district um I felt that for me as a high school student as that that was the things those were the things that were important to me um and I see with my own kids my oldest that is where she found her place at school those were those were important things to her and so I'm just grateful for our district and I hope we can keep up the good work and to let all of our all those who are in our Arts programs to just know how grateful we are to you

022and that you make a huge huge difference in the lives of our students so thank you so much anyone else want to say anything anyone else go ahead thank you it's really appreciated by all our families in this community and the kids and I think I Echo what Dr Cleveland said you do a great job and keep doing it every day for these little ones thank you so much I'll just Echo what Gary said thanks for all your work really appreciate it you're right it is one of the crown jewels it is it is good yeah yeah how do I not say something now right no but and Dr Cleveland's point is is well made you know it's easy for us to start to take for granted the Excellence in our schools whether it's recognizing

023our sports teams our Fine Arts teams and it is a testament to the leadership that we have in those positions and the hard work that you all the boots in the ground you know do to lead our our students every day and it is very well appreciated and definitely not take for taken for granted by the board and one of our always you know our favorite parts of the meetings is to be able to commend and recognize the hard work that you all do so thank you thank you thank you thank you everyone okay and we'll now move into our um public comment portion of our meeting tonight um so we have numerous public comments that have come in both through online and we'll have um about one two three we have seven inperson public

024comments tonight too so I'll start with going through the public comments that came in through our online form um when we do the public comments that come in through our online form I just summarize them and so I invite those those individuals who would like to have their voice heard to please come into the boardroom to give those public comments if they would like to have more of their voice heard um I do like that we have an online one and we do read through each through each of those but of course it's always better coming from the individual so I'll first go through those and then we'll talk a little bit about the in-person public comment that we have tonight um so online we received 15 um public comments and 14 of those are

025in regards to our safe space signs and two of those are about our good news the Good News Club and bibles in the school and so for our 14 no I got that wrong so 13 sorry 13 came in um about our safe space signs I think I could do my math if I'm in a school district so um so going through those I'll just go ahead and read the names um who sent those in and they are all in regards um to our safe space signs um so we have I'm hoping I wrote this one right so kaen figuros figoski okay safe space t um Amanda craft Jen dittle John Pendergrass Shannon Padilla um Emily holnick Vanessa Waltz U Maggie Prince uh Lucia Duncan sashia um knottenbelt uh Chris dittle and Christina Wildman um

026and also Elizabeth uh blog grave um so those are ones that came in for our safe space signs I find that I do I grew up here in New Mexico I think I do better with um Hispanic names than I do with with the European names which is interesting um and then we received two about our Good News Club and bibles in the school which is Francis O'Hara and Joshua kson so thank you for sending those into us um this throughout this last couple weeks um for in-person public comment um as we go through those you will have three minutes to give your public comment uh JC will have a timer and when that timer goes off we ask that you um sit back down um and allow others to give their public comments um

027as I always make sure that that we bring up when we do public comment in the board we cannot respond back to the public comment unless it is on our agenda for the evening um there's possibility that with our public comments that it could occur on a future agenda um but those are the laws that we work under that we are not able to comment back on our public comment as they are as they are given to us unless it's on our agenda for the evening um and so with that we'll go ahead and start um you might remind them that I think I think they're supposed to put their first and last name the board can is it there yeah it is here yeah I got him yes we got him our form's kind

028of funny she want to make sure we have both names our form's kind of funny because it well you signed up so it it has two different lines for it so um and so it looks a little different okay so we'll start with our public comment our first one will be from Sam Columbo we'd like to welcome you up and the timer will start um as soon as you start talking okay all right good evening board member superintendent and board president my name is Sam Columbo I managed the 247 campaign um which works make New Mexico schools truly tobacco and nicotine free we help school districts adopt Implement and enforce truly tobacco nicotine-free policies that are comprehensive um under a truly comprehensive policy tobacco use possession and distribution are prohibited by anyone anywhere at any

029times 24 hours a day seven days a week this past November the New Mexico public education department approved a rule requiring that all public school districts adopt a comprehensive tobacco policy this was in large part due to the efforts of a lot of our students across the state who worked with 247 and the PED on this rental schools while it does have the policies it needs um for tobacco and nicotine it does need to do some updates to these in order to be in compliance with the new ped rule which I brought some printed copies if anyone wants them um we reviewed the current policies that were um revised back in 2018 I mean in order to have a comprehensive policy I'll just summarize some of the key points since it's a short time but

030would love to talk more in detail um at a future date The Tobacco policies for students staff and school personnel must read that the use possession and distribution of tobacco products and nicotine products are prohibited at all times 247 same with visitors the main aspect here to to add is at all times and to specify possession and distribution which are not currently specified this also must the policy must also specify that schools provide referrals and resources to help students and staff overcome nicotine addictions when they are found in violation of um the tobacco policies that the district has we have examples of what those look like in the toolkit which I brought with me um happy to give happy to email um happy to meet more and talk more in depth about it um but

031that's in the toolkit um and is an important part of this new peed rule lastly each district advertising policy um shall prohibit the promotion of all tobacco and nicotine products on school property or at off- campus School sponsored events um I'm keeping this short because it's public comment but would love to have more in-depth meeting about this in the future um we have a lot of resources we can offer the district at no costs we have free bilingual signs which signage is is also required by the new rule happy to give those and even leave these with you but aluminum ones posters that we give to the districts we have um free faculty training resources and we also offer free um presentations to Middle School classes and Elementary School classes as well um but really

032that's about it um as as general as I can keep it for a public comment um but times are obviously changing with nicotine products and it's important to do all we can to protect students um while they're at school to the best of our ability um so I'd love to be a resource to all of you um and hopefully we can stay in touch thank you if anyone has materials you're welcome to leave it up on the table there um our next will be Elena maves I don't know if I said your name right yeah okay hi um my name is Elena uh so I grew up in Rio Rancho and I attended RPS schools all my life I went to Vista Grande uh Mountain View Middle School and then Cleveland High School I graduated

033from there uh early in 2020 uh during the middle of the pandemic um I am also an educator I I now teach English at a high school in Albuquerque you know I'm a friend I'm a neighbor and I'm also a lesbian and I've been out since my freshman year of high school I came to say today that I agree with the statement that every space should be a safe space for kids every space should be a safe space for kids but unfortunately that is not the world we live in right now and the existence of LGBT people is not political it is a fact ignoring oppression does not make it go away it simply leaves students unprepared for the complex real world they are about to enter Cleveland was not a space safe space for

034me it was not a safe space when I was holding the hand of my girlfriend in the hallways it was not a safe space when I was being called slurs in PE it was a safe space when I walked into the classroom of my Italian teacher and she had a full-size rainbow flag up on the wall with the word Pache in it which is just peace in Italian that teacher was not LGBT but she was absolutely there for me and all of my fellow students at every turn and I just wanted to emphasize that you don't create a safe space for all students by removing Pride flags from signs you create a safe space for students by making a commitment to stand up to them when it really counts you create a safe Space by

035authentically caring for each and every student you create a safe Space by committing to respect not just in spite of our differences but because of our differences because we are stronger when we are together so I wanted to ask you today to reconsider your application of the existing policy I understand it's an existing school policy but I believe it needs to be investigated further and we need to reconsider whether or not we are supporting the self-expression of all of our students and our Educators as well thank you thank you thank you okay our next comment is Madigan Ray good evening um like Mye like my predecessor here um I am also a queer person who did not have a good time in high school um but I did have a good time when I went

036into the classrooms of the teachers who cared about queer students and their uh their the problems that we faced uh including the one who helped me start my Town's first gay straight Alliance Club um rainbow flags are not a political statement the support of queer children is not a political statement but what is a political statement is taking them away a political statement is taking away equit Equitable support for the children who are most at risk of bullying harassment and acts of self harm and suicide and what you're saying when you take away these signs and ban these signs is you're saying that people are either heterosexual or political and that means you're creating a hostile space for anyone that doesn't fall into the heterosexual category because by declaring them political you are taking you're

037telling them that it's not okay to feel how they feel or be who they are you're telling them that they matter less and that they aren't free to express themselves the way that heterosexual students are we've seen where this road leads we saw it earlier this year in Oklahoma with next Benedict and we will see it here if the needless politic politicism of queer children is allowed to continue so I am asking you to please give teachers the ability to put these signs back up in their classrooms uh and and make their classrooms Equitable and inclusive again and just remember if you're going to continue taking away these signs there are already people lining up to take your jobs to come the next election thank you thank you our next is Lisa P hello thank

038you for allowing me to speak tonight and I want to wish everyone a Happy indigenous people's day today thank you um I also want to make a comment about the safe space signs um as a parent in the district and who went to school with my entire career in this District um I don't think that anybody feels that their child is not safe in the schools that these teachers and staff would not do anything in their power to save them in an emergency so it's not about them needing to feel everywhere is a safe space they know school is safe however like we teach our children when they're in a large crowd and if they get lost look for someone in the uniform right those are the people that can help efficiently and effectively quickly

039look for someone with the badge that's what we're asking for with these signs it's simple as that that's just the badge that they have the resources to help they have the experience to help they have the willingness to help and these students need to be able to identify these people like the stories you've just heard when they knew who they could identify to go to and be there and support them that made a huge difference and that's what we're asking for is you're it's the same thing as saying look for a police officer when you're in trouble look for those people who are identifying as willing to help have the resources so that these students get the most support as effectively and efficiently as possible so I do also ask that we allow to have

040those safe space signs available again uh for both the students and for the staff thank you thank you our next is Stephanie mayor hi thank you for allowing me to come and speak this evening on the safe space signs um I have been an audiologist in the public school system for 28 years I'm a straight married white woman um and I have watched the creation of the the safe spaces over my career and I have watched the students Thrive by having those safe spaces um and I fear taking away those safe spaces is a giant slap in the face it's really I think it's really heartbreaking to think that we would set aside this space was created this symbol was created in a in a sense that to protect these children to let these children

041know who the people were they could go to exactly and now we're saying yeah never mind we're taking that away and yes I understand there is a reason I see both sides I see the side where we say well we don't want a single people out it should everyone's treated equally it's all the same but it's not an equal world we live in and maybe teachers can choose what symbols they put on their signs maybe some who feel straight or queer but they they bond with that Community will put a rainbow on maybe others won't maybe someone will put a football on it because that's their you know I I don't know I'm just trying to think outside the box but I think taking away the rainbow is not the answer thank you thank you

042Andrew Ryan Dr Cleveland Madame President members of the board thank you again for your time due to the nature of this public comment space and of advocacy being about pointing out problems and since I've been here advocating for safe space signs for over a year now I'd like to start instead to shake it up with some gratitude so I'm incredibly incredibly grateful for the school district I am beyond grateful for my school site for my administrators I'm incredibly lucky to have a job that I love more and more the longer that I do it and I don't even have the words to express my gratitude for my colleagues as they're a phenomenal professional community and the work that the school district is doing with the new UFO uh re uh Records Center is just one

043of the coolest things I think I've ever heard of in my life and I want to thank you all for your contributions to making this a community that can do that sort of cool thing I came from a tiny tiny tiny school district in Texas with insane amounts of micromanaging and zero trust between the board and administration and the Educators and it really only catered to one side of the political Spectrum those are all reasons that I left that school district and frankly why I left Texas as a whole so when I advocate for the safe space signs and the as a form of autonomy for teachers supporting their students it's because I don't want the same reasons I left that school district to be the reason that good Educators leave this one we live

044in an incredibly and increasingly divided time and these conversations feel increasingly delicate to have however I argue that perhaps the answer isn't to lean in to these treatment to the treatment of these topics as volatile and that instead we could use this as an opportunity to lead by example and with love and build a collaborative Community where differences don't have to be tampered down to pacify others but that all of these different demographics with different experiences different values and needs can coexist in respect and safety and in harmony where it doesn't have to be blue versus red me versus you my needs versus your needs where a rainbow safe space sign doesn't take away from Christians values and a Bible study doesn't take away from lgbtq student safety these aren't mutually exclusive and I know

045because I was both the kid who found community in a Bible study and safety in the classrooms of teachers who had safe space signs we can take these conversations and use them to build something where all of these diverse walks of lives can be represented vibrantly in the same space under the same roof instead of treating them like their taboo which only divides us further the opportunity to heal the world just a little bit by starting in our own backyard starts here with board policy 404 and it lies in your hands thank you very much thank you all right and our last for the evening will be representative Kathleen Kates thank you so much for um uh this opportunity thank you Dr Cleveland and and president um if you weren't move from the previous speaker

046I'm a little emotional from that so thank you um for those of you who don't know I'm uh I am a resident here at RI Rancho I'm a state representative and I'm a parent from the ri Rancho Public School District um my kids participated in football and basketball and track and band and drama um and so that means I participated as well and the school district means a great deal to me in 2023 hate groups came into Rio Rancho or made themselves known and tried to ban books from our public library and I was so very proud of our City's uh city council and mayor who were able to understand what this meant and be able to create a resolution to stop the book Banning that was occurring I am very concerned as a parent

047and as a funer in this school district about the safe space signs I would respectfully ask you to bring in a community group to actually have some public comment in a workshop to be able to go over this um 18% of our lgbtqia community in high school have self-harmed or committed suicide and as a public school board if you had a group that was twice as likely to commit suicide as any other group I don't know why you would take away a place to communicate to them that hey you were heard you are seen and you are safe in this classroom that's what the safe space is it is not a political symbol have political group groups used it as I'm sure they have in Black lives matters but we celebrate our Hispanic heritage we

048celebrate indigenous day today we celebrate our unique groups and Variety in our community that's what makes our community so special I'm not sure why we are so afraid of this one group and making sure that they know that they are heard and safe and probably some of the most vulnerable time periods of their life your community and the professionals the ri Rancho city council clear and respectful and inclusive which as a resident and a taxpayer a voter a state representative of this community I want our elected officials and the SP Public School Board to please create a safe space in the city of RI Rancho thank thank you thank you once again we just want to thank everyone who came in tonight and gave public comment um I think it's one of the most important

049things that you know we have a lot of people who like to complain you know whenever you're out in the world but people don't give public comment and so I think it's important no matter what the issue is to to give your public comment so thank you for coming in tonight um we will now move into our reports section so on our reports our first report will be the 2024 Bond sale report we have Eric herrian our RBC from RBC Capital who will present it's good to see you Eric we missed you the last few meetings it's good to be here good evening H Madame President members of the board uh superintendent Dr Cleveland uh Eric herrian with RBC Capital markets um so as you recall uh the board authorized the issuance of um voter

050authorized bonds at a public sale public competitive sale uh as part of that approval you delegated to the super intended to approve um the sale of the bonds to the winning bidder and I'm here to report those sale results as part of that delegation process um so on October 8th um the uh District uh did have a bond sale uh as Dr Cleveland mentioned there were a total of nine biders uh JP Morgan was the lowest bidder at a 3 4% um the highest bidder was our W be at a 3.18% so the bids were all very uh quite close which was good to see um this is has a very short two-year maturity um bonds will be paid off um in 2026 um and um the bonds will close um let's see uh in

051a couple of weeks on October 30th and that's when um the funds are available to expend on the projects there are a few slides in the back here that we have on on the market I won't go through it um you know rates did kind of tick down in in anticipation of the Federal Reserves uh action in September where they cut the Federal Reserve rate by 50 basis points because of some of the economic news that have come out over the last couple of weeks interest rates have um have ticked up a little bit um but the timing of the sale turned out pretty good I mean we'd be looking at at an interest rate probably about 05% above where we uh where we achieved last week when we sold the bonds uh and with

052that I'd be happy to answer any questions that the board has but okay thanks sale or the process okay Dr Glo do you want to add anything as we go to questions just but thanks to everyone for all the hard work it was a good sale the results were good and we're really pleased with that yeah it was really good all right thank you um Gary you have any questions nothing good thank you any questions we make it so easy for you I'm gonna have to like come up with a whole set of questions for the next time you come in no but thank you so much for all that you do I've been I've been really enjoying actually I've been learning more and more about bonds and so as you give your reports I've

053been really enjoying kind of really going through them so thank you for for all the hard work that you do on our behalf we appreciate it sure absolutely all right thank you I just add that a good Bond sale does just happened by accident you know that and just tremendous amount of time and effort the timing all information we had I think a very good interview with rating agency and none of that happens without strong leadership and support so I really do want to emphasize we appreciate the the good job that you do for us well and I have to say that you all make my job very easy you're tremendous to work for so it's h you guys have an incredibly you know professional staff again you just you just make my job you

054know that much easier um it was a really good you know meeting with with Moody um and you know the the district is in in good shape um and you know you've seen to the growth in your tax base you know we're hoping that there will be you know increased capacity you know in the future through General obligation bonds to be able to help continue to be able to make some of these you know critical Capital Improvements great thank you and we can't function without these so it really is very important to us so thank you madam president I do think it um it as well was you know thanking you guys for your work I do think it stands to recognize the community for continuing to support the school district and passing the bonds

055too so you know we we wouldn't be here allowing this process to or being able to go through this process if the community didn't support us so i' like to thank the community for their continual support of the district as well we will put it to good use so thank you thank you you're welcome thank you okay we have yeah always always all right thank you um our next report will be on graduation requirements and so we have Rene sedo our Secondary School Improvement officer along with Stephanie Mo executive director of secondary curriculum and instruction who will present you guys have very long titles [Laughter] but Madame President G breth Dr Cleveland members of the board thank you for giving us this opportunity to come and talk about graduation requirements tonight um not quite as

056exciting as Kurt stuff but you know it's pretty close um last year with House Bill 171 they introduced some changes to graduation requirements that will start with this year's eighth graders the incoming ninth graders for next year so we just wanted to go through what current graduation requirements are where we're currently at and then what the the new requirements are so we start off with current state requirements for English or math that stays pretty consistent um right now three and a half social studies three science one PE and marching band and Ry can count for your PE credit um half a health which right we take in at RAR Rancho Public Schools they take in the eth grade if they don't take it in the eth they can take it at high school one language

057career or college work place lots of courses can you can figure out lots of courses that fit into that area um one credit that's either um Advanced Place yeah yeah advanced placement um distance learning distance learning or dual credit and then six electives and the state requires 24 credits so that's the state credits current So currently in riento riento public schools that are two comprehensive um high schools these are the graduation require requirements um four English and four math that lines up with the state requirement including Algebra 2 um we require four social studies credits here so we have that extra half a credit of social studies and we require four science so being a senior is in four core they're senior year right they're getting a um core education all four years they have

058to have PE half the credit of Health the language College and Career workplace credit an AP distance learning and dual credit this is this is a hard component but it has not been hard since covid because all of that time on distance learning for anybody that was in high school crowded took care of this this is a this was a challenging component for students to get sometimes um five and a half electives um and we do five and a half because we require half a credit of Fine Arts and half a credit of tech here for a total of 26 total credits to graduate from reenal public schools okay the next slide so if on if you want to actually look at House Bill 171 there's a link to it um the new state requirements

059so what we've done is put an aster next to all of the changes that are different Statewide so still four uh credits of English the credits are the same for math but now the requirement is that you have Algebra 1 in Geometry there's no Algebra 2 requirement um four credits of social studies three credits of science oh the social studies changed because it used to be three and a half and now it's four which matches up with what we currently have the credits remain the same the Health Credit remain the same um it's five and a half credits of electives and the new kind of nuance here is that you have to have two credits in a pathway so if you're um a band kid you're going to get your two crit and you are

060there all four years you're going to get your two credits in a pathway CTE classes we have we have lots of different options but this is somewhere that we're going to have to kind of look at um and then uh well languages Fine Arts CTE um are options there and then two credits set by the local school board right now the two credits extra that we have that the school board has set is an extra science a half Fine Arts and a half Tech when we set it it was to it increased us to 26 um the I think I can kind of talk about the advantage to 26 versus 24 credits we're seven period day so kids have the option of 28 credits so getting requiring 26 credits when there's so many required other

061requirements gives kids more of a chance to experience electives if we cut that back to the state requirements we're really going to just because you have a tendency to do that minimum right you're kids aren't going to be able to experience as many electives as they do when we have those 20 the option of 26 26 allows if you are in athletics if you're in band if you're in choir those those classes that tend to take four years it allows those kids to have other options do you have anything to add to that I know we kind touch on that later too so so these are the new state requirements 24 is there 2 26 we're still at 26 we're still at 26 so when you are looking at the differences right so we have

062a side-by-side comparison now for you what are the state minimums and then what are we W's R orano Public Schools so the yellow are the things that are changing it at the state is upping their social studies requirements we already require for right there are some changes that we'll talk about what about social studies with that but we we already do the four um the three science the state is the state minimum we require for the math change has to do with the algebra 2 it's still the same number of credits it's just what those courses are or have to be uh the the one AP dual um distance learning or dual credit that's no longer a state requirement so that is an area we can look at eliminating from our requirements it was a

063requirement that was added when it was added from the state wasn't something that we had prior to that right correct okay um and then half credit of fin arts and half credit of tech so that's kind of where we are in a line ment between the two the 24 and the 26 that we have so our next slide is about things that we need to consider um in the next month or so yeah we need to we we need to make a decision on what the requirements are going to be probably by the mid to end of November because kids are going to start signing up for classes program of studies are going to come out so we need to make that decision what the credits are going to look like for the incoming freshmen

064um things to consider now things to consider doesn't mean we want to get rid of them so um but there're things that that either we currently have and could possibly look different if that's what you want to do so we currently have a half Tech Credit that we wouldn't necessarily need we currently require the half Fine Arts Credit um um and and We Know by what we just saw you know how important it is right I know I know didn't I'm not gonna say it um the New Mexico history and geography Riano Public Schools is currently so we have separate courses we require this at grade nine we're currently the only District in the state that requires these a separate or that has these a separate courses now with the new so with the new

065state requirements they have set it up so you do freshman sophomore junior you take your core classes and they would like for your fourth year to be a little bit more flexible so maybe English you don't take English 12 you take creative writing or technical writing if you're at the CTE Center um for for New Mexico history and geography graphy they want us to add that into US History Stephanie can speak to us to the history courses yeah so currently under the new state standards US History has 160 standards alone to cover um the recommendation from the peed is to embed New Mexico history and geography into that course that course is already loaded like it's a lot so um it would be a challenge for a US history teacher to then integrate these other

066two sets of standards and ensure that we're getting them all to students well and our geography right now is part of an AP course I know at Rio Rancho I think that would cause and it's pretty I think there's a lot of students enrolled in those classes so AP Human Geography is the is one of the only AP classes that we offer to freshman and it's a we offer it as a year-long course it is a really successful course for students um the the change comes in the fact that while they upped the number of credits you have to have they're giving you discretion in this New Mexico history geography most of the State embeds Geography in US history and world history now and they have for years but I've been here for 18 years

06719 years we've always offered a stand alone Lo course here and kids tend to be pretty successful in it so I don't know about the success of integrating them and then what do you do with Staffing when you eliminate a whole course of requirements so another thing to consider is a financial literacy class um there are standards that fall under math standards and there's also standards that fall under social studies standards so you can have two different types of financial literacy class class ES we actually thought that a math financial literacy class might be nice um especially if you're not taking whether or not you're taking Algebra 2 but especially if you're not taking Algebra 2 it would be another good option for you to take if we did uh financial literacy with the math

068standards so that's something that we need to look at do we want it required do we want math or social studies full year or semester but we do have a full year math financial literacy course that we could we could access and it's um actually already being deployed at Independence the the math financial literacy course social study financial literacy standards are being embedded in the social studies classes already right that was part of the curricular work that they did over the last two years is to integrate those because they're tagged to each content those finan literacy standard so um we should also look at the fourth year science um I'm a science teacher this is kind of like the Fine Arts I'm not necessarily saying that's what we should do but but it's it's one

069of the options we need to look at um Algebra 2 the state no longer requires it um do we want to require it or make it optional um if we make it optional then what other math courses are we going to offer um um and then the pathway identification I um we just need to come up with like if every students going to have to have two credits of electives that are in a pathway we need to make sure that we have plenty of options for students um luckily we have a couple of years to work on this yeah but we need to start working on it and then lastly how many credits for GR do you want 24 do you want 26 as far as credits for graduation so Beyond just the simple nuts

070andols of what we're going to take to require to earn a diploma from R Rancho public schools there are other things that we have to consider while you'll need to consider while you're making this decision and if we make any changes what is this du to Staffing are we looking at increasing staffing needs are we looking at needing a different set of Staff in order to teach different courses um and do we have enough staff to manage Pathways uh we ALS also um this is a becomes a course load thing too we teach six to seven currently uh lots of schools don't right lots of schools are five of seven uh so at the high school level so having to take those things in consideration anytime we start pulling back on requirements uh Transportation when

071if we lower how many credits students need what are we going to do with kids with partial schedules or if they're finishing early because like Renee pointed out we have unless we're changing a bell schedule where kids have the opportunity to earn 28 credits so then what do we do with kids who are finishing or don't need full schedules um College requirements we want to keep this in mind um as we make decisions for kids that are going to need Algebra 2 to go on to to get through the Clearing House or who need languages we want to make sure that we're still offering and meeting those needs and what new course Creations are going to be needed this um is really going to play into what we decide to do with math because we

072do have a very robust fourth year math option for students there are lots of choices for them the question is what's going to need to be reworked in order for them to access any of those courses if we're not offering Al if they're not having to take Algebra 2 because now they're going to need two math courses and it needs to be something they can access without algebra two so part of also why we need to get ahead of this so that we can start looking at what some of our fourth year courses are going to look like from here forward and we always have to keep in mind um all the decisions that we make have implications and impact on how students perform on standardized testing and whether we like it or not right

073it is a measure and the public facing way of of our success of our school and we want kids to be successful ful and we want people to know how successful we are so we do need those stand we need all of those standardized numbers to be the best they can be so we want to support kids to be attaining those High marks on all of those too so it's a lot of information you may want to take it study it send questions um but I as far as next steps you know what we would like to hear what you all are interested in we can bring options we can you know how many credits do you want do you want to stay at 26 do you want to stay at 24 or go down

074to um I think that we feel pretty strongly about staying at 26 you know once you drop then kids aren't going to be taking classes and we're going to lose staff or lose the need for staff if we drop that so that's when we're looking at you know which do we drop before science do we you know what are we going to do with Fine Arts the total number of credits adding a math class that's all a shift in Staffing so I mean in a weird way well what would be interesting to see is if we could how many of our students are actually taking to electives within the same um what is the thank you track yeah track pathway like words are escaping me so pretty quickly like we have a we can get

075numbers on CTE completers because those and I I think it's important Renee and I discussed this this morning we have CTE courses that are remaining and Pathways that are remaining at our comprehensive high schools that just because when we open the new um skill trade and Technology Center and they have those that whole robust program there we had CTE programs and CTE classes at our high school before this was on the on the horizon right so they are they still exist and we have completers and we can those numbers look really good from Larry right you think about how many of our kids that take at least two years of language that's that's a pathway um if they take two years of AP in a similar field or our Project Lead the Way program or

076our Ed Rising like we have some things that we can start looking at numbers it's not a data point we've tracked so I mean we can pull how many kids are in Spanish 2 then we know right how many took Spanish one okay okay that would be it would be interesting just to see that so we can kind of have a a good grasp on if we're already kind of just doing that anyway um or if there's a lot of I'm sure there's some students I would say we are I don't think I think it's a big shift for the state but I would say I mean having worked at Cleveland having gone through transcripts at Independence our kids they're T they might be taking art and then another art class or they did painting

077and um Pottery like we we have a lot of kids that are they get in a vein and they'll take a couple classes before they move on to something else okay which is why it's important that we keep our standards high and our credit count um at 26 so kids do have options we don't it's hard when kids have to start making choices between they already have to make so many choices but if we're asking them now well now I'm going to need you to choose between band and Spanish that's that's gonna be hard thing for families yeah definitely okay I'm going to let Dr Cleveland I know she has some notes that she wants to go through and then we're going to go to the board and kind of ask some questions and give

078some comments I have all these thoughts on my paper um and so we talked about that maybe this is something we're going to need to sit down and talk more about and remember this tonight is just a report we're not making any decisions tonight this is just for us to start thinking so we can so we can have those questions and have that better conversation so Dr clone go ahead yeah it is just a report tonight and and so perhaps a workshop format and talk about some of these things and um there are pluses and minuses for for a lot of things I would hate to see us go to the minimum we have never been a minimum district and I I hate to see us go there um because there are some things that

079I think our students would miss um that they very much need to be successful and you know you look at Algebra 2 uh maybe that's not for everyone but people also have to know that you don't do Algebra 2 you're probably going to end up remedial math in college you going in you know and that's that's a challenge and I know our higher ed folks are strongly recommending that if students go on to a four-year traditional that they have both of those uh to avoid losing that year um New Mexico history raises some issue yai Martinez culturally relevant kinds of U uh questions about how we deal with those issues at the high school level I really want to build on what was said about the fourth year um fourth year science can be the

080traditional and if you're going on a higher red for example Anatomy if you want to be a nurse or a doctor or whatever Anatomy for your fourth year of science would be a wonderful course to take and and relevant in terms of of river but also relevant in terms of uh getting one of those important courses out of the way before you go on to college the um certainly most science um you know like Anatomy or in math technical math um in a CTE field may be a better math than tradition than Algebra 2 uh especially if it's related to a specific area uh in in the CTE program and you know maybe U business uh technical writing or business uh English might be a better fourth year then fourth year uh English Lit that's

081hard for me to swell it but but but I understand that realistically that's probably absolutely true so I think you know we look at some of these uh these issues the other is wanting students to also not get so locked in to these two courses that they don't they miss something important so they're doing two of these courses and no no foreign language because there's no room left in your schedule for that foreign language or you do two years of foreign language you can't do ban and so uh having that flexibility the other is the state has just over the years gotten really very aggressive about senior students who don't go to school most of the day uh so much to the point that they have threatened to take money away you for students that

082only come you know a couple of classes a day well honestly we would we would struggle if we lost that Revenue but we also think that it's really good for high school kids to be in school most of the day um and unless they're in an apprenticeship unless they're in some kind of structured opportunity um or a dual enrollment certainly dual enrollment classes so there's just so many complexities to this the the Technology Credit when we put that in years ago technology was a very different level than it is today our kids are very technologically literate in most cases and they don't need what we used to cover in that technology class on the other hand as we've heard from some of our board members um there's a real need out there for financial literacy

083for kids and so that's an area where it can pick up a ma one of those math credit but I don't know anywhere we go whether we go to businesses to our chamber to everyone says financial literacy is an area that our students could really um benefit from having more of an opportunity uh to take in high school so um there's an opportunity I think for something that is is U is is a huge need and uh and I I think it's just almost a general Community consensus that we need to do something uh more than we're doing in in in that area and uh so those are the kind of questions I think we would want to sit down and talk about yeah but I I do think that if we cut to 24

084our students are not going to get the education they're getting now in Rio Rancho on that fourth year of science I would remind everybody that science is one of the areas we do pretty well in and that's not by accident and and I think that's a um and that's another area if you don't do well in high school you're going to struggle in college if you go into certain Fields so I it's um yeah there are a lot of things to think about but my recommendation would be we come back and do a workshop and we look at all of those individual um individual factors but I I think the big change from when we were doing it then to now is CTE and all the things that that opens up for our students for

085that fourth year apprenticeships and and uh dual enrollment classes and maybe some content courses that are much more appropriate for what they want to do um with their lives in that that fourth year like Anatomy um for for those interested in the Health Professions so those are just some thoughts and um but we don't have a lot of time as as Renee said we really need to get on this pretty quickly so we'll schedule if if that's okay with the board uh but I'd still like to hear if there are other things you want to know about or or after what you've heard tonight any thoughts you yeah we'll go to questions um and then I know Renee and I were talking so make sure if you have more questions as we go through this

086we can send those umut uh to them and and get those questions answered especially sometimes just as we let it sit a little bit we're gonna have more questions as we talk about it I do think it's kind of something that is so big and and I'm not sure how to do I don't it's hard because it would be great to have some some Community involvement as we talk about it at the same time if you just put out like 24 credits versus 26 people are just be like 24 because that's your initial thought on it without realizing all of the things so so I don't know what that looks like but I think that might be something that we should try to think of you know how can we involve that a little bit

087in our in our process in a very short time that we have um so I don't know if we have the the time to to accomplish that um but I'm going to go over to Jessica and see what she has I mean I I feel very strongly that we stay at 26 credits and don't entertain going to 24 um again I think that that's one of the things our school district has prided itself on is the rigor and by decreasing it there's a lot of other um I think you know maybe unintended consequences that can occur and to your point I think people absolutely live up to their expectations and we already have students graduating early and you want to keep kind of as you know the ability for them to be exposed to as

088many things as possible during their High School careers so I felt pretty strongly that we don't entertain reducing it to 24 but I don't get to make the decision by myself but that's where I stand um other thought is potentially you know I I would hate to see us remove Algebra 2 for those kids that want to go to college and have plans to go to college you know with the opening of CTE and making sure that we're giving that alternative Pathway to other careers I think it could be interesting to give two tracks like the college readiness track where they where we give them Algebra 2 and then maybe a CTE track my hesitation to that is that it could be very complicated to be able to have the appropriate resources designated because I

089feel like a lot of students you don't know till you know right so as a sophomore or a freshman or an eighth grader having to make that determination of which pathway they want to choose at that age it's likely going to change once they're exposed to different things so I don't know how that would look or the complexities of trying to monitor that if we gave um kind of two track options to our students offer Algebra 2 it will it will continue to be offered I just yeah I just think that if students students don't necessarily always know like kids hate algebra too right they don't necessarily know like I have to have this to able to get into college and so if they're given the choice not to take it they're not going to

090take it right it would be my more often than that right I mean you're going to have your students that are very academically driven and they will but you're going to have those students that maybe are on the cusp or think as a sophomore I don't want to go to college and then here they graduate and they're and I hate to have our kids graduating behind the power curve if they want to go to college so those are kind of some of the thoughts that are going through my mind with specifically with algebra 2 [Music] um you know and then you have other students that know very definitively yes I'm going to go you know I want to follow in my dad's footsteps and open an electric you know an electric company and I'm going

091to go to CTE and I'm going to do you know these the p and they're um and they don't change but for most the most part you know they're going to change so um would it be possible to do Financial algebra or some sort of financial literacy in a half with a half credit and like so that's kind of where my mind goes is like replace the tech credit with financial literacy or financial um some sort of financial Algebra I think that's something that everybody no matter you know it's a life skill that you need and I think that's something that's that's great for to be able to provide our students yeah I have that written down too as far as the Tech Credit goes I we are so Tech heavy I think we had

092talked about this a few months ago that you know when we first had that Tech Credit in there you know technology wasn't the way it is today and so I had that kind of same thought on mine that that would be a good one to think about because we use technology and everything these kids are they're good on Tech so so that I agree with that thought anything else just that's it than uh Gary you want to go ahead and go or we can go to I got a lot of things but I I um first want to say that I listened to a retired amiral from the Navy last week give a u podcast on how the military has to change they may become a preventive medicine type of machine and they have to

093be a Warfare type of machine and they have to be a strategic typ type of machine so they need about 10 times the population they a now and every single one is going to have high have to be highly intelligent and skilled so with that I I think 26 may not be enough but that's a good high standard um I remember one-third of my college students every year uh failing college algebra right and that's I think a national statistic uh not just a New Mexico statistic so if our kids that are in College onethird of our population our graduates are 50 let's just say we had a great class and 50% went to col college and onethird of those are how many are out in the military or out in the streets now with not

094that high mathematical skills that they need in order to and then I have my best friend who brought in $440 million to the state of New Mexico to work on a water line from Santa Fe from Los Alamos to Santa Fe and you got to know how water pumps uphill and he brought in 75 million the year before that into coral on a water line so he brought in $525 million and I said how do you do it as a civil engineer how do you write those grants he said it was my 12th grade English teacher he marked every red line he stayed up every night and graded our papers and the only reason I'm a I bring in $500 million a year to New Mexico is because of my 12th grade English teacher so

095I don't know if we can substitute to things so my suggestion is maybe there's some Engineers maybe there's some really skilled people out there that know about future jobs in the future that we need to just bring into a work session so you guys and maybe the two principles listen to that as you put all this together how it could all play out but the biggest thing suggestion and I'll stop rambling is we heard we heard a lot of good things about artificial intelligence and AI I I just wonder how AI can help us with this problem so we can give every kid the maximum education they they they need because we're going to need and Stephanie arene have heard my sales pitch on my job but we're going to need highly skilled construction workers

096highly skilled electricians highly skilled Workforce in our community and we're going to need a highly functioning military and we're going to need a highly functioning National Labs all over our country and that's going to take a lot of a lot a lot of rigor we can't can't anything down thank you I just like to get a better understanding of the uh more in depth on the financial literacy that that's so important me being in the business world that I'm in now and just seeing a lot of kids not being able to understand basic math with profit margins and different things like that percentages that that's very important to me I talked to a lot of business owners and they do talk about how that's missed from my young students today so I just want to

097really get a better understanding with that as well and we can reach out and when we have the workshop we can bring in like what the units look like and that like all right thanks me in case you are unaware Sean Adams at Independence in a need to fill a fourth year uh hole right over there has developed a really really robust um financial literacy Math course that um IHS kiddos are taking right now so oh real it's a really good solid class that we could and it started as a semester class he has it out as a full year now but um we could we could get it to the best pieces in a semester right where is this at again Independence yeah anything else Jeff that you want to go over is there

098any way I can come by and see that but yeah we can get we can make arrangements for him yeah you don't mind like to come by and take a look at it you're seem to be pretty pumped and encouraged by it so I like to take a look at PR of she knows she knows it personally okay then thank you yeah did you have more Dr Clint yeah just one I I was looking at this college uh Vine that it gives direction to college students where they're doing applications I just wanted to add it to our previous conversation about Algebra 2 in New Mexico I'm here heing is it won't keep you out of college if you don't have Algebra 2 which you will probably end up in remedial math which puts you behind

099in your program so that's that's a concern however outside of New Mexico um this is they're say Algebra 2 is still generally seen as a Cornerstone meth class and high school education many colleges uh still do expect to see it on your college uh on your high school transcript it's not just about the content of the course but also about demonstrating that you are prepared for the quantitative reasoning required at the college work level so um particularly if you're going out of state there are still a lot of requirements to have that Algebra 2 on the on on the transcript especially for maybe more select uh colleges and and universities so it going back to the comment earlier I think it really important that for students who Aspire that track we certainly our counselors say

100you know Algebra 2 is probably pretty important for you if you want to go the more traditional route in the four-year um uh college education that being said certainly some of the um some of the CTE courses at the college level like technical math are very rigorous courses and so uh if you really know what you're going to do and have a pretty clear plan that may be a really good way for you to get that that that technical math out of the way but often that technical math is that college math that Gary's talking about and a lot of our students struggle with that if they've not had um had Algebra 2 so uh I think it's just a matter of Truth and advertising for students who don't take it we're really clear what

101the pluses are and what the minuses are and then the student and their family makes a a decision but it won't keep you out of college in New Mexico and I want to be really sure um that that that's clear but many of our students go to remedial math at the college level if they have not had it not all [Music] okay so I think it'll be good for us to sit down talk more about it and look at everything um I my concern I guess as we as look at this especially as the way the state has set it up as I'm a little concerned for our counselors because I think I think this kind of puts a lot actually on them to and I think we need to start thinking sooner too as

102they get into sixth grade we need to be setting them up for high school and thinking about these things especially if we have more options even as we look at some of these things the other part of this is just as we're looking at elementary schools right we had a workshop on our elementary schools and and things that were're looking there look into the future I think the same for this and and what are some things that we can do with this uh I know it used to be you know we have these dual credit options and yet at the same time our our District's not super friendly dual credit we're getting better with our CTE and it's an option but I think we really do need to to look at those things so that

103we keep students here as I think we have a great schools people want to be a part of ranch of public schools at the same time if we're not giving them those things that they really want we're going to lose them to other places um and so I think we need to as we look at these credits think about that too and how can we integrate that more in I know RI Rancho does a great job they have a um I think it's Financial algebra that they do that's a doal credit that they were able to do on campus and maybe that's something you know we try to look at some of more of those options as we're moving ahead so we do have S that's goodes that are part ofal credit that's good process

104yeah so that's those are good things so it's good okay so I'm excited to to actually take a look at some of those things because I think that it's needed a change honestly for for some time um so hopefully we can generate some more questions and to Gary's point on the AI not only I think could it help us but I think that's something that we need to look at in our schools too and as he says we're going to need these we need to have workers who are skilled in all of these different things because AI honestly is going to take their job and so one that would be a great class to offer to start looking at I don't know what that looks like I don't think the world knows what that looks

105like yet um but it also we should try to look at that just as a tool overall for for our district so all right what just mentioning the financial I I don't know if you want to have anything to say about that but I know in one of our meetings they talked about financial algebra um really frowning on that class it's not really algebra it's not financial literacy and it's kind of a hybrid to kind of fit a situation in time and so really encouraging us to look at going financial literacy a real financial literacy board or go with algebra but don't kind of pretend there's a little of both and and I think there's some valid concerns that they've raised at the state level about that so that's another thing we need to be

106cognizant of as we we look at that course okay any other questions concerns thank you so much thank you for bringing that yeah I know it'll be good maybe we will see you see you soon we appreciate it um okay so we'll go to approve the consent agenda Madame President this board member Tyler I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda board member Gary trip by second we have motion by Jessica Tyler second by Gary trip all in favor I any opposed motion carries for zero okay now we'll go to the business portion of our meeting um so we'll start with the considering the approval of the memorandum of understanding between Santa Fe Opera and rear Ranch Public Schools Dr Kurt Schmidt our executive director of Fine Arts will present Cleveland OH it Che

107you walking over here to uh Adam president Dr CL members of the board um just a point of clarification you have the the memorandum of agreement in front of you um we are in partnership with the Santa Fe Opera for uh two different activities one is the New Mexico art uh which is with the Kennedy Center three other school districts and the Santa Fe Opera that is not the the purpose of this agreement uh this agreement deals with the Santa fe's Alto program active learning through Opera uh and they come into uh all four middle schools in the fall and uh five elementary schools in the spring and either five elementary schools and then six elementary schools they alternate um um every year so this is about the elto program the sppa brings teaching artists

108in for Opera clubs uh for the middle schools and they work through the safe program for the elementary schools to produ to have the students produce their own operas they have the students write their own liberti they have their students write their own music and then they perform this at the end of the semester so this this is the agreement for that part part of the partnership we have with the stifi Opera so I don't know if you need more clarification or if I can answer any more questions any other questions from Dr CL do you want to add anything I just as I said in the introductory remarks we are very appreciative of this partnership has brought a lot of good things to our kids over the years and we've um we've also increased

109um increased the participation at least in the middle school this uh this year it kinded went a little bit but we've we've managed to increase try different tactics to to increase the enrollment in this program okay any other questions we can go to a I'll make a motion to cons or to approve the memorandum of understanding between the Santa Fe Opera and the real ran Public Schools Gary trip second okay we have a motion in a second and JC if you'll take a roll call vote for US president Morgan vice president Morgan um secretary Tyler yes board member trip yes president gal yes motion carries three thank you that's okay all right our next is to consider the approval of the memorandum of understanding between the national dance Institute and raran of public schools once

110again Dr km microne if you ask you work with m did you want we did vote first wants to that's up to you yeah um did you I don't know how that works but uh vice president Morgan did you want to cast a vote on the last on the last one you can go ahead and cast your okay yeah okay there we go is that okay okay good okay thank you all right Dr KT Schmid go ahead oh never mind sorry I looked away it wasn't registering uh president GTH Dr Cleveland members of the board uh this again a point of clarification on this uhou uh the national an dance Institute it's a it's a little misleading for what they do for our in our school district uh there are four elementary schools uh that

111take part in a program run by ndi they're basically movement classes and um they could be described ascl classes they get the kids thinking in positive way uh healthy healthy living moving their bodies Etc and to to um I forget what they say uh but kids say they'll be strong they'll make good decisions they will be healthy and that sort of thing so it's it's a it's a movement type program over 14 or 15 weeks uh either you know we do two elementaries one semester two elementaries the second semester and we've been doing this for since before I got into this position it's a wonderful program the teachers Rave about it the administrators love it so again I'll stand for any questions I will say my niece was a part of this at pesta um

112and now she's a high school student she's almost done with high school but she I remember when she was little she really loved it so it's great and if if I could send out the invitation but if you ever had the opportunity to see uh one of these performances at V elementary schools it's just amazing all their the kids are really jazzed up for these performances so just one question any chance of expansion I have brought that up we did expand to one more or one or two more schools in the last couple of years the problem is ndi is currently focusing on on schools within a five mile radius of the Highland theater where they're based um uh my contacts there JY du and others they would love to expand out here in RI

113Rancho but it's a matter of Staffing for there um I keep I keep bringing it up and we keep talking about it one part of this mou though is that they do they are giving a a a three-hour workshop for up to 40 teachers about how to incorporate movement into the classroom so that's that's a nice benefit but to your point um I'd love to see it expand to every single school but um uh presently that's not possible Dr do you want to add anything else I just Echo the same if there's ever additional resources we would love to see more schools served because it is a wonderful opportunity and what we understand we all deal with uh limitations in terms of resources so that's understandable but we love to be uh the first whole

114District um in the state and U so perhaps that's in the future but uh it is a wonderful program and and our kids benefit greatly from it good Madam president I'll make a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding between the national dance Institute of New Mexico and RI Rancho Public Schools remember Jeff Morgan a second okay and we have a motion in a second JC can you take a roll call vote for us please vice president Morgan yes secretary Tyler yes board member trip yes president galberth yes motion carries four Z thank you thank you now you get a moment you get a moment all right now we'll go to our first reading of the board policy 806 animals unschool property Sal manachi our executive director of Safety and Security will present good evening

115president grith superintendent Cleveland and members of the board myself and Sher Carver here to present to you um the first reading of changes suggested for Schoolboard policy 806 animals UNS school property uh these changes were made to be in compliance with u State rules regulations and laws U we know you've been presented with a copy of it already so we're here to answer any questions that you may have um Dr do you want to add on this one before I go to questions the only thing I would ask is becoming more and more of an issue and so really do need some clarification on what fits the policy and what does not and so it it's it's coming out of a need for for greater clarification um and knowing how much we love animals um

116and knowing that uh you know they're just an important uh part of our our lives and our families of whatever however there are issues on school campuses with other children with allergies with u uh dogs or other animals that are not service animals and are not trained therefore pose a a risk to biting another individual or what up you know so we just need Clarity and I think our principles are really wanting that Clarity and so this is an effort to uh to let everybody know exactly what we can have and what we cannot have and Sher do you want to add anything to that um well I would just say that the clarity came around for the qualified Assistance or service animals we really wanted to be clear about that at right um what

117we can and can't do and then the therapy animals as we know in the past we've had taals of Joy on our campus and did a great job so we're still allowing therapy dogs and animals on campus but they have to be pre-approved before you bring them on our campuses the service dogs as you know we they do not have to be preapproved and they must be allowed on our campuses um and then I think the only other thing was um the big change was um was there another big change not really those are the two big things we wanted to clarify and we're just discussion tonight or so this one is yes no yes it's supposed to it's supposed to be a first reading I just we have action on the I'm just gonna

118take that off so just a first reading so just a first read first reading tonight any questions any other questions I don't have any questions I do think that this is an area that everybody that's in a public position can benefit from having additional training on on what questions you know when we ask somebody to enforce a policy from this there's so many misconceptions about what's allowed or what you're allowed to ask or not ask and I think that it's an area of potential liability and it would be great to be able to provide some training to our employees on you know what's appropriate to ask what's not appropriate to ask what is allowed and not allowed so that would be my one recommendation so after last year we did go there Todd R we

119worked with Todd and he has provided training and a a document to all um workers that work the games especially so they are well trained uh we can also go over this in more detail about there's only two questions you can ask right they bring a service dog to your uh facility and so we can definitely emphasize that again yes but we have provided training la last year um for all of our workers at games and activities yeah and I would just say to I would want to have that training done again with the changes to the policy yeah Michel confused over only dogs are Miniature [Laughter] Horses yeah we had to add miniature horses because Lauren did some research and he said did you know your horses are service animals that's defined by yeah

120statute it's defined in the rigs in the laws you got to learn something every day right wa wait I got oh we no we can ask okay they were walking away like that but who who approves the uh I was looking on this the the therapy dogs I'm sorry who you both you guys have mentioned they have to be approved who approves that School site or the district so the principal or I guess Dr Cleveland myself would have to approve those really and H how do you do that well first of all they have to be certified and they have to be a certified Handler and so you would in my mind go to your principal and say I want to bring my therapy dog on Fridays to provide uh social emotional support for certain

121children children and present your proposal and the principal would say yay or nay so we need to make sure we have those procedures so we have the policy and then just make sure all the procedures are in place you can put that in an administrative procedure document yes I guess more the concern is I I if if we're approving this or we setting ourselves up for something that could backfire on us I mean is there a higher authority out there that could come in and say this is what's approved in the school districts I don't know if that's something we want to take ownership of I'm I'm just asking this all but you know very recently uh maybe and maybe you saw that in the news there was a a situation in California where there

122was a dog that was brought for reading assistance reading therapy and and uh the owners let the dogs go one um reach out and bit a child in the face did pretty bad damage and so uh to your point that's a liability issue you got to be sure that they're they're well trained um and and the service dogs go through a very intensive training and they get a certificate uh that you can take a service animal that's approved almost anywhere um so um that's but even then I guess there's a small chance but that's nothing like just I'm going to bring somebody I'm GNA bring my dog to do something um uh and my understanding now hospitals have gotten very tight uh about uh the requirements that you have to go through in terms of

123training before an animal is brought into the hospital for therapy um work so they're valuable um those those animals really help children and they help adults who are dealing with depression they've got they've got to be well trained and they need to go through a program that's recognized and certified right or you're you're exactly right we we're we're there's a li ability risk there but there was a very prominent case very recently and it's a major disfigurement of the child's face we believe that the policy the changes to the proposed policy or to the policy does a really good job of of defining what an assistance dog is a qualified assistance dog and a service animal is and what a therapy animal is and I think when we look at therapy animals in section two

124A2 I think it gives us a great definition of how that process kind of starts and then what those organizations an example of what those organizations are that can lead to that type of certification you also read the part about liability uh vice president Morgan that we put in um B liability um in the policy did you see that part I I did not ma okay no that's the reason why I was asking yeah there is a section B liability I see it now okay so that's it spells it out pretty clear who's liable when do you not think so okay he's reading it right well this is just our first reading too so we can take it through this week and com I mean we're liable yes we are I mean 100% I mean

125that's the hard thing when it comes to any of these things there are programs that have high success rates and they're listed in there yeah and and dogs that go through that those programs are I think they even let them on airplanes um anywhere those service animals but but that's very very different training than just a casual training someone may have if they bring dogs in to read or whatever yeah and we love we love the animals I and we' love to have them come but there are some liability issues yeah M Madam president Mr Vice President I think the first uh the first thing to m is we're only making relatively small changes to an existing policy and the policy that the board has implemented and it's been in place for some time very

126severely restricts what type of animals can be on District property and primarily because of the liability there are some animals that we have to allow and that class is called service animals it means a dog that's trained or a miniature horse that's what the law says um and then all these other types um there there's some types that it makes sense like you want to have Geral in the classroom for the kids um and then maybe there's some opportunities with therapy animals where it's it's useful to have those in schools we would scrutinize those very careful okay and typically we would have an agreement as well that that makes sure that it allocates liability good enough that's a written agreement correct correct thank you good enough does that answer your question yes it does thank

127you any other questions comments concerns good if there's anything else that comes up just make sure we bring it up in the next week or so so before we go into our second read we can put that in there so okay thank you so much appreciate it all right our last is to consider the approval to move forward with Arts integration at Sandia Vista and Enchanted Hills Elementary um Dr Kurt Schmid our executive director of Fine Arts will be presenting and knowing that we just had a large workshop on this right before our meeting tonight so than yes uh president gber members of the board Dr Cleveland excuse me um yeah we'll just I'll just hit a couple of slides from that from the presentation in the workshop uh maybe for the general public that

128didn't see that uh one thing is that um we are basing a lot of what we're doing or proposing for these Arts integration schools and rear Rancher public schools on a school in Colorado the belmare school of integrated arts um and might might be interesting to know that since since the Inception of of integrated arts at belmare seven years ago uh they are starting to see see um a a growth in their the reading and math scores that is complicated a little bit because uh two years or last year they had an influx and their school size increased by about about 33% um because of neighboring schools that closed and so they had students enter their school that were not not familiar with Arts integration and they've had to integrate them with Arts integration um

129into the into the school system into their school so that those data are a little little could be a little skewed I am trying to get some harder data from the school uh and I'll continue to do that for the board's um uh for the board's perusal uh some other but there are some other um there are some hard date data points uh attendance at the school uh the last year was 94% average attendance their chronic absentee absentee rate is only 1% um since they Incorporated the behavior right sorry acting right Behavior program um the year they implemented it the year after they implemented it they saw about a 75% decrease in the number of referrals that were written for students so those are those are some harder um harder harder data points um we

130can we can lean on uh the next slide uh kind of summarizes the the the the four-year plan to move San die Vista Elementary and enchant Hills Elementary to Arts integration model um and that is uh year zero educating the community um and stakeholders in arts integration year one is implementing the acting rate Behavior program um continue our work with the the Kennedy Center and Mexico art uh our partnership there to to expand workshops or attendance at the workshops in arts integration and Prof professional development uh year two continue with acting right but introduce the reading art program which introduces um topics or contents through art pieces and year three all the above but uh making a a conservative effort to have more public performances displays of artwork Etc and just again it's going to

131take a lot of trial and error we're going to continue learning as we go through this process if it's approved by the board and so there has to be a an atmosphere a culture of risk Tak and that failure can be okay as long as it's done in in a as long as teachers are really trying they should be encouraged to try new things in their classroom but not be chastised for failing because it is is a learning environment and I believe that's I don't know if you have any further questions from the workshop yeah and I just want to say again we have about a two hour in-depth conversation about this in our meeting before and so if there's anyone who's listening in right now who would like to um listen to that or

132watch that it is on our YouTube channel too so you can you can watch that more in depth um conversation with principals and teachers and parents um that we talked to about this and so from the board do we have any other questions um on this on this topic Dr Cleveland did you want to add anything um I I just want to add on the last comment about freedom to try and that perhaps everything doesn't always work out 100% um but within but but within some parameters and um would share a situation with one of our local businesses one of our largest um many years their production was flat they didn't feel they were moving in a way they wanted to move and so uh their plant manager said uh we give you permission to

133try new things and you may fail um we we don't H you know we don't tolerate sloppy engineering so if you're engineering is good and sound and it doesn't work out um go back and try and get better and better and uh that company was Intel and three years later they won the top Innovative technology award for the entire Intel system and so giving people opportunity to try some new things not I don't want people to think that for us it would be sloppy teaching and learning but within the parameters of of best practices and things we normally do maybe things won't always uh be perfect the first time we try it and and yet without that we don't move forward and so I I thought that was a wonderful lesson learned from them especially

134when you went back and it was so successful with it for them three years later so it's within our our version of no sloppy engineering but we we need to try new things if we don't try new things we don't get better and and and that's the goal we've always been a district that um has tried to be Innovative and try to be looking at how we do things better continuous Improvement and uh if you don't try new things it's hard um it's hard to move from just doing the status quo yeah and Dr clevand do you recommend approval on this as we go to a motion do you recommend approval on this on this item Dr Cleveland to you do you recommend approval on I do recommend approval uh I would want to stress

135the um the the in-depth Workshop was was broadcast and so people had an opportunity to see it was posted just like the regular meeting and it was broadcast and so uh uh I would want to add that we on as we've looked into this we have had Parents we have had teachers we have had principals we have had district office staff we've all been part of the process and looking at it up to this point and what we're asking for approval is to move forward with a commitment for the professional development resources for year one so that we can get this uh underway okay thank you we'll go to a motion Madam president this board member Tyler I'll make a motion to approve to move forward with the Arts integration at Sandia Vista and Enchanted

136Hills Elementary Bo Jeff Morgan a second we have a motion by Jessica Tyler and a second by Jeffrey Morgan and JC will go to roll call vote for US vice president Morgan yes secretary Tyler yes board member trip yes president galber yes carries four zero okay thank you thank you I'm excited okay um just a couple things um just refer go ahead and just refer to for advanced planning to um to the agenda does anyone anyone have any questions on any upcoming meetings or upcoming um anything on Advanced planning okay um if you are planning to go to that uh the meeting in December um please let JC know so we can get you on that and even if you can't go to the whole thing there's lots of classes on Saturday if you can

137only make it to those and you need the hours okay all right so um our meeting tonight's adjourned thank you everyone e e