001good evening the rio rancho board of education meeting for monday august 9th 2021 is now called to order and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance if all will arise and mute your microphone 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 for liberty and justice for all and we're gonna go ahead and see if we have a quorum here tonight really quick before we go into that and we have marinas trying to get in is i just got a message from her kim i don't know if you have a way to let her oh she's there i see her okay kim will you take a welcome marine uh can we take a roll call for us yes i
002can do that uh vice president morgan president uh secretary scott present aha we have an audio check good uh board member colin present board member coleman president and president galbraith present and you have a quorum at 5-0 thank you okay i would like to welcome everyone out to our meeting tonight i know we have a lot of visitors too here on our um on our meeting especially with them the and the recognition of our new mexico music educators association so we're excited to have them here um and also our recognition of our cni and federal bilingual native american program staff so we're excited to have both of them on so welcome and then also welcome to all those who are joining us through our youtube feed tonight and we're excited to have you all on
003um tonight's meeting uh we'll start with our introductory comments by our superintendent of schools dr visu cleveland dr cleveland good evening and welcome everyone um if we can get the slides at okay thank you so much and uh it is welcome back to school today is the first day for our elementary and we're delighted to have those who are coming back in person and those who are joining us virtually so it you know just across the district it was a relatively smooth opening uh probably the the largest issue uh today had to do with transportation and because this is elementary many parents with their children on the first day of school which was something many of us as parents did but it it did result in a lot of traffic across the district this this
004morning but it it really was nice to see people back we will let you know about the enrollment numbers later this week and we are looking to perhaps do a warm body count because this is a little bit different than it's been in in the past and we are seeing a good trend that many of the students who left the district last year are returning and we're delighted to have him coming back into our district uh again i just want to say the schools looked great it was several this morning um they they were just beautiful and so uh a thanks to our and custodial staff because the students came in it was just obviously a wonderful place to be again for those that are coming back in person but those that were coming back
005virtually also had what i understand a very good day and they were able to work through some of the challenges that they had at uh at spark but again uh thank you to everyone who got ready for the opening of elementary schools uh this morning as i said traffic was an issue in a lot of schools um hopefully it will not be as bad in uh in the next few days we really don't know yet if this is a one one-day phenomenon as it normally is or if more are electing to transport their children to school this year and if they are uh then uh you know i would really encourage parents to lead a little earlier and plan for a little longer time to drop off their kids or pick them up um because
006um you know i looked at one of the schools uh this afternoon and uh traffic was stretched a really really long way and so we're going back and looking at how we might be able to speed that up and uh asking for some assistance from our our security folks as well as the um the rio rancho police department but again they saw a lot of happy faces and as always the case on the first day a little bit of separation anxiety for some and a few tears for some but everyone was handling that and i think maybe the separation anxiety may be a little greater this year because children have been away from school for a longer period of time and having to learn to get back into the um you know back into the
007regular routine uh and and spark is looking very good uh and approaching capacity i don't know if you saw the special uh that i believe was it was uh kobe did on sparta was very nice uh very positive and uh we are continuing to have some parents uh want to transfer into that program but we saw a lot of kids in person today secondary reopening is going smoothly you know that was last week and the mass pass distribution and implementation went smoothly at our school sites uh enrollment is up and pretty much all the available spaces being used especially cleveland high school are extracurricular co-curricular activities are underway um we are facing a challenge uh at cleveland again for a shortage of athletic walkers but we're trying to figure a way to work around that
008as well but there was a lot of excitement for our students who are back in school either uh in person or virtually uh rio rancho cyber academy is currently at 256 uh so that's that's a good number and that's a combination of both blended and all virtual tonight we have some commendations and we have a group we really want to commend and thank our curriculum instruction and federal bilingual and native american programs played a significant role last year in promoting effective teaching and learning and learning how to work around some of the challenges they've also been incredibly busy this summer and so some of the things that they've been working on is a term you're going to hear an awful lot probably get tired of hearing before this year is over but mlss is a
009multi-layered system of supports for pre-k through 12 and i know over the years you heard the term rti an awful lot of response intervention this is an adaptation of that and the whole purpose is that we coordinate and have a com comprehensive effort to use um all our resources well to organize our districts and schools uh to meet the needs of our students so that's social emotional medical instructional all of the needs and that we are doing as much as we can to wrap around those services they also have been working in the area of english language arts there's been a reviewing of the curriculum for springboard which is the program that we use in grades 9 through 12. they've been planning a lot for professional development of staff related to springboard they have implemented
010instructional literacy k through 5 and been working on that and then there's been ongoing letters training and that's language essential for teachers of reading and spelling so that's uh you know k-12 and they've been doing a lot of work this summer and training on letters in math they have been working on both eureka math for the elementary level and envisioned math for middle school and you remember last year we didn't do the new middle school math program with the decision to go with ingenuity and so there were a lot of people very excited about that uh we're picking that program back up now and uh getting ready to implement that six through eight across the district the other big initiative this year will of course be the district-wide accreditation effort in february it's been many
011years since we've had every school in rio rancho including our elementary schools accredited by an international accreditation group and that's a very positive thing for communities it's a very positive things in terms of recruitment and intention retention of businesses and so that's going to be a major effort and work has been done this summer for accreditation and then last but not least certainly in our federal programs area uh suzanne has been working really hard to help us wrap up our esr funding which was of course the first or cares one the first federal funds that came as a result of the the pandemic and then the new cares money which will be available there's cares too which we're wrapping up and then cares three which we have not seen any money but all of that
012is a huge effort in terms of applying for that money in terms of tracking and monitoring that money and making sure it's all been spent and accounted for so um it has been a very busy summer for cmi uh and we want to thank them for their work uh there wasn't very much down time for them at all this summer on staff recognition we'll have a presentation this evening uh chris schmidt our executive director of fine arts will share those commendations with the board and give you more specific information the individuals who are being honored are jadara flam at cleveland she is the new mexico music educator of the year and so that's a wonderful recognition anna maria dark who is a music teacher at rio rancho elementary had the uh earned the john batchelor
013award for elementary school teaching and then last but not least at joshua dumay who is cleveland's associate band director is a new and emerging music educator for the state of new mexico and then we have a couple more it's wonderful to be able to recognize debbie fleming who is with our district for so many years um as uh and she's the retired former executive director of fine arts and she is entering into their hall of fame and so congratulations to debbie and it's it's well deserved and then once again the district has earned the certificate of distinction for our fine arts programs last year was a hard year but boy these folks stepped forward to make sure that we offered good learning opportunities for our students and they are to be commended for that so
014kurt will tell you more that's just a a little bit of of of what's coming uh and again congratulations to everyone on those awards we'll have a presentation uh this this evening um on our finance plan and market update and analysis for our bonds and mike baker will introduce um the report and then the presentation will be given by eric harrigan with rbc and he is our district's financial advisor so we're delighted to have him he'll go over such things as the assessed valuation and tax rates of the district um the proposed finance plan um and and looking at both the two mill levy and the next bond uh both of those will will come up in 2023 and then talk to you about the maturity bond schedule where we are in paying back the
015debt that we have up to this point and then a market update and economic overview so we welcome eric harrigan and i think you'll find that a very informative presentation we will also address in the last public comments we had a lot of people asking about critical race theory so we'll be talking a little bit about that this evening um just a little bit of background and then mr leppelman will talk about this expand on it a little bit but i i just want to emphasize that new mexico districts are required to teach the new mexico standards and benchmarks as are teachers that's what their contract states um the public head department's email response to a parrot states that this is this theory is normally taught in higher ed and it is not appropriate for
016k through 12. if you are a history major and you have a lot of hours in history you'll know that history courses are generally taught through a lens or a construct and especially at the graduate level so you might have a class on viewing american history through the eyes of labor or you might have one on the various views of manifest destiny or you might i mean there are lots of things that's what you do generally in a graduate program uh if you are in if your major is history but you have some of it in as an undergrad as well and so that's where this kind of theory is taught if it is taught but it is a pet a firm that is not appropriate for k-12 it is not in our new mexico
017standards and benchmarks at all um if those benchmarks and standards were to change there's a process for adoption and that change process is fairly lengthy the public ed department included that in their response and it definitely does include a process for public input before it is changed so i'll just summarize to say it is not included in the rio rancho public schools curriculum there are two business items that will be presented by michael madrid our purchasing director a melanie archebac who is our executive director for facilities one is fencing materials fencing materials and repair and that's on demand as needed services and then a re-roofing job that is slated for independence high school so again just thanks to everyone for a good start our gratitude goes out to everyone who has worked to get our
018schools open after a short summer and several major facility projects and you can just you know i i just want to tell you if you walk in those buildings they just shine and they have they they're beautiful they're welcoming there's wonderful things on the wall you have to go back to putting things on the wall again and there's just great things for that are there and you walk in it just gives you a really good feeling um we are going to have projects that are ongoing through the year and i want to be honest and upfront about that it's going to be difficult at times because people are going to have to move around in the buildings to accommodate the construction the only thing i can say is it'll be wonderful when it's completed but
019i think going in we ask for uh everybody's support and patience it is going to be difficult when you take on big projects like hvac you can't get those done in two months it just it can't be done and so you have to work on those throughout the year and as soon as it is done though it will have been worth it anyone who sat in a hot school for example uh knows how very important having that temperature the right level important that is and some of these new projects will help us get closer to that goal obviously in buildings people have different levels of temperature control and that's always a challenge in very large facilities and it's um we will be giving you a facility report on all of the projects in the next
020few weeks we've only focused on the two schools last time that we are still not are still not quite complete and then we're just so glad to be back in school and i want to thank the community again for your support and patience we appreciate you and we just um know you'll continue to work with us and again i apologize for my scratchy throat between allergies and the smoke i'm not i'm sounding pretty pretty horsey but again thank you all and i'll answer any questions that the board might have thank you dr cleveland board if you want to just raise your hand do you have any questions or um anything comments at this point okay okay all right thank you dr clinton appreciate it okay moving on to item e to approve the prioritized agenda
021and proposed time allocations um is there anything any changes that need to take place on the prioritized agenda for tonight it's just four members yep can i go ahead no you're good go ahead this is board member jeff morgan i make a motion to approve the uh prioritized agenda proposed proposed allocations this is board member noreen scott i'll second okay we have a motion by jeffrey morgan in a second by noreen scott and kim can you take a roll call vote for us on us yes i can vice president morgan yes secretary scott yes board member cullen yes board member coleman and president galbraith yes and that is 5-0 thank you motion carries um i neglected to say you'll notice all of us sometimes we try to be in the boardroom as much as we
022can now but um there's some work being done in the district office tonight and so we are all um taking our meeting from um not from the board room tonight um moving into our public comment my notes so for public comment we have 13 comments that we have received since our last four meeting and i'm going to do a quick summary just overall and then i'll um read each of the names and so we have of those 13 we had six that were asking for no mask in the school um or optional and then we had four that were asking for us to mask all students and then there were three other type comments and so first we had from um janine jensen she said please do not make mass mandatory and make it it
023should be up to staff and students see rey and said masking for high school middle school should be just for the unvaccinated it's difficult for our special needs students to wear masks and jillian rourke she had questions about students eating outside when they're unvaccinated and we have jessica sanders asking rare ranch public schools to stand boldly against new mexico ped's unethical mandates and she said let parents decide about mass and vaccines phil's mandates are not about children but a political agenda from nicole shaver and the board voted not to require masks for vaccinated students and teachers a newsletter stated that if a mass if an unmass vaccinated person gets coveted the whole room must quarantine um shouldn't all students wear masks to keep more students in school um from b poima and asked that there'd
024be no mask mandate and we have one from jennifer long and mass all uh mask all worried about the conflict between students and to consider the cdc recommendations uh liz avery parents and students should be able to decide about wearing a mask worried about unvaccinated students april frazier concern let's see all should be masked and she works at rest hospital she's seeing vaccinated adults extremely sick with covet victor cano that all should be masked just like aps schools are vanessa barella an inquiry on behalf of new mexico museum of natural history and seeking clarification on field trips i don't think she meant to put that into public comments um christina bowles she was wondering if we can make president's day an in-service day and katie wakefield and the massdep mandate needs to end the school
025board has the right to overrule the governor i'm just a reminder these are not my comments these are public comments that we are receiving um from from those in our community if you would like to give public comment we encourage you to do so and please go to the rrps board page you will see a forum on that page where you can submit your comment and where all the board members and um and our district staff will read those we'll read those comments so we appreciate having them okay so now we're on to commendations and so for our first commendation tonight and we'll be presented by noreen scott our board secretary and she will recognize our cni federal bilingual and native american program staff so if any of them are on if they want to
026go ahead and put their camera on so we can see their faces that would be great go ahead noreen it's my honor to do this recognition tonight uh for joy morales lawana coleman suzanne nigen our district instructor instructional coordinators and heidi kenworthy i really appreciate your efforts this year last year the cni along with the federal and bilingual departments had a huge challenge in adapting our curriculum to the virtual learning environment with students learning at home in front of computers instructional coordinators focus the curriculum on most important key content standards so students could in turn focus on the most important concepts and that took a great deal of energy they also shared tips and techniques and resource teachers could use to make the online environment challenging and engaging for students they collaborated with teachers and
027principals throughout the year to determine that what the schools needed and provided training to help teachers and students be successful once schools reopened the cni staff often found themselves covering duty in the school cafeteria playground and some classes when schools were short staffed i don't think i need to point out that it was a challenging year and i really appreciate how the staff stepped up and did above and beyond uh and at our convocation we heard uh the definition of a hero and i i was so impressed with uh with mr brown's comments about what a hero really is and and that's what it is it's folks like you stepping up and and doing above and beyond and i really want you to know on behalf of our board how grateful we are and how
028much we would like to commend you thank you so much thank you so much um maureen for that and i just want to add to it thank you thank you guys so much i think sometimes we've blocked out right i think i'm actually starting to block out what's happened over the last year but yeah but i'm still stressed about it i guess that's the ptsd um but honestly i mean and it's not just last year you guys are always amazing so thank you and for just everything that you do um dr cleveland do you want to add i know you spoke about them earlier but if you want to add anything um you are welcome to do so i just want to add my thanks as well you did you know we know you work
029really hard i don't think we really know how hard uh and and so thank you for all that you did this last year plus working almost all summer and uh we we thank you uh from the bottom of our heart for the difference you made this last year so i just wanted to add my thanks and then i'll just let the board real quick if you even if you just want to say thank you you're welcome just do so uh when you want to say anything um i am excited to get the chance to just say what an incredible department and what an incredible addition everybody is to our district and especially to our students um it's just been a privilege to get to participate in a couple of the different activities whether it's recognition
030of the graduating seniors um or an incredible virtual talent show that i had the chance to uh to watch and so um just thank you so much and and just um i just appreciate especially one of the things that's so incredible about this state is the diversity that we have in our population i mean what a great testimony this department is to honoring that so thank you so much and then catherine cullen so i have to apologize mine's freezing up for a bit but i wanted to say thank you for everything that you do it's a i know it's been a rough year and you guys are just a fantastic team and we certainly appreciate you and you know i've been honored to work with you guys uh over the years and i'm i know
031the board is uh very lucky to have each one of you serving for our district thank you and then jeff morgan i look i just want to echo some of the things and comments that others on the board have made so again thanks for all your support thanks for your effort greatly appreciate what you do thank you thank you thank you thank you um i wish i had time to just have every single one of you say something um but thank you all from the bottom of heart for everything that you guys do thank you okay [Music] all right for our next uh commendation we'll invite um kurt schmidt our executive director of fine arts to come on and to recognize the staff members that were recognized by the new mexico music of educators association
032go ahead kurt good evening president galbraith members of the board dr cleveland uh tonight i present to you for accommodation four individuals in one entity all recipients of awards given annually by the uh new mexico music educators association or nmmea um this this uh the nmmea represents over 500 music teachers around the state is an affiliate of the national association for music music education um it's worth noting that of the nine awards uh given this year by the nmmea rio rancho public schools is re represented in five of them which is a testament to the strength of our of our teaching staff um so as i introduce our word recipients i invite them to turn on the cameras so you can see them um first i'd like to introduce uh to ms yavera flam a
033recipient of the nmmea's music educator of the year ms flam is the choir director at cleveland high school where she also serves as the fine arts instructional leader and in addition she is the president of the nmea central district six uh of which uh rearranges a part uh so either you can wave so they know who you are i guess your names there you can see you too but uh next i'd like to introduce uh ms anne maria dark who received the john bachelor award for excellence in elementary music teaching ms dark is the music teacher at rio rancho elementary and also serves as the vice president of district 6's general music section perhaps most important is that ms dark is an alumna of rio rancho public schools so she is we are glad she
034has brought her talents home to us uh next is mr josh demay who just got out of marching band rehearsal i hope he's on the on the call um there he is probably a little sweaty from the sun but that's all right mr dubai is the associate band director at cleveland high school uh he received the new and emerging teacher of the year award which recognizing outs which recognizes outstanding music teachers with fewer than five years of experience mr dude may also serves as the secretary of nmea district six and incidentally in the 13 years of this awards existence rio rancho public school teachers have received the award five times more than any other district so i guess our recruiting efforts of bringing young talent into the district are paying off so ms debbie fleming
035is a retired music educator with experience in new mexico texas and colorado most of you know her as the former executive director of fine arts for rio rancho public schools and in that capacity she served for 12 years but she was with the district many years before that and debbie was so excited to attend yet another school board meeting because 12 years of doing so the knobs so we're so glad she just wanted to come back um she she's being inducted into the nmea's hall of fame which is an honorable most fitting for her many contributions in the field not only of music education but of arts advocacy around the state in general and and finally rio rancho public schools itself is being honored by the nmea with a certificate of recognition for its commitment
036and support of music education in the district and just a point of clarification there there are two similar awards one is the award of distinction which is given which is the higher award and given to a district chosen uh throughout the state and and those that do not uh receive the award of distinction can get a certificate of recognition so this year las cruces public schools received the award of distinction and we received the certificate which is still a testament to to the fine programs we have in this in this district so uh congratulations all for individuals congratulations to all our music teachers for making uh rio rancho public schools um a great place to teach music and learn music thank you so much for that and i think we lost anna maria she was
037on earlier which i always have to say she was i think the coolest girl in school in my mind when when we were in high school so she's great but thank you so much i'm so grateful for the music in our schools and it's amazing that we have this many awards that just is a really a great testament to our to our district that we have great music programs which is so important and doctor please anything before i go over to our um to our board well just just two quick things again congratulations to everyone and as i said for many years the fine arts program in rio rancho is really one of our crown jewels and it has been one of the things that have brought a lot of students and families to our
038district and the opportunities that students have had are truly extraordinary and so thanks to the the leadership of debbie fleming for many years and now kurt schmidt both have just had an incredible work ethic and vision and just you know give their all to these programs and so we're thankful for that leadership and then last i would just say thank you so much to the board because during very difficult times and challenging times i've always stayed with our fine arts funding and support for our programs and stressing the importance of that in terms of a child's well-rounded education and not all districts are that lucky and so i just want to thank everyone for making this program a great program including our kids and our families who just support our district and support the endeavors
039in in in the fine arts but a special thank you to the leadership and to those being honored tonight thank you dr cleveland and i have to say that i've heard um both catherine clone and wynn talk a lot about this so we'll start with captain colin if you want to add anything katherine absolutely um you know congratulations to all of you every you know they kurt really uh kind of covered everything that i would love to say but i am so happy to see debbie again and really a great congratulations to you for going into hall of um i guess is it hall of honor or hall of fame what was it uh hall of fame hall of fame yeah so thank and uh debbie really congratulations i know it's been a while since
040we've i've seen you but uh you've done such fantastic work over the years and i know a number of you guys are from cleveland high school and working with our kiddos and just amazing group of educators and you know i just love fine arts and music so it's a very dear to my heart thank you erwin coleman um thank you so much congratulations everybody i've said numerous times and even had the chance i ran into kurt at flying star one sunday um had the chance to just sit while he was actually um working on his school work as he's uh working on his phd correct kurt is that yes so um i i just want to say again um as i've said a number of times and i know that everybody um kind of agrees
041with this is that i've been beyond impressed with how the fine arts department has just taken the challenge on with this past 18 months and the things that you've been able to do have just been incredible and just congratulations to your commitment to our students to our district into our community so again congratulations and thank you okay jeffrey morgan i just want to say uh congratulations uh for your recognition and thanks for all that you do really appreciate your work thank you and annoying scott thank you for the positive representation you make of rio rancho public schools we're very grateful to all of you thank you so much all right thank you so i'd love to go through everyone it's kind of hard to go through a room but debbie is there anything that you'd
042like to say just as you're going and i don't want to put you on the spot so if you're like please don't but is there anything that you like to say just because you're you know you're going into this hall of fame hall of honor i feel like both work but if you'd like to say anything real quick you're welcome too uh well thank you so much i was just thinking about saying that uh this is a wonderful honor but it's very easy to be recognized when you're surrounded by excellence that is a perfect statement well thank you all for being with us tonight we really do appreciate you thank you thank you okay so moving into our um okay so moving into our reports i always feel sad leaving that site because i just
043really enjoy doing all of our commentations it's so fun to have everyone on um but moving into our our next spot which is on reports and we'd like to invite michael baker our chief operations officer we also have eric harrigan here from rbc capital markets to discuss our bonds plan of finance oh good evening um madam president dr cleveland members of the school board uh this evening eric harrington will be presenting uh financial information uh to the school board in regards to rrps uh as you know eric is a long time financial advisor for the district and has done a great job for us this evening eric will go over uh our financial history he'll review the series 2013 refunding option which will save the district money and of course we're very excited about that
044thirdly you'll review our debt service requirements then he will review uh the series 2021 uh time schedule and finally a he'll give a market update and with that i would like to turn it over to eric i believe he is actually um joining us by by phone this evening uh eric yuan i am good evening can you all hear me we can hear you you're good yes great excellent well uh good evening madam president members of the board and uh superintendent dr cleveland uh again this is eric here with rbc capital markets i apologize i was having some difficulty getting in um virtually so um via old school phone here i guess so um but uh i um i am watching on the the youtube live cast so there might be a bit of a
045delay um on what i see up there but if we could uh turn your attention to the presentation that's uh on the screen if we could go to the next page provides a history of the district's assessed valuation the assessed valuation is important because it determines not only how much debt the district can have outstanding but how much that uh the district can retire each year which will you know create capacity for the district in the future based upon a preliminary 2021 tax year which is the 22 fiscal year assessed value your tax base is expected to grow about 4.8 which is higher than last year that has been supported by very strong growth in your residential uh values however your non-residential values did decline from about 506 million to 474 million and a lot
046of that i believe is is due to commercial real estate and the impact that the pandemic has probably had on those values however the the growth continues to remain strong over the last five years the district has averaged over four percent growth in its tax base going on to the next page this is a history of the district on the tax rates the the district has had very stable tax rates and the issuance of these funds but will continue to maintain that historical 8.54 tax rate uh next page um so from an election timing standpoint um the two mill levy uh election was most recently held in 2018 next election will be for november of 2023 um the board did have a successful geo blonde election for 60 million and we're selling part of that
047authorization and we'll go back to voters in 2023. currently the district is of 76 bonded to capacity these bonds will be structured with a 12-year final maturity which is consistent with what the district has issued in the past uh if you could go to the next slide please um in in addition to the um in addition to the new money financing the district also has the option to refund some of its uh existing outstanding bonds the series 2013 bonds are outstanding with an interest rate of 3.786 percent in today's market the if the district were to refund those bonds the interest rate would be about one percent um that one percent savings uh translates into about five hundred and twenty thousand dollars in uh interest savings on a present value basis to the district or
048about five and a half percent of the bonds being refunded when we evaluate refundings we look at three percent as really the minimum threshold to be economically beneficial one thing with the refunding under current uh tax law a refund the refunding would be would be a taxable bond however because rates are so low even at even at the taxable rate um the the district would still look at uh saving a decent amount of interest from refunding those bonds and we would recommend refunding the 2013 bonds in conjunction with the new money financing on page five of the presentation this shows the new money financing as well as the refunding over on the right you can see your annual debt service requirements as the district has had in the past you have very rapidly declining debt
049service which allows you to issue additional bonds in the future and continue to maintain that historical debt service tax rate of 8.54 from a time schedule standpoint we will be coming back to the board on august 23rd to adopt the notice of sale and delegation resolution as you have in the past authorizing the sale of the bonds subject to the board's approval we would be in the market in mid-september september 22nd with closing on october 13th and that's when funds would be available uh for the district to expand on on the projects i'll maybe take a quick pause before moving on to the market update and see if there's any questions regarding the finance plan or the refunding you have any questions at this point on the board if you guys want to just raise
050your hand if you do okay okay i think we're good up to this point okay um so if we could advance um the deck two slides please to page eight just to kind of i think as as most of you know um currently uh we're anticipating the congress congressional action related to uh president biden's economic plans and the uh in the amount of 1.2 trillion dollars it's a bipartisan infrastructure plan the other the other economic plan that is expected to come down later this year is the three and a half trillion um what's called the human infrastructure uh agenda which um which has a number of things that are being financed through it such as additional child tax credits you know pre-k funding and you know community college funding there's there's a large uh there's
051a large component of education in that um i think what the market really is trying to understand you know what is the impact of these stimulus uh you know packages on on the economy and ultimately interest rates um but um you know when you look at interest rates as a whole we are still in a very very low interest rate market environment uh in august of last year rates hit a an all-time historical low um in february of this year as it looked like the economy was was you know coming out of the pandemic and as we were starting to see some of the uh cip numbers coming out um and and the inflationary numbers we did see interest rates tick up however um with the with the delta variant that's now um you know
052starting to work its way through the united states um we're starting to see rates you know come back down um and so you know where we are while we're still above where we were back in august of last year interest rates from the historical spec perspective are still very very low um and we expect that the district will be able to achieve a very attractive borrowing rate when it goes out to the market in september there's a number of slides on the market i just wanted to kind of provide more of a high level overview and go through each individual slide so with that i'd be happy to answer any questions that the board has okay thank you so much and we'll start with uh when coleman do you have any questions on anything no
053i don't but thank you for presenting thank you honoring scott no i don't have any questions i'm most interested in reading some of these slides though thank you catherine collin no i don't at this time and just to let you know everybody i'm off i did turn off my camera just because i'm going in and out so maybe some internet issues so but thank you for the report thank you and jeffrey morgan no questions uh but like noreen i do want to go back and review some of this information thank you thank you is there more on this is that good okay all right thank you dr cleveland do you have anything before we move on to the next just like thank you for the report and the refunding sounds like really good good uh
054information so again and i'm sorry if you were at the district office and we're not there so but anyway thank you so much for the report you're very welcome and we'll see you at the next meeting in august all right thank you so much thanks for coming appreciate it and for dr cleveland i hear i've been that way all day too with just kind of off and on with my with my voice with the smoke that we've had out saying so okay so our next report is on um ped standards and and that will be carl leppelman our chief academic officer well thank you president galbraith members of the board dr cleveland um earlier you hear dr cleveland say a few general thoughts about crt and it's been certainly in the news has it not
055and across our community and a lot of public comment coming our way first slide please jane uh as mentioned earlier the letter from the pet deputy communications director to a parent who wrote to ped inquiring about teaching of critical race theory so that's where originally this information comes from the pad then official officially shared that with the parent comment she had sent to a reporter asking about that the subject the parent then shared the pet officials response with the district jane so what the ped communication says about crt is really clear it is one of several academic frameworks or discipline used by higher education scholars to examine racism is not relevant to k-12 education and as dr cleven mentioned earlier certainly through different lenses at the college level this there are different frameworks that are
056utilized and looked at but not at the k-12 education next slide please uh really the k-12 public the standards pub school the k-12 curriculum is governed by the state content standards like in other academic subjects and they define what students should know and be able to do at the end of each grade level just like we have in science or math or english language arts and the current social study content standards do not include the teaching of crt so what is the process and you've heard there is a lengthy process just like we have a lengthy process for adopting materials the state has a lengthy adoption for actually modifying and updating standards so the state does review those standards every 10 years and the social studies standards are currently under review by the state the
057process involves i think this time around 68 new mexico educators and community members from around the state basically who they've met over the past several months and continue to work with outside consultants to write the standards and those the people are selected basically through an application process the teachers and we did have two of our teachers that participated marty gutierrez from urantia high school and angelique shires from eagle ridge middle school they both worked on anchor standards helped look at drafts and there is a draft document currently at the public education department so their standards have been reviewed by a wide variety of instruction instructors across the state at this point in time those proposed standards we did anticipate them be out around july about this time july august but they're not complete as far
058as a draft revisions the revision still occurring and those proposed stands are then subject to a 30-day minimum 30-day public comment period and a rule-making process as well as a public hearing so it's a very extensive process as you can see we anticipate that that 30-day public comment period should come out fairly quickly this fall and then we we believe that the state would be hoping to have those standards approved by the spring of 2022 so we can go through that adoption process that we normally follow um into next year for social studies and the last slide so simply put our bottom line is that critical race theory is not in the state content standards and rio rancho public schools does not include critical race theory units curricula and does not teach teach crt in
059its schools and i stand for any questions you might have thank you so much for that presentation we and like dr cleveland said we just received so much public comment on this and i felt like it was important for us to just kind of go over it so i appreciate the presentation and carl um but we'll just go through our board actually dr cleveland did you want to add anything before i go over to the board yeah i would want to add just one thing and that is we definitely do not support racism and we certainly it is discussed in our schools but it's not we don't use this framework as it's been said this is a framework that was designed for higher education primarily graduate degree programs and i want to make it very
060clear that we certainly do not condone or support racism thank you thank you dr cleveland um okay okay let's start with noreen scott i have nothing to add but thank you carl for uh for that update because i think it's very important for folks to understand uh the limits of a local school board and our ability to affect what's being taught in the classroom thank you i'm jeffrey morgan any questions comments yeah carl i have a couple questions first question i want to add uh i noticed in the presentation there wasn't a clear definition of what critical race theory is there's a lot of speculation out there about what critical race theory is i don't know if you have that information but i noticed it was not in the presentation and that probably would have
061helped to give people an idea about what critical race theory is and then i'll come back with my other two questions uh if you want to answer that one for me first please uh dr king would you like to answer that or would you like me to answer that well i could i could start and then feel free to add to it i think that um that is probably part of the issue is that there is not a real clear definition of what it is and different people have a attributed different thoughts and ideas and and actions to uh to critical race theory and not really knowing what it stands for and so i think that is part of the the problem is that it isn't well defined it isn't well described and it means
062lots of different things to different people and so um you know you could talk to do different people and they have two very different ideas about what it is so um there is a definition there's a um academic definition again it's a constructor framework which views history through that particular lens just like you might look at that lens through the history of labor or you might look at it from from some other perspectives but that is again an academic endeavor and when you do talk to people there is a lot of confusion about what it is and what it is not and that that i think is what leads to the confusion and and uh um people being very concerned because they've seen where they you know they they think it is defined a different
063way so i don't think there is a good definition of it beyond what the academic definition is all right so with that being said uh dr cleveland thank you by the way for responding to the question i guess based off your response that it looks like somebody had to have a definition for it because they decided to not allow it to be part of the curriculum so my only other question was why was that decision made if there's really not a clear definition of what critical race theory is or maybe that was the reason why they decided because there was not a clear answer then my thought would have been if there was not a clear answer hey as of now crt would not be part of the curriculum until further notice that that's kind
064of what i would have been looking for if there was not a clear answer as to what critical race theory is well you you make a very good point um vice president morgan and that is that it could change and we have committee uh social studies committees and they can look at this and um and there could be some changes in the future um if that definition is agreed upon and after community input there's a decision that that's what we would want to have taught in our school system so the first step is probably just what you're saying is a real clear definition of what it is and what it is not and certainly in some of the uh some of the the definitions we are doing many of those things i mean we do
065look at racism in terms of history but apparently there are some concerns that some people have and honestly i'm not an expert in it at all but i do know that we've had a very clear direction that as of now it is not part of the public school curriculum in new mexico right okay may i add one thing i think might be helpful is we have primary source documents we certainly study history and history racism slavery abolitionism abolish movement all those things around from the lens of of of historical uh the people that are in the in that uh setting so i think that we we want to value everybody's heritage their language their culture i think those are clearly things in our in our social studies standards and we have no tolerance for for
066racism i think it i agree i think it's the definition that great peoples one one group has this definition another group has a different definition but as far as academia it really is a post-second higher ed construct or ideology and and there are many frameworks to study racism that would not be the framework unless it's defined differently like dr cleveland says that you have to define something to actually put it into a standard so we're looking at standards and as we read the standards and looked at standards no one in that standards would suggest we're going to study critical race theory through that lens study historical historical perspective so at least at this point in time i've not seen anything i think something that i've seen some initial work uh it doesn't mention critical race
067theory it does mention some things about valuing and looking at historical perspective from different groups of people i think that's important we do that already so i think that it's probably needs to be defined vice president morgan but i at this point in time without that definition we really can't build standards on it and you're correct on that truth and also carl you had mentioned that every 10 years there was adjustment made uh to the changing of the content standards what year are we uh in this 10-year time frame where we're there right now actually our standards really need to be updated if you look at all the states across our union we rank about the middle in terms of our standards for our strength and rigor and critical thinking and looking at our culture
068where our standards actually california alabama some other states have much stronger social studies standards we just got through upgrading our science standards so i think we're were pretty good actually we were rated a b prior to looking at at uh our science standards but i think we're somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of social studies standards so i think we as a state do need to review those probably more frequently with social studies vice president morgan because things change and i think we need to really be looking at those more often than every decade okay hey thank you carl dr cleveland that's all i have appreciate your time thank you you know on that i just was i honestly i've been really trying to study it myself trying to understand it better
069as it's been in the news more and so i've watched and read a few different things i know dr cleveland's been doing the same but there is a definition over on i'm not going to read through it but on the encyclopedia britannica online um and it has kind of an article on it if anyone's ever you know interested in kind of reading more about it i think that has a good definition and probably explains why people are a little bit concerned about it um and so if anyone wants to look that up you guys are are more than welcome to but you know as i as i look at these sort of things like i i'm so grateful that i grew up in new mexico we have such a wonderful culture here and um and
070i'm grateful for that and i'm so grateful that i grew up in schools that taught me about martin luther king and about the trial of tears and about all of these different things you know and when we teach those things to our students like when they're young like when they read about those things like you know it impresses them and and i think that that is to me one of the most important things that we do teach about those things those things happen in our history and it's important for people to know those things and that and we all need to to know those truths of those things and so i don't think we should ever stop teaching about those things um because our students need to know and i think what for me as
071a student that came out of rio rancho public schools what i came from is anytime i learned about any of those cultures i didn't think of them and i know i'm not native american or i'm and i'm not african-american and any of those things but but i came out feeling like those were my people those were my people those people who were oppressed and i agree i developed such a love for those people and so um and so i'm grateful that we've had curriculum that's been good that's always has taught those things and i think we just need to make sure that we hold true to that and continue to to teach and and that it's really important in our students lives and let's go over to um maureen scott any questions comments no i
072appreciated the uh the questions um that uh that have been asked and i i think it's it's an evolving uh lens uh as a way to look at history and i i really appreciated dr cleveland's remarks at the opening of the meeting because it did bring some clarity to the subject and uh amanda i'm gonna take your advice and read on a little more thank you thank you uh gwen coleman um i i don't have um really questions so much as i just want to say thank you to the administration for taking this on for addressing this and especially to the community for just really engaging in and sharing their their thoughts about education in our district and so but i just want to say thank you for uh for for bringing this to us
073and um i look forward to seeing kind of where things head as we go through this process as a district in the state and then captain colin thank you um dutch cleveland and carl i'm really appreciative that you you took the time to present this report to the board because we've had a number of people contacting us in reference to it i know that there's there's just a big movement to really start contacting all the schools you'll see just mass letters going out to school board members people questioning us on it um and accusing some of them are accusing us of uh teaching it so i really do appreciate you taking the time to address this for the community so that they are aware because a lot of times we'll tell them that and they
074just you know i think that in their mind they're still thinking that we're going to do it or it's going to be pushed and i did send out some information to some of the people that i've talked to the pet's information talking about the update and the process for that update and that way that they kind of understand that there is a process that the state goes through with a lot of input and again this is something that is on the college level so hopefully um you know they won't they'll understand that and you know when the contact just kind of be somewhat nice about it because uh sometimes they they start accusing us of doing it and we're just like no we're not so i do appreciate all your time for for doing that
075and reaching and getting that letter i was really appreciative that that uh they forwarded that letter from pad so that way we can do this presentation thank you i'm dr cleveland anything else you want to add on that you're muted real quick we've done good not you know but there we go one thing i would like to add is what we do do and that is uh in our social studies materials uh we have a and we've seen this evolve over the last many years but very strong emphasis on looking at history from various points of view and particularly as mr leppelman said utilizing primary source documents to hear from people directly through history on how they saw events that occurred and that's been something that has really i think over the last several years
076improved our social studies curriculum really encourages to look from different views and to and to hear those views and to make up your mind about how things really did happen in history um from from a variety of different different points of view and so uh certainly we do believe in social studies students should read a variety of different things and study them as you said and they make your your own decisions and we try very hard to push that in our social studies programs and carl did you want to add anything else to i just want to make sure oh no i i think dr clinton you're correct because we saw that in our ela adoption with springboard that you know when you look through there there's stories of people from various countries different cultures
077different backgrounds and i think that's that is important and you want people to think uh critically and really get information look at their primary sources we spend a lot of time flying media sources what source is a good source when you start looking at historical information as you're writing a paper i mean if you're taking a position on the iraq war well what what information you go looking for and how how can you trust that information so i think i think we really have to have that we and that's one thing our districts and i think very very well so i think our library media specialists too have a role in here uh and we all have a role but in making sure that we uh look at people's heritage their culture their language certain
078the diversity is a strength and so i think uh you know as we go forward the public needs to be engaged with with rulemaking with looking at the review and public comment certainly hearings and i think those things are important and we use that with every subject and i think that's really and then ultimately this results in what the board saying we these instructional materials really align to what the standards look like and that's and and you ultimately as a board would approve those materials thank you thank you for adding that and you know i mean gone are the days where any of us as parents or members of this community can just sit around and let things go by us and you know these things are hard things and i think there's a lot
079of misinformation out there um in every way um but what it does do is bring you know attention to something and hopefully people will pay attention as curriculum as we are ready for new curriculum and things that are going to come from the state and so i hope that our community does um watch and and look for those things and i know the district's always really really good about getting those things out which we appreciate too so hopefully we can all be active in that is there anything else from our board before we move on from this any other questions or comments or just anything else that you would like to give you can raise your hand if you'd like okay okay well thank you and if something else comes up and we need to
080discuss this again at some point and we can do that so thank you carl again for that um for that presentation appreciate it and thank you dr clinton i know dr cleveland she's really been trying to pay attention a lot to this and looking at it at all different angles and so i appreciate her leadership in that too and so for our next um item we're going to approve the consent agendas and we have a motion to approve the consent this is board member noreen scott i move to approve the consent agenda second this is board member jeff morgan okay so we have a motion by maureen scott in the second by jeffrey morgan and um kim can you take a roll call vote for us on the consent uh yes um vice president morgan
081yes secretary scott yes board member colin yes board member coleman yes president galbraith yes uh that is 5-0 thank you the motion carries okay moving into our business portion our first is a report the board of education met in a closed executive session on july 23rd 2021 and august 9th 2021 under section 10-15-12 h8 of the new mexico's new mexico open meetings act and the matters discussed in the closed meeting were limited to those specified in the notice of the sub of the separate closed meeting um and then item b to consider the approval of the unapproved minutes for the eight um to 2021 special um rrps board meeting there any changes did anyone see anything that needs to change off of that um off of those minutes do we have a motion for approval
082this is secretary noreen scott i move approval we have a second sport member jeff morgan our second okay i have a motion by secretary scott and the second by vice president morgan kim can you take a roll call vote for us please vice president morgan yes secretary scott yes board member colin yes board member coleman yes president galbraith yes and that is 5-0 thank you motion carries okay so now we'll move into um our itb so we'll consider the approval of itb number 2022-001-fac and fencing materials and repair and demand michael madrid and also melanie archibeque are here to present for us thank you for president belbreth members of the board superintendent dr cleveland this request is for an award of itb 2022-01 dash fac it's for fencing materials and repairs on demand the solicitation
083was initiated on behalf of the facilities department the district received a total of four responses to this solicitation responses were received from afc llc doing business as albuquerque fence company out of albuquerque american fence company of new mexico incorporated out of albuquerque apache construction doing business as valley fence company tri-west llc out of bernalillo the bids were reviewed for responsiveness and ensure that they met the general requirements as outlined in the bid i provided you guys a a bit tabulation that identifies all the different material items that we were soliciting pricing on and if you look at the pricing matrix it does show that all four vendors were low at least on some of the categories of materials that are referenced we also understand that each of the vendors have a uniqueness as it relates
084to their ability to inventory product and they also have a relationship with their manufacturer which provides different lead times for them to receive products so with the pricing um the lead time and the inventory it is requested that we feel it's in the district's best interest to do a multiple award and make an award to all four uh bidders and with that i stand for questions all right thank you um i'm glad you said that because and i just looked at it now i don't know why i missed that when i was reading through this earlier michael i was like who are we awarding it to so it is to all four and i and i did see it on there now as i was re-going through it so thank you and we'll go to
085questions jeffrey morgan any questions no questions at all very good job thank you so much for the information yeah thank you when coleman nope okay noreen scott any questions no questions i'm thrilled to see somebody from bernalillo i knew you were going to say that though i was going to leave [Music] that's awesome i had the same thoughts that she was gonna say something on it so that's great and then katherine cullen no questions okay thank you um okay do we have a motion to approve emotion secretary noreen scott i move approval of mr madrid's uh memorandum for purchase i guess that's is that the way to say it remember random for purchase i believe we need to you have to see all the companies i think and and reference you have to say the
086names of the companies that it's been awarded to and reference the um the itv number okay i i move approval uh of the award of itb number 2022-001-f fac fencing materials and repair on demand to four bidders afc llc dba albuquerque fence company american fence company of new mexico ace construction dba valley fence company and tri-west fence llc out of bernalillo all right this is board member coleman i second okay we have a mess a motion by norm scott and that's by wynn coleman she was supposed to give the addresses as well [Laughter] i nearly did that would be awesome all right can we get april call vote on this kim yes you can there isn't enough room in the little box for the addresses okay um vice president morgan yes secretary scott yes board
087member cullen yes board member coleman yes and president galbraith yes and that passes five to zero thank you all right for item d so let's consider the approval of the rfp number 2022-003 fac independence high school roof and re-roof and so michael madrid and once again i'll be presenting for president galbraith members of the board superintendent dr cleveland once again the subject is for a recommendation for award of rfp number 2022-0 re-roof of independence high school the solicitation was initiated on behalf of the facilities department i just want to give you a little bit of the scope of work for this project it includes the demolition demolition and installation of a new roof of approximately 28 000 square feet it includes like i said the demolition of the existing roof removal storage and reinstall of
088the rooftop equipment install of the tpo of a new tpo roof the district received a total of three responses to the solicitation responses were received from j3 systems llc at abosky farms national roofing out of albuquerque and weiser electric out of rio rancho we reviewed all three proposals and verified that they met the requirements we call it a pass field verification and they were elevated for consideration by the evaluation committee the evaluation committee scored each of the proposals and ranked the proposals national roofing is the highest ranked offer i do want to kind of highlight some of the work that national roofing has done for the district they did roof at lincoln middle school repairs rio rancho high school exterior improvements rio rancho elementary school library reroof rio rancho school district office renovations phase 3
089enchanted hills elementary school mechanical upgrades colina still north to elementary school mechanical upgrades and a really big project v sue cleveland high school they did the roof on that project so they have demonstrated significant experience with the district they are the highest ranked offer based on the criteria within the rfp and recommendation of the evaluation committee is that the board consider approval of national roofing as the highest ranked offer with that i stand for questions okay thank you again michael uh noreen scott questions comments uh how how much uh work has wiser electric done for us oh gosh that's a tough question they've done extensive work they're one of our on-calls they perform uh electrical services on demand they perform um general contracting services on demand for lower size projects and they were recently awarded
090a couple of the hvac projects thank you okay any other questions from anyone and just raise your hand in your hey yeah go ahead jeffrey jeff hey what is the cost am i not seeing that on here did i miss that mr morgan so this is the distinction between the two rfps uh procurement methods excuse me the itb we we give a pricing matrix and we attached that and typically we would have a public bid opening we did this one virtual that people can actually come down to see the pricing but an rfp per statute we don't disclose the pricing because it could compromise the contract negotiation i did include that within the the superintendent's report to the board i can tell you that the the all three of them were within the the budget
091for the district anything else jeff all right no no i'm gonna go back so okay win anything okay and catherine nope i'm good thank you okay oh marine go ahead uh what was the criteria that uh national roofing had that wiser electric did not have did not mean um we provided the scoring matrix as part of the the document so it kind of just outlines the um the scores that the committee had i think recently wiser has kind of started getting into the rfp and the construction solicitations and i think with the last two hvac projects that was probably at least since i've been here their first attempts to actually respond to a project scenario so they don't have a lot of experience as it relates to these bigger solicitations they do have a lot
092of experience as it relates to maintenance and repairs so is it that they don't have the experience with us or they don't have the experience as a company i think they have the experience but others in comparison have more experience so this this particular solicitation is very specific specific to a roof so wiser could have experience as it relates to a general contractor and they have performed some roofing activities as a self performance but that doesn't relate to i guess as highly as it does for somebody that just specializes in roofing and that's what this project is this is a roof replacement the reason i ask is because it becomes sort of a a challenge if somebody never gets uh never gets on the list to begin with to then get on to get accepted
093if that's part of the criteria board member scott i agree with you i mean we always have those discussions how can i get the experience if i never get an award uh so we we work with them we actually do debriefings with them we try to educate them on how to improve their proposal so it does show itself different at the next solicitation we'll kind of go through the the strengths and weaknesses of their response but it's only as it relates to the other offers thank you thank you all right i see catherine colin raise your hand go ahead kevin i just want to say the score sheet is uploaded in our board book so there is a bit of a difference between um national roofing and a wiser and again weiser does do work
094for us as well but you know we're looking at a pretty big roofing project so um they scored pretty high all right thank you catherine for adding that anything else from the board marine did you do anything else i don't know oh i thought you had unmuted but i think it was just i was scrolling up through your picture okay all right do we have a motion on item d this is fortnite coleman um can you bring that back up please so i can go ahead and could someone please bring up the documentary do you mind bringing that back up for us one more time just so we can see the she's getting it i think thank you jane this is board member coleman and i moved to a ward itb number 2022 fac fencing
095materials and repair on demand um two i don't know oh no no no no right right the roofing correct okay um award i um moved to award rfp number 2022 003 fac independence high school re-roofing to national roofing you have a second this is board member catherine culinase second we have a motion by remember coleman in a second by catherine cullen and ken can you take a roll call vote for us vice president morgan yes secretary scott yes board member colin yes board member coleman yes president galbraith yes and that passes five zero thank you thank you board thank you we appreciate you michael madrid okay so moving into our advanced planning and we have i kind of added some in here so okay so august 19th 2021 is our audit committee open meeting and
096executive session um at 4 30 p.m virtual august 23rd 2021 will be a regular board meeting at 5 30 and that will be virtual and we'll let you know we should be able to go back here back into the that will be virtual for now and september 6 is our labor day holiday september 13th there's another regular board meeting at 5 30. also on september 13th you all may have seen in your email and there's that's the deadline for the call for the 2022 legislative resolutions and for the new mexico school board association so if you get that going through your mind if there's anything that you want to um work on with the district for um resolutions that we can send and if you read your email you'll see that and september 16 2021
097we have an audit committee open meeting and executive session at 4 30. those will be virtual um september 27th will be another regular board meeting um which will probably be in the board room and virtual um is there anything i'm missing on the on the advanced planning i'm good okay dr cleveland anything else that you wanted to add on that no i'm fine thank you okay thank you okay so without our meetings adjourned tonight thank you all so much thank you thank you thanks kim thanks jane thank