001And finally, a round of applause. Come on up. you did such a great job -- thank you so much for that. I would like to give you a token of our appreciation. Go on down the line. She is a leader. Good job. Nicely done, Molly. Thank you so much. One more round of applause. She rocked it. [APPLAUSE] And now I would like to introduce Mr. Flores. Good evening Madam President, all distinguished school board members, and student advisor. Everyone else here this evening. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the jazz Band under the direction of Kristen Silver and Ruth Rodriguez. As a side note to this evening's performance, Miss Silver is one of this year's top three finalists for CPS teacher of the year. [APPLAUSE] Formal recognition and placements will be announced this
002Friday at the LCC Foundation's Celebration of Excellence. Congratulations, Miss Silver. [APPLAUSE] Tonight the jazz band will be performing follow the gig bags. Everyone please join me -- woo hoo, yeah -- in Welcoming the Mesa Middle School Jazz Band. [MUSIC] [APPLAUSE] Wow that was absolutely fantastic -- thank you for starting off our meeting so wonderfully and thank you for all coming to play with us. Amazing. Great musicians. Thank you Miss Silver, appreciate it. before I move to the approval of the agenda, I would like to move agenda item six C ten audited financial statements for the year ending June 30th, 2025 to be heard after the superintendent's report. And now I would like to entertain a motion to approve the April 21st, 2026 agenda as amended. So moved. Seconded. Moved and seconded -- all in favor
003indicate by saying aye. They have the name wrong of the student advisor. On the agenda. That is absolutely >> I was so confused earlier , so if we can correct that -- I move to approval. I appreciate your attention to detail. It is Annie, but it should be official. Absolutely. Thank you so much. So the second Amendment for approval to the agenda -- Mr. Watford would you like to retract? I retract. I second. What? Do you have to retract? No. I move that we approve the agenda with the amendments. I second. Thank you. All in favor indicate by saying aye. thank you. And thank you for finding that for us comment Mr. Frank. I would now like to entertain a motion to approve the April 8th 2026 Special session minutes. Moved. Seconded. Moved in seconded.
004All in favor indicate by saying aye. Thank you. Unanimous passage. I would like to move to approve five B1 2026-2027 Arrowhead Park Early College High School instruction Calendar, 5B2 eligible part time employee insurance resolution, 5B3 proclamation recognizing the 100th anniversary of the Kiwanis Club of Las Cruces, 5B4 good Grant. 5B5, digital marquee sign from citizens Bank for Valley View Elementary School. 6A1. Memorandum of Understanding. 6B1, contracted food service between Las Cruces Public Schools and the Head Start programs. Las Cruces Catholic School -- I did so well and went to French -- La Academia Dolores Huerta. New operations phase two. Six c2 RFP number 2526 06P, East Picacho Elementary School where roof and Hvac replacement. RFP 2526 07P, grant strategy development and management Support. Six c4, bin zero two, agreement for milk, yogurt, and fruit juice
005products. Six C five bin number 2520 604, price agreement on fresh and frozen bread products. Six c6, 2520 605, price agreement on Tortilla products. Six C8, budgeted request for bars. Six c9, property dispositions, and six C10, vendor payments. So moved. Seconded. So moved by Vice President Walker and seconded by Mr. Frank. Discussion quacks Just a bit of noise. All good. All of those in favor indicate by saying I. All opposed. All of those consented to agenda items and passed. Excellent. Thank you all so much. And the report on the closed session of April 21st 2026, the board met in closed session on Tuesday April 21st of 2026 from 3:06 p.m. To 5:51 p.m. To discuss a personally identifiable information about an individual student is permitted under section one eight for, recent investigation of student misconduct
006involving a weapon, B, permitted under section 15 dash 182 of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act, specifically so that the superintendent could update the board and legal counsel could advise regarding specific employee movement and contemplated movement. The superintendent could update the board and legal counsel regarding classified or certified employees, and three, the board could discuss and prepare the superintendent's end of year evaluation. And I affirm that the items discussed enclosed executive session were limited to those stated above. I would now like to call I believe Mr. Staley. Come to the podium to talk about a recognition. Am I saying your name correctly? Thank you so much. You took my role away, so I have the privilege of introducing Mr. Staley. He is here to recognize and to tell you a little bit more about the
007Karen Trujillo Student Poetry contest. Hello. Happy to be here tonight. Jazz and poetry here? These school board meetings are so hip. I'll come to more of these. Didn't know. I have been self-assigned poet in residence since 2008 and when Karen Trujillo passed away her husband reached out to me in 2022 because Karen was a poet, a published poet and then Since 2002 I have been running this contest. We have given roughly $10,000 worth of prizes to students in the last five years. Most of the money comes from an anonymous donor in the Las Cruces area. It grows a little bit more every year. We had 62 students open to nine-12 graders and it occurs to me after sharing this contest with you guys that maybe there will be even bigger and greater collaborations in the
008future. This building is named after her so maybe the award ceremony could be here. But I am really happy to meet you and I thank you. Our number one winner, the number one prize is what we call best in show and that student receives $500 and today we have this year's winner and so Emory is going to read her poem for you. [APPLAUSE] Above it, the night sky buttons itself with stars. They've done this before. The meeting place, a thin line. The waves lift their hands slivered by the room -- moon, they fall back sheepishly. The sky watchers pretending indifference still spill starlight anyway. Confessions scattered in the dark, the moon drifts between them like a quiet translator pressing night into the ocean skin in the water shivers not from the cold but from being
009seen. Clouds wander through like passing thoughts, the ocean wears their shadows without complaint. It knows how it is to carry weight. On calm nights the vastness allows a doubling without fear of drowning. It is hard then to tell which one is deeper, the sky with its endless black or the ocean with its hidden worlds. They speak in tides and quiet glimmers. When dawn begins to rise, the ocean sighs like someone reluctant to go. The sky gathers its stars but the promise lingers in the salty air. I will come again and they will find each other in twilight. [APPALUSE] Bravo. I Emery, that is so beautiful -- I don't have words. You have the words and I thank you. Incredible. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. It is also very brave to read
010your poetry in front of a bunch of people you don't know so I applaud you on multiple levels -- creativity come up bravery, and I can see the compassion in you coming out in your words. Thank you again. [APPLAUSE] Public comments? Big shoes to fill. Just kidding. Must be poetic. Thanks again Emery. Before we move to public comment I would like to remind the audience that the board's procedures for handling public comments which are found at board policy and on the public input. Public comment is limited to three minutes for individual speaker however the board president may further restrict or waive these time limits for the board welcomes public input. The board does not prohibit public criticism or comment upon personnel matters however any person making public comments shall be solely responsible for the content
011of their comments. The board neither adopts nor assumes responsibility for any comments made by individuals during the public comments section of the board meeting. And so comment with that, we have six people giving public comments today and we are going to start first with Alice. Alice? I get to be first. Pretty cool. First of all, thank you to all of you , madam chair, court and my representative is Miss Denario. I went to Cesar Chavez, name changed -- I attended your emergency meeting at the school which I appreciated you doing that. I promised that I would send some questions in an email and I want to thank you for the response and I know that the chairwoman . First I think we should thank the superintendent because one of my questions was about the repairs
012that were needed at the school. So I'm very excited I am very excited about that. Questions if you don't mind I think I'll take a minute and just kind of go through them um I was wondering what you were going to do as far as surveying the students and the parents I've kind of done my own little independent survey out there because I'm kind of a blabbermouth and talk to a lot of people and for my it's about 10% of the people I talk to were for the change and the 90% were not and most of it was because of costs and one of the other questions was the cost and the cost which had first been quoted at 20,000 the latest that you gave was more like under that closer to 10,000 um. Up
013to maybe, so -- the other question that I had is, I was concerned that if you do this too quickly and you can't prove this happened 60 years ago is what the claim is, if you can't prove it are we teaching our kids, you know what, you are guilty until proven innocent. The response was a little ambiguous, and I don't know if I have it right in front of me but that will teach our students to discern and I hope that is the case. I am still uncomfortable with the name change and maybe you will be presenting that soon and make sure the public is okay with this. I thought about asking Dolores Huerta because it is millions of dollars, and I just want our kids to be first. So I hope that you will
014still keep considering it. It looks like you guys are doing your homework, I will call it -- not too funny -- but thank you again for answering my email. I appreciate it very much. Thank you for being here and for serving because it's tough to do this. I appreciate it. And I hope that God will guide you correctly. Thanks. Thank you. Our next person is Sheri Nolan. Hello. Good evening. Good evening members of the board and superintendent. Las Cruces High School best buddies would like to cordially invite you to the Friendship Ball. The theme is Once Upon a Best Buddies Prom. It is this Friday, April 24th from seven-9 p.m. -- actually come at 10 p.m. In the cafeteria. Please park in the east side across the street through the B wing, there will be
015signs posted. It's really nice when it's dark. Best buddies is the world's largest organization dedicated to ending social, and economic isolation of the 200 million people with ID. For individuals within this community Best buddies helps them form friendships with their peers, to -- secure successful jobs, improve public speaking and self-advocacy and communication skills, and to feel valued by society. Also, next Saturday, the next day, April 25th is the friendship walk beginning at 6:00 pm. The best buddies friendship walk is the leading walk in the country supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, also known as Id-d. Join 50,000 participants at Addy walks across the globe to support the programs in schools. You will be making the world more welcoming to people with ID. One friendship, one job, and one life changing connection at a time.
016There is no cost to sign up and walk. There will be snacks, food trucks, in music. Each chapter will have a table of fun activities. Friends and family are welcome. You are also welcome at the dance. If I may, I have fliers for each of you with all of the information. If I may give them out. And if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them. And I am not nervous. So I have fliers, one is about the prom and the other one is about the walk. The QR code goes to the Las Cruces High School team and you can look up the other teams once you get there. Give those to the superintendent and he can pass those forward. Thank you. Paul Firth? Hello madam court and members of the board,
017and Annie. Prior to 2025 there was no hard limit to the rate of transfer students other than school capacity, school resources, and the average transfer rate was approximately 25%. Last year the LCC board limited it to 15%. I estimate that that decision impacted 8.8% or approximately 2000 students. I recently had the opportunity to speak with unhappy high school students who were forcefully removed from schools of choice to the school in a different district. I say that to say that the decision made last year is real and will continue to have a real impact. Parents want choice. Y? Parents know their children. And as I said before, parents are responsible for the raising of their children. Last year I heard a school board member say every school will meet your educational needs in l CPS and
018others on the board nodded in agreement. Is that how you shop for a car? This meets my transportation needs. Or I will eat here because it meets my dining needs? No. Perhaps you listen to the opinions of friends and family. How much more important is the decision of where our children are educated? Imagine if I were to tell you that you could only shop for groceries in your district. For my family that would mean I could only shop at Toucan Market but that's not where we normally shop -- factors other than transportation impact our choices. I've looked at the proficiencies of Centennial High School versus Oregon Mountain High. Centennial has a math proficiency of 19%, reading proficiency of 44%, Oregon mountain, math proficiency is 9% and reading is 25%. So the rate of proficiency at
019Centennial is approximately double that of Oregon Mountain. All other things being equal, I choose to send my child to Centennial. And that's how we shop. Parents are not looking for schools that meet their child's educational needs, they're looking for the best option, the best opportunities for their children. So by limiting school choice we are effectively creating a monopoly, an education monopoly. One of the impacts of monopolies is lower quality and reduced efficiency. Competition pushes companies to improve products, to offer quality customer service and operate efficiently. Without it there is little incentive to do anything better and I would say that transfers into the educational realm. Thank you for listening. Gym? Gym Hurst? You're welcome I want to talk about changing the name of Cesar Chavez Elementary and I want to suggest some alternatives how about
020naming it after a president how about Richard Nixon elementary nah he was a crook how about Gerald Ford too boring Jimmy Carter more boring Ronald Reagan too conservative Herbert Walker Bush very boring bill Clinton elementary not hardly Monica Lewinsky elementary not no Hillary Clinton elementary Nuh George W Bush elementary no he was too stupid Barack Obama elementary you mean Barack Hussein Obama elementary no way Donald Trump elementary he's too unpopular what about Stormy Daniels Elementary how about Joe Biden elementary let's be serious I'm just spitballing here folks how about how about cooking school named Jeffrey Dahmer culinary Institute given your reaction I can tell names matter they say something about us what we value who we are some say the cost of the name change is too much and the cost is the primary issue
021if that's the case we should sell the naming rights to our schools how about Albertson's Elementary Verizon Elementary or simply highest bid elementary if the money is more important than the name then why are we leaving all that money on the table imagine Mayfield high as Walmart high Verizon Elementary excuse me Las Cruces as target high or centennial as sprouts high the name could indicate the socio economic classes of the schools principals and values are for districts with more money our kids simply cannot afford them and we're just going to have to learn to live without them so put money first sell the naming rights of our schools there's money to be made and money's more important than ideas and values especially for schools and especially when our children are concerned thank you very much
022for okay all right thank you Juan Garcia Madam chair board members Mr. Superintendent Garcia in late 2025 Sanchez a former employee filed a wrongful suit termination suit and whistleblower lawsuit against Dolores Huerta in March 2026 Dolores Huerta age 95 publicly alleged Cesar Chavez sexually abused her in the 60s so why don't the accusations from a 95 year old about an alleged incident that happened more than 60 years ago aimed at a man who has been dead for 30 years do the math put into context I want to Representative Swalwell's accuser waited two years before she came forward not 60 from the New York Times report and I quote it's worth the who was 36 at the time said she chose not to report the assault to the police because of their hostility toward the movement
023and she feared no one within the Union would believe her her memories of the details of the assault that night in Delano or at times hazy her memories of details that night are hazy and I quote so 60 years later she feels she's more believable maybe her claims are true maybe they aren't either way we're never going to get a clear answer so why is Las Cruces considering cleansing the name of a school that honors a Mexican American icon a man who fought for farm workers rights is it because Chavez criticized the immigration or is it because the Me Too era demands unproven and one sided accusations were enough to condemn and convict anyone or is this another opportunity for the board to score political points like they did during the renaming which the public
024opposed I would argue the money wasted 200,000 300,000 and renaming much like any funds spent to rename the school will have zero zero impact on the quality of the kid's education is scoring political points worth this amount when alleged upcoming layoffs of some educators in this elementary is on the horizon due to a lack of funds if you do rename the school it is clear you will do it for your own political ambitions and not to improve education thank you that ends our public comment we'll now move to the superintendent report superintendent Ruiz thank you president board members of the board for first of all I'd like to start also before I get into my report invite Miss Julie Waco president of NEA Las Cruces miss Erma Valdespino will not be in attendance she has
025no report today good evening president members of the board superintendent Reese and Annie I want to ground my remarks in a message from Becky Pringle president of the National Education Association regarding recent allegations against Cesar Chavez she wrote the stories of abuse and the silenced women were coerced and shamed to hold alone is deeply painful there was the crime of the abuse . She goes on to remind us that today, 1 in 3 women are survivors of sexual assault and violence. We must center the health and safety of members and use our power to orient a better future. Those values guide us here tonight. Las Cruces stands in support. Renaming Cesar Chavez Elementary. This is not a rejection of the labor movement -- in fact, as President Pringle emphasizes, that movement dependent upon the many
026contributions of workers and organizers. The labor movement is greater than any one individual. Our responsibility, especially in education is to ensure that schools reflect safety, dignity, and respect for all -- especially in a profession made up primarily of women. Renaming is not about erasing history -- it is about aligning public spaces with our values and standing in solidarity with those who have experienced harm. Thank you. I don't stand for questions tonight. Thank you. We appreciate that. I will turn it now over to Annie for the Student advisory report. Good evening distinguished members of the board. My name is Annie Lee and I am a junior at Centennial High School. It is a pleasure being the voice as a student advisor and thank you for having me here today. Let's start with the updates. Students prepare
027to say farewell to their principal. Las Cruces High School moved forward with prom and campus cleanups and they had their prom last Saturday. Centennial High School is organizing events like a prom and are hoping for future improvements to graduation. Mayfield High School raised concerns about student safety and increased vaping and drug use in the restrooms, lack of staffing or female security, and facility issues like broken elevators or classroom temperatures varying. There was reported progress with the new fencing. However, concerns arose that the fencing would be built between buildings which would cause traffic but that the fights would not affect safety issues like wildlife entering the campus. We discussed rising attendance rates, and our IT department joined us. We were also joined by Secretary Nolan and Reese and we would like to send our thank yous
028to both for joining us. During our conversation with Superintendent Reese, students shared feedback on graduation including concerns about recognition of academic achievement. While this remains an ongoing discussion we appreciate that Superintendent Reese has agreed to bring these concerns to leadership meetings and we hope to see more meaningful student input in future decisions. We also discussed the recent vote regarding student transfers which would allow students free transfer opportunities. While also raising questions about impacts on school communities. Finally, we discussed renaming Cesar Chavez Elementary. It cannot combat the cost of feeling underrepresented. We stand for student voice comment respect, and integrity. If the school's name no longer reflects the values that students feel safe and proud to represent, change is necessary. Every student deserves to walk into their school with pride and not hesitation. For that reason
029the student Advisory Council renamed Cesar Chavez Elementary which better unites our community. Thank you. Thank you, Annie. Questions? Just thank you for allowing me to be at the meeting. That conversation is interesting and the implications of that decision will be something that we have to wrestle with. And thank you for the thoughtful conversation on everything. It is always a pleasure so thank you. I have a quick question for you. We had talked to the person on the dais in October, I believe, and we asked them how cell phone use impacted their education and if in fact there was decreased cell phone use and that was the fall. As a teacher I know in the spring it is sometimes tough to wrangle things. Do you feel that there is still -- let me try to find
030the -- is there increased cell phone use more in the spring? Is it ramping up or is it staying about the same as it was in the fall? I think definitely especially compared with last year, cell phone use has gone down by a lot. I know when we talk to our administration they told us that there was a larger percentage in which cell phone rates usage has decreased so I think that that is a good improvement for schools. Absolutely. I appreciate that update. Just because I wanted to make sure we were maintaining that level of interaction between students. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions? Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you Annie. Members of the board I want to echo Secretary Nolan's comments. It was a great conversation. It was just an awesome
031group of kiddos and the thoughtfulness and just the future -- you can tell there are a few future lawyers there. Other leaders as well. So it was great to be there. I'd like to continue and begin -- our legislative thank you luncheon. This is an opportunity to recognize local delegations and thank them for their continued investment in Las Cruces public schools. It allows us to showcase the impact of that support. Attendees saw a food truck, outdoor classroom, and other programs that directly benefit students across the district. I want to thank miss O'brien for hosting the event. It was a meaningful way to share a vision for what comes next. I am also proud to share that the finance and purchasing teams received significant international recognition. We received an Association Budget Award. This is considered the
032gold standard for collaboration and presentation. This is only the second time l CPS earned recognition and we are currently the only school district in New Mexico to receive this award. Yes. And in addition we received a national procurement Institute Award for fiscal year 2025. This is the third time the team has received this. CPS is recognized this year. So good job. and I would also like to thank the citizens Bank for their continued partnership. They have been a constant supporter of the Marquis at our school in making important information visible on campuses. Helping us better communicate with families and our community. We are grateful for citizens Bank for continuing. Thanks to citizens Bank. We are excited to share that CPS has received a grant from the Foundation. It supports a district wide covering a field
033trip costs. It is an important investment in access and opportunity to ensure that more students can participate in meaningful experiences. Thank you to Ben Serrano for taking the lead on the application. Thank you to the board for approving this exciting opportunity. I would also like to congratulate board member Teresa De Norio . [APPLAUSE] This is an important leadership role and -- Schools and key clubs in our high schools and hosting various community projects to support our schools including the McKinney-Vento Project Link program At this time neither members of Kiwanis Club join us at the podium. -- this time, would members of the Kiwanis Club join us at the podium. I extend my gratitude. First of all congratulations on your incredible 100th anniversary. What a remarkable milestone and a testament to a century of community impact.
034Your ongoing dedication to supporting the public schools truly makes a difference in the lives of students across the community. We are especially thankful for your commitments to the Project Lead program for your signature program entitled Kiss -- Kiwanis Insecure Housing Student and Support. Over $2,000 were raised. They were able to receive food cards giving them the opportunity to share a warm meal together. For unaccompanied students this also meant something just as meaningful -- a chance to sit down and enjoy a meal with friends, fostering connection and a sense of normalcy. Compassion continues to uplift the most vulnerable students. We are deeply grateful and thank you for your partnership and support. Thank you for all that you do and congratulations on 100 years of making a difference. At this time, a proclamation to the Kiwanis Club
035of Las Cruces outlining supports and contributions to Las Cruces Public Schools. Thank you so much, we appreciate you. [APPLAUSE] Once again comment thank you so much to the Kiwanis Club and for all of you do. I have been retired since 2019 but you were all there. We did it. The pancake breakfast, the regular honor society, all the kids work together -- you sponsored it for us and made it a fun and easy way to take care of it. All right. Let's do it. Thank you. I would like to turn the time over to Miss Kelly Jamison our public information Officer to give us some regional and national updates on Cesar Chavez situation, which is also part of the agenda today. Thank you superintendent, good evening members of the board. As the superintendent mentioned, some key
036points to highlight -- in March, recognized farm worker day reinforce the historical significance of the movement while removing the name it was known for previously. Texas has shifted direction, removing the Cesar Chavez holiday Lars.sch excuse me, removing it from classwork instruction. Dallas and Fort Worth have removed street signs bearing his name and other cities including Austin, Denver, and Phoenix. In California, districts like LA unified, San Bernardino, and Santa Ana have voted to shift instructional materials so that nationally we are seeing recognition and reevaluation -- in some cases, removal. Some actions have taken place and there are still things that are in the decision making process. The formal renaming process is changing. Austin is considering it. In the University of Texas is actively discussing removal of the Chavez statue -- otherwise as of today, nothing meaningful
037has happened. It's evolving in it is still evolving in real time. Here in our region we are beginning to see several similar conversations emerge -- Santa Fe Public Schools has already taken action to remove Chavez's name from elementary school and in some communities murals and imagery are also being removed or reconsidered, much like Las Cruces public Schools. Some districts prioritize hosting forums like we have. A little closer to home, Cesar Chavez Charter High School has indicated while there are no plans to remove the name some conversations could be part of the future board agenda. There is no single approach. Districts are navigating this in different ways. I believe there is additional information before a discussion. Without questions, this will conclude my report. Thank you. Yes? I don't think it was on there, but Albuquerque removed
038Cesar Chavez from there Boulevard. I was driving through there last week and although I know that they voted to remove it, I think they took that sign down. I guess the Department of Transportation is going to have to replace the exit signs. So there are other things to consider. As Miss Jamison mentioned, this is a big situation and things are happening in real time. So I feel that this is important to bring forward just to get a perspective on what is happening not only nationally but regionally as well. Thank you. Members? Annie? All right. Thank you. Thank you Superintendent Ruiz. We will move to the amended item and hear from Mr. Liu and our audited financial statements. The award winning Mr. Liu. Yes. Good afternoon members of the board, superintendent Ruiz. I am excited to
039present you and introduce Mr. Chris Connor, CPA. He will present us the financial statement for the year ending in 2025. It has been a long and rewarding experience and process, and Mr. Connor and his team will be able to guide us through this process. I know we are excited to come out of confidentiality and to share this with the board and the public the details and the results. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you Madam President, board members. This has been a long process this year. The federal government through some curves that I've never seen before in my long career of auditing. There is what they call a compliance supplement that relates to guidance that the federal government gives to how we as auditors are to test federal grants. It is usually submitted in June July, maybe
040August -- during COVID it was never issued and we just went on our own way and completed the audits using the prior compliance. Well this year, in September, they issued a draft form of that document. We've never seen it before, so the AICPA makes our auditing statements, they said auditors, you cannot complete audits until that is a final document. Shortly thereafter we had a government shutdown. It wasn't until December until the final compliance supplement came out well past the due date and well past any other due dates throughout the state. So the state auditor really had to go on the fly and had to adjust. And we didn't get comments back from the state auditor until late March right before your audit was due to be uploaded to the federal government. We submitted it by
041the due date of January 20th. And around that time was when we had the exit conference, so again, a little bit delayed, not anybody's fault except for somebody going through and doing a draft. So what we have here is the highlights from the exit conference in January which went over required communications for auditing standards that we as auditors are allowed to make. There's a lot of confusion about what audits do. This very first slide talks about the standards that we have to follow. In New Mexico not only do we have to follow the two top boxes which are regular auditing statements, but every audit has to follow what we call government auditing statements or yellow book standards. And so there is a reason why the state auditor does that and I will explain it in
042a moment. Under regular auditing standards what we were hired to do is express an opinion on financial statements to make sure that what they are what we call materially correct and that they meet accepted accounting principles. What that means is, to the right we give what is called reasonable assurance. There is no way we can look at every transaction that goes through the district. So we pick statistical samples and controls but we are definitely not looking at everything so there could be errors in the report that you have in front of you, but those errors are not big enough to change the opinion of the readers of financial statements. An example I always give, those will not change the banker's opinion on the district. So that is really the main purpose of the audit. Under
043those top two slides when it comes to internal controls we technically only have to test one transaction from every significant cycle. So significant ones like cash disbursements or receipts or payroll, technically we only have to test one transaction. The reason the rule requires us to do that yellow book audit is because they have to actually pick examples and test internal controls. The audit rule expands, so not only do we have to look at significant cycles but we also have 20 potential items that are in the state audit rule mostly dealing with state laws and district compliance with those state laws, so things like travel per diem, procurement, there are other expanded testaments in the statement. We actually test a lot more transactions in Mexico, and a lot of it is due to state audit rule.
044The results are what we do, it's built in on the left. We test internal controls but we are not picking samples big enough to give an opinion. What we do in that yellow book report is spell out how we are testing above regular auditing standard requirements and then when the bottom right we have to communicate significant matters. State audit rule changes that. With those significant matters they take it to the ground level. Any exceptions that we have have to be reported in the state of New Mexico and the reason is transparency. The state audit rule wants them to know what are the things even if they aren't significant that we need to work on. That way you can track it as a district. Things are going to come up from time to time, but what
045you want to see as a district is how the management team is dealing with things. So again, it is transparency. So those are the two standards that we follow. The next slide talks about the opinion reissue. We issued an unmodified opinion and this is exactly the type of report that the district wants to receive. This is the highest level of assurance that they can give. The other two reports in the audit that are ours, that one on the left is the yellow report I mentioned. We are not giving an opinion but rather spelling out how we double dashes you can see here, even with the lower threshold, every transaction had the proper documentation. The one on the right is the whole reason the audit was late. The federal compliance audit that we have to do,
046we go through and we pick based on guidelines given by the federal government, certain grants, we make sure that people are complying with significant items, things like is this allowable? So I believe there are different compliance testing items and we do issue an opinion here, and it is unmodified. So both opinions are exactly the reports that the district wants to receive. The next slide, the reason for this communication is just to give the board really a feel for how your financial records are being maintained if we as auditors come in we have a hard time getting supporting documents. POS aren't done properly etc. We have to communicate that to you. As you can see here, the audit went extremely smoothly. The takeaway here is that your financial records are being well maintained by the district
047finance department. And this next one is also important because you are making financial decisions. We are talking tonight about cost. You want to make sure that you're getting accurate information. The whole reason for this communication is to give a feel to the board on how this infrastructure works to make financial decisions. As you can see here, we as auditors came in and did not have a single adjustment. That should give you comfort that your financial records are working and that you can rely upon these numbers as you are given them throughout the year. The next two slides are very similar. If we had management disagreements we would have to let you know. Again, the audit went smooth. If we had difficulties in management consulted with another auditor -- I call this opinion chopping because if
048they disagreed with us we'd have to let you know but that did not happen. Current year findings, we've gone over this. Did not have any. There was one finding from the prior year. We as auditors are responsible for making sure the inflammation don't ask the implementation you committed to was done. No findings were reported. With that, I am opening it up to questions. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Board members, questions? [APPLAUSE] Did this happen across the state in your auditing of other districts? Was this very typical of the audits you did this year? Board member comment no comment that is not typical. I have been asked in the past how many audits don't have adjustments and no findings and I would say probably less than 10% of the audits that I perform have
049that. So no, that is not the usual results of audits and the district is blessed to have a good staff in the finance department that understands the standards when they do have questions. We had a new standard we had to deal with, and we had to converse with them quite a few times to make sure that the right answer was established and we got started in terms of putting that together. So they are very open to discussion and they do a good job. Thank you. Finance Department. So proud of you all. You are all amazing. Thank you. And thank you for working with our numbers and doing it so well and also making it understandable to a retired French teacher who doesn't deal well with numbers, you make the budget easier for me to understand,
050and that is super important. Thank you so much. I think we're good. Thank you all. Thanks again. Way to go. All right. We are moving to old business. The first item on that is the discussion and possible approval to remove the name Cesar Chavez Elementary School. Superintendent Ruiz? Thank you members of the board. Before we move into the discussion item, I want to briefly outline the process that has brought us to this point. Over the past several weeks as concern emerged our priority has been to approach this matter thoughtfully, deliberately, and with respect for the community. We begin first by really getting feedback -- I'm sorry, let me go back. Our first item where we started was a discussion item on March 24th at the Board of Education meeting. This was an agenda item that
051we brought forth. From there we also decided to have, or rather we had a special session at Cesar Chavez Elementary School on April 8th. At this point the update when some of the input that we received we received 55 emails and if I am not mistaken I have a quick tally here of the -- I apologize -- of the responses. At this point as of today, we had 38 in support of changing the name, 11 to leave as is, and six that basically had no preference, I guess pe that has also been brought up in discussion and also looking at looking at what's the process Uh and potentially moving in this direction, so part of the projected expenses and also part of the internal process, three major items is the first one will be the
052school marquee, and in this case we would not have to replace the entire marquee, we would be able to just replace the lettering, in the other major expansion would be building lettering, we have 24 letters to the projected cost of a little bit over $10,000, and also looking at eight custom entry floor mats at the school at the cost projected around $1,550. Part of this process would also entail not only an internal but also working with the New Mexico Public Education Department to submit name change, and it's basically filling out some paperwork around that, adding some of the minutes showing the decision, and that process with the nmpd operations team, and there would be updates to the school name with regards to our internal student -- Mr. Peterson, help me out here -- student information
053system. I couldn't help you. And so I wanted to present you with some figures around that. And also the team is here for additional questions around the information. Thank you. Board members, I open this up for discussion. Would anybody like to begin? Sure Sure. First, I want to thank the superintendent and his team for putting together this information. I appreciate all of that. For cataloging emails, your tally matched with mine. There was an overwhelming majority in favor of changing the name. And I would like to thank the public who took their time to be here tonight and to give us your input about this. Historically, Cesar Chavez was a great man. When our school district named the elementary school after such a man, I think it would have been appropriate at the time because the
054information that we have now was not available then. I have been a union member since 1983. Not farm workers but teachers. But the first thing I did when I retired was to become a lifetime member of my union. He did great things for us, but he did not do them alone, and so the arguments that we've heard about keeping the name as it is, mostly when I was looking through the emails it involved money. It costs something to change this. I'm a penny pincher. I don't like to spend money unnecessarily. But I believe this is a necessity. We cannot know whether it is true -- there have been too many years, perhaps we don't trust the accusers, but the information I read from the New York Times article suggested that it was clear that he
055was both a rapist and a sexual predator of children. Those allegations are not just unsubstantiated allegations. The argument to let sleeping dogs lie is also one we heard. That we are not improving education by changing this , we should just let it go. And I think that although an attractive idea that is not satisfactory, we cannot just turn our back on this and pretend it didn't happen and just ignore it. And so winking at this sends the wrong message. Girls who enter schools in Las Cruces public schools should know that we do not have a school named after a sexual predator. Arguments about history versus taking a moderate lens, it has changed over that time period. We have had slaveholders who were presidents. Do I need to say that slavery is repugnant? The values that
056we have today are the values -- there was no societal acceptance of predatory behavior. The seriousness of these allegations, what I have read about the victims, is what compels me to believe that we should change the name of this school. It is inconsistent with our mission, with our values, there is an ethical imperative here which says we cannot wink at this. We have to change this name to support our students and to stand behind the values that we say we do. Thank you. Thank you vice President. Board members? Sure. Thank you for your comments. I agree with everything you said. It is going to be hard to add to it. I know that one of the respondents said that the past is the past. I don't believe that people who have been sexually assaulted can
057ever put it in the past. That is part of the reason why it is so horrible. And I can just imagine somebody who has experienced this, the numbers that we hear about are so huge -- but I can imagine someone heading down that road and seeing that name, they get confronted by it every day when they go to work. And all it does is remind them of what happened in their past. And they have to relive it every day. That's just unacceptable. We can't have a school named after a person who -- and I understand, allegedly did these things, but I think there's pretty good evidence that it's true and that we need to change the name of the school. Thank you. Anyone else? You guys are making me do it. Not at all. I
058don't mind jumping all. Go for it. I echo the same sentiments of my colleagues. There are a couple of things that I think are important to emphasize. 1 in 4 women in New Mexico are victims of sexual assault. For us to do nothing and to not recognize that by keeping this name on the school runs contrary to our values that the three of us were recently reelected on. We are a district representing these values. This is our role, these are the decisions we need to make, one and for. I think it's the one thing that's there's this spin there is this spin . Cesar Chavez does not do what he does without Dolores Huerta. We can't sing his praises while knocking her. There is an employee who wasn't happy with her employment. It is a
059stretch of all stretches to connect that law school -- lawsuit to these allegations. They also conveniently forget that there are two minors who came forward with allegations. It is never mentioned. Two minors. And they all came forward and they all came forward. They came forward in the 90s, on a Facebook post, it was silenced every step of the way. There has never been there has never been a path forward for us to keep this thing. I think to express it to the contrary is to accuse us of being the ones who are politicizing this. I think that's crazy. The folks arguing to keep this are the ones who are in fact politicizing this. What we do here matters. The values we put in this world matter. So keeping this name on their runs -- I
060mean it's contrary to everything we believe and fight for and we cannot do that. Thank you Secretary. So the reason why these girls who turn into women did not say anything for 30 years or however long was because of how big Cesar Chavez was, how big his legacy was, how hard and impossible it would be to speak against that and feel believed. I think you have a 95, 96 year old woman who is speaking up not because she has something to gain but nothing to lose. It doesn't matter if you guys want to spoil her. She's telling the truth. Groomed and sexually abused you cannot defend that, this is not politically ambitious of anyone. This has nothing to do with a monster in his own right. I think that's all I have to say, other
061than to add that the message is for little boys as well. I'm going to read a message that was sent to me by a friend and I think it conveys how I feel as well. She says thanks for doing what you're doing to change the name of the school. It is a service to all of the victims he left in his wake. A mark on behalf of the children , the boys, the women, and the men who were assaulted and held accountable. Believe women. Thank you. All right board -- any discussion? I wanted to thank the report in the discussion that you have as well. I thank you for your input on this and I appreciate what you have to say very much. Anything you would like to add? I think that we did mention
062what the SAC thinks and I think that reflects thank you thank you so much our feelings. Thank you. Madame? I want to thank whoever else was involved in answering my questions and I would give them post-it notes like I want to know about this thing too, and I come here feeling like, okay, this is not the same scenario. I feel fully informed. Thank you. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you superintendent. I think you are all off the hook. We don't have any questions for you but we do appreciate you sitting here and listening. I take it back. I have a format question. How often do you have to replace floor mats? Thank you. Traditionally, you replace formats. I know we are putting this in as an estimate but eventually we have to replace floor mats. We have
063paperwork. If we get them through , they will be replaced. That is forever lasting. They do not last forever. It is an important point to make. I know that money has become an issue around this. I think we originally said 15 but now we are at 13 and some change. And Mr. Liu, I don't know if he is here but that is less than 1%. It is a minor setback. I get it. We don't want to spend money on that but we will survive as a district. We will continue educating kids. I know there are some issues. Mr. Rodriguez, your team is on it and we have done some work and we are working on fixing those things at the school, we can do both -- we do not have to live in that world.
064Madam president, superintendent Ruiz, we are doing everything that we can. So yes, we will continue to do the work that is necessary throughout the district. All of the schools. Thank you. All right. I would like to entertain a motion to remove the name Cesar Chavez Elementary School. So moved. Seconded. Moved and seconded. All in favor indicate by saying aye. With the unanimous vote we will be removing the name of Cesar Chavez Elementary School. Thank you all. Because we have taken this action to remove the name, doctor Lozano or the superintendent -- thank you. Chavez to walk us through the process now that the decision has been made on the name changing some of the timeline and other considerations so I'll turn it over to the team thank you team supervisor Annie thank you for being
065here tonight um so prior to um this board meeting we did get with um administration at CéSar Chavez thank you to Miss Rubia um worked with her team um just in case you did vote tonight um in favor of removing the name what the process would look like um so today what we'll do is go over Uh what her leadership team and her school community decided on um on what the best route would be to come up with the union right um so first I'll start by just a reminder right of the process that we do have in place according to your policy Uh which is um you welcome feedback from um our constituents and ultimately you do have the choice to select the name um something that we talked about was um going back
066to the next page um what we did last time so I'll talk about that here when we get to that point but let me go over the timeline of what happens next um in regards to um after your vote tonight so um starting tomorrow we will start gathering that feedback Uh from the school community and talking to Miss Rubia one of the things that um her and her leadership team had been really thoughtful about is um who gets a say right in who gets the name the school um obviously we know that it's a pre-K through second grade school so very different than um a few years ago right with where we have high school students alumni I mean there's alumni there for Chavez but just the whole different situation so um I'll go over
067the plan um proposed plan and get your feedback on what we hope to do to gather that feedback next would be May 19th where you would review recommended names from the school community and again I'll get to choose we we thought about five that we would bring forward to you based on the feedback that they get from their school you would select one you would have the option to add any others so that's that's your prerogative as a board um after the name is selected then we that puts us um May 20th through June 30th so that time frame is to do some of the things that um our colleagues mentioned earlier Uh with synergy Uh doctor Wendy working with the public education department to make it official for the name change um I know
068for that it was a simple process it wasn't cumbersome at all it was a form that had to be filled out by the superintendent so that shouldn't take long um and then of course July 1st we would enact the new name of the school so that's just a quick overview of the timeline proposed timeline um again this is in collaboration with Uh Miss Ruby and her leadership team what would be the best way to do this right um so recommendation would be for staying with this community so the school staff students and families of of the current Cesar Chavez families um one of the items that Miss Ruby I did mention to me was many of her teachers that are there now were actually part of the process to name Cesar Chavez so they were
069at sunrise and they were actually part of the process so a lot of the recommendations are aligned to the process that they did back then where it was really a school community um effort to come up with that name so recommendation is for each classroom to select Uh a name based on feedback from students and families Uh starting tomorrow we could start working with the teachers create a brief survey for the families and have them um maybe with their students with their kids say hey what would be a good name and then fill out that form or that survey um and then the teacher would determine the one where they it'd be through a vote in each class or however the teacher wants to do it then they would bring forward one one name to
070the school staff and they would vote on the top five and that's how we would develop um is there anything you want to add that I forgot any important well good evening good evening president members of the board and Superintendent Ruiz I know I think you covered most of it um we did proactively collaborate um just in case you all voted to change the name and so it really will just be a simple survey that will be sent out to each family and the family will include the input of with their child on what they would like to see the school be changed to then after that Uh we would Uh the teachers would gather the name and vote on one per class and after we get all of those votes we have about 30
071classrooms and so after the 30 suggestions we would pick the top five and present those to you all thank you with that madam caught that pretty much covers um the proposed plan to gather feedback Uh for the May 19th meeting to bring forward to you with that we will stand for any questions all right thank you all so much board members do you have any questions yes I can't remember the name of the um survey technology you already using thought exchange are you guys planning to use that because then you have a lot more like dynamic interaction between people submitting names and they can see each other's answers and vote that way because otherwise I'm not sure how if you have 30 classes you might get 30 different answers how do they know what the
072other classroom is proposing madam president Uh board member Tenorio that's a good suggestion um we hadn't talked about that um I think when we were discussing it was a straightforward like just Uh walk through parents but just Uh straightforward answer but um it sounds like your suggestion would be to it's a thought they call it a thought right so what's the name that and then why do you think this name is important and then others could see and rank them is that the suggestion well I just know that in the times that the district has used it and then reported back to us you guys had not just like people voting on certain ideas they were also putting down like like a thought exchange like putting down comments on why they liked something um and
073then you have such a small like your demographic like your kids are so young is it preschool or kindergarten preschool to second grade so you're it's kind of heavy on the adults in we're wanting them to interact with these kids and I don't know what you'll get out of them because they're fun age you know but yeah what's today's word might you know they might have a new word in a year or so I just think Uh having parents and staff members being able to use that thought exchange and if they um are able to communicate with the kids and kind of get more ideas because they might come up with something really awesome you know as president if I may Mr. That's yeah good suggestion and as you know my initial thought on that
074is because I think the what the process was for to your point and this is that parent engagement because the kids are so young right and maybe a thought around that could be a QR code as they're having that conversation maybe enter that that can be brought back be brought back to the school and look at some of those results as well um and then maybe Uh make that adjustment where it's taken back to the class and again still look at what others potentially what other suggestions your point and just just have more of that um just look at everyone else's thoughts so so we can make some adjustments there for sure thank you for that recommendation thank you board members anything else just to thank you for keeping the process open I like the
075idea of a thought exchange we do not need Boaty Mcboatface to be the top getter maybe we do or maybe we do yeah but if we have Uh and I don't know that we should even see them ranked when you're when you're at those top um so thank you yes thank you anybody else thank you so much for your time and we look forward we look forward to have fun tonight yes exactly May 19th thank you that's exciting thank you thank you so much thanks for hanging in invisible Las Cruces now we are going to our third reading and possible approval of a policy because it's so fun to say g b e b b with Mr. Perry oh welcome Mr. Perry . , welcome members of the board, and I come before you for
076a third reading impossible approval of policy g b e b b. I -- so what I am presenting, although the revised wording that you all had given me over the different readings, I do want to draw your attention to this. I did include three entries on the list. For c5, ten, and 12. These entries are directly from Mac language. And also from policy g. The code of Ethical Responsibilities. The list of conduct with students. The original policy contained most of the lists but did not include all of it. It was a truncated list, and what I did was I made sure to include anything that was not in GE BB that was not in Mac and both Mac and G BB. The list that they had provided in terms of conduct with staff. And I
077did slight edits. Some of that language stated employee conduct with students, but since this policy is focusing on both employees and LCC partners I made sure to remove the employee language from the list. All right, thank you so much for just going over those changes with us. Board members do you have any comments or questions or concerns, grammatical corrections, because we are grammar >> I would remove. Nothing substantial. In number five, the new text at the bottom where it says Nmpd, legally mandated, so the, goes before the coordinating conjunction. I don't see where you are saying that. It's the third -- no, the second line up on number five. Sorry I did not direct you very well to the spot. Misconduct is on the margin. Oh, I am on number five of section E. Sorry.
078Thank you so much, I appreciate that. Second line up from the text. Did you find that Did you find that comment Mr. Perry? Yes. Excellent. Thank you. I do see that now. I just got that. Thank you. And then otherwise, we have taken this one through the ringer I think. And I appreciate all of the work that you've done. It looks very good. I have one question. And maybe we've talked about it and then it didn't sink in, but when we were talking about restricting electronic communications, is there a reason why it is not just all communications? What page number is that? Page number 11 -- C11, position c11. I think one of them is a tutoring thing, one of them is giving a ride, one of them is providing a gift. And this is
079just another scenario. And so that's specifically how I read it. That is about addressing that issue. And I know it was talking about conduct and, no inappropriate contact, when it's not an electronic communication that would be in person or something in writing, a paper pen, old fashioned writing, that's a possibility? We're just assuming it's in there somewhere. Is that what it is? It's all of those, one-12. I'm okay with electronic communications being in there as long as it is explicitly mentioned somewhere else, you should communicate with a very -- If you could pull up to letter C. Okay. There. All school district employees. Okay. All right. Board members, anything else? So members of the board, what I would like to do is fix that one, for the actual document that we sign if that would
080be okay. Yes. We have done that in the past as well. Thank you. I would like to entertain a motion to approve policy g e b b, staff conduct with students with the additional. So moved. Seconded. Moved and seconded. All in favor please indicate by saying I. All opposed? All right. We did it. Thank you so much for all of your work on that. I really appreciate it. Now we will go to Miss Jamison in our third reading and possible approval of k b, advertising and Marketing. Thanks for staying with us. My pleasure. Good evening president, court members of the board, and Annie, nice to see you all again. Tonight I present for your consideration the third reading of policy, advertising and marketing. Once again it establishes clear and consistent frameworks on how advertising and
081sponsorships and promotional activities are managed across all of Las Cruces public schools. Just to recap, the policy is designed to ensure that all advertising aligns with our education mission, values, and expectations while protecting students and maintaining appropriate content standards. We have made additional updates in a separate reading adding language in three H to clarify that the district does not allow for the production or use of student data without proper authorization, which is documented in the clean copy on the third reading version with edits. For that, I stand for questions. Board members, any questions concerns or grammar? I wanted to add grammar. I appreciate that. Well, here we go. I would like to entertain a motion to approve policy k b, advertising and marketing. So moved. Seconded. Moved and seconded. All in favor please indicate by
082saying I. All opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you so much, Miss Jamison. Thank you for all of your work on that policy. We appreciate it. Thank you. We are moving to our strategic plan benchmarks where we will be the instructional outcomes for math which is basically mathematics textbook adoption update with Mr. Tomlinson. Oh, I am sorry, add doctor. I'm just here to introduce the Director of Teaching and learning for Stem who will discuss the mathematics and instructional materials adoption. Madame, members of the board, superintendent Reese -- Luis -- Ruiz, and counselor advisor Annie, I am going to provide a brief and succinct update to the math adoption. This time last year I presented on the K-12 science adoption, and this is the math adoption. So in the summer of 2025, there was a state
083review of materials and so teachers came together to review all of the materials and provided a list that was released to districts with recommended math high quality instruction materials. So we put together a team of teachers, k-12, we had elementary and middle and high school teachers which included special education teachers and bilingual teachers as well as math and school support team members that are part of feeder patterns. This team came together and reviewed for many months. It took us until December to finish that review. It was very thorough. And we collaborated together to prescreen these options so that we could narrow them down to the top options to provide for teachers and then vote on the new materials. And then after we narrowed down the materials, we had a publisher presentation day in January and
084we had teachers -- a representative from every school attended the publisher presentation and then at that time I also went over the process at the school sites and we ordered materials for every single school under the option so we had them in their buildings to review and to spend time making those selections. So, here were the options that were from the original small team that reviewed all of the materials. For the K-five band we had Carnegie Learning and we had curriculum associates I-ready. For six-eight we had three options: Imagine learning, amplify, and we had curriculum associates I-ready. At the high school level we had Savas and envision mathematics and imagine learning illustrative mathematics. And so rubrics, teachers had from January 14th until March 13th which was when all rubrics were due and that was before
085a spring break and this was the amount of participation that we had at the K-5 level and then at the nine-12 level. I will say that when you look at these numbers almost every single middle school teacher or high school teacher participated -- and that's almost all of them who participated at the elementary level, not all of them, but if you take out the PE teacher and the teachers who didn't feel like they needed to review it, it's pretty high participation. And so here are the results. For elementary, you can see that we continue to -- we will continue to do I-ready. And I did want to note the no preference vote. It just means that the teachers. A few of them couldn't decide and said I like them both. I would be happy with
086them either way. So that is what that means. For middle school, it was a little bit of a unique situation. And that happens when you have three options -- the margin tends to narrow a little bit versus when there's only two, and we had three good options out there. So the initial numbers didn't really indicate a very clear winner, so to speak, and so we took that one out and took it to a second vote so that teachers had the opportunity to think through the two options that they now had. And so as you can see, we have new material. It was a very close yes. And and then for high school it was quite the opposite. And it was very clear. We had teachers who did the same thing. I like them both, I'd
087be happy with them either way, but with the vast majority of teachers in favor of developing savis learning for the math material. And that is my closing. I did want to quickly send some appreciation to the school support team members. They were out there all of the time helping to support teachers reviewing the material, helping them to navigate through and to provide time and space and also the textbook warehouse. They're out there developing materials and delivering them all the time. And also, the science and challenger teams, there are a lot of boxes involved in this process and I don't know if people would even believe me on how many materials we were sifting through. They always help us move them and pack them in and move them again so there's a lot that goes into
088the process and I am glad that we were able to get through it and I am ready to start the next part. If I may, I would like to thank the doctor. As she mentioned, she ran a k-12 science adoption and now she ran math adoption and she mentioned it is a very heavy lift in many ways double not just boxes, and I would like to thank her. She has done adopting for a while and yet next year it will be someone else's term. So thank you doctor. I would also like to thank you for making those materials available over in the TLC so that the board could go look at them, and I have mentioned multiple times in meetings that the French teacher looks at everything else and goes oh my goodness, but it
089was nice to be able to review the materials just from a curriculum and instruction standpoint. I appreciate having the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you for the work you did. Board members, questions? Concerns? Quick question: Thank you doctors. You came up in a meeting the other day, not that funny -- it's a school board meeting . I know the past few years they have focused on reading and intervention and resources . Does that factor into the decision making when we are looking at something? When we are looking at this stuff? Board member Nolan, some of the legislation came out after we had already started the process and there are other shifts -- I think there is more to come, but I think the layer one high quality instruction material in the math is always going to
090be what we look for, but I think there are other elements that are coming out later. That is a later-later thing, I think that is something we were thinking about. The legislative priorities and we want teachers to use materials. We want to make sure we are thoughtful and deliberate in our intentions. I was just curious. I don't know how that factors in, but I appreciate it. Thank you. Bam board members? Oh I was going to ask if she likes math. My daughter asked me a question and I had zero answer for her, I had no idea what she was asking me. Starting back in sixth or seventh grade, I'd say I don't know. Senior math is -- >> Doctor who, thank you so much. I don't know. Have her call Mr. Frank. Next, come on.
091All right, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Okay, everyone, we are moving to the end and it is board report time -- would anybody like to start us off with board reports? I will start. I would love you to start. Thank you. The only thing I will go into is just that I was really proud of the board and all of the input that we received with regard to the Cesar Chavez Elementary School issue, and the comments that we received and the speeches that were made from the dais here tonight. They were very articulate and very insightful and it is very appreciated. So thank you for that. That's really all I have to report. Thank report. Good report. -- thank you for the report. Good report. I will keep it brief. I really appreciate
092it superintendent, I appreciate everyone who attended the legislative lunch. I thought it was great to show our progress and what we were doing. I thought that was really good for us. Looking forward to a celebration of Excellence dinner on Friday. And I think we have a meeting before graduation, don't we? Yes. Anyways, looking forward to graduation. So thank you. Thank you. Like Mr. Frank, I want to take the -- I want to thank the public. I think the listening time at Cesar Chavez School itself was important. There are staff members who care most about this issue. I think going to them was important. For many of them it was not a welcome decision. But they listened to the logic that we put forth. And congratulations to Miss Tenorio for being the Secretary of our region.
093Did a nice job of hosting the regional meeting. And also, the National School Board Association of San Antonio Sessions, those were very interesting. To highlight just a couple of things -- the Bloomington, Indiana school board talked about policy making in terms of values which I think fits well with this board. Their experiences with challenges to books and things like that. Loudoun County Public Schools, half the time I Google Lcps and it comes up as Loudoun County. It is a district of 80,000 compared to ours, so I suppose, but they had an interesting session on family liaisons and working with the community and schools. And then there's one that I already buttonholed the superintendent about and I believe our equity council is getting ready to do a report here in the next session, and so we
094have been moving forward with that as well. That's it. Fun fact about Loudoun County -- they are very high income. They have a data center. O. I will withhold my judgment on that, but -- Interesting turnover. Interesting district. We had a community schools meeting and passed a motion , so something that will be different in the future is that we will have parent board members so that we also approved a questionnaire to kind of guide which ones would be the best fit. And so I think the community school coordinators are identifying parents at the school level that are most involved right after that board meeting. We actually cut it short because some of us went to the Boys and Girls Club groundbreaking, and so that was exciting for them and I'm really happy for Ashley
095and the Boys and Girls Club. And then we had an LK Foundation meeting. Most of it, I spent time just sitting there listening because I'm a non-voting member and they are talking business. So the business at hand was on scholarships for some of our senior students, so those of us who can attend those senior honor nights the LCC Foundation will be there with a scholarship. And they are the ones helping to plan out the celebration of excellence dinner. Let's be sure to give them a thank you. Awesome. So I attended one, two, three, four -- five site based leadership team meetings at community schools in the past month. I wasn't able to spread them all out. It has been lovely to, it was Johnny's idea for the board to go and see what is happening
096at each of the schools and interesting to see the difference between all of the schools and when you have buy in from the principal and from the staff. Your community school runs a lot smoother than. And so it was just beautiful to see everyone's different interpretations of site based leadership, how they are appropriating community feedback, parent feedback, student feedback, into everything they do. That was a real learning experience for me and I really enjoyed it. I went to Career Day at Central Elementary which was great. The bug room was the big event. They I believe brought in the entomology department bugs, there were screams of laughter. They had a blast. I did attend the unified basketball game at the middle school. I feel like I've talked about this already, but it is lovely to see
097students participating with students of all ability levels in the opportunities of those who can afford it. I'm looking forward to going to the prom, which right after the evening of excellence I am heading over and doing a little dance with whatever student will dance with me. Wear a fancy dress. I should. Do it. I went to Messiah's Elementary for three -- I went to the 50th elementary birthday party and it was a great party. It was lovely and then I attended our elementary leadership day where we had all of our students come in, or most of them, working with the elementary kids and their student councils and it was a day of community building and games and leadership opportunities. It was beautiful. It was a Hermosa Heights Elementary and it was really great. I also
098participated in the MOC at Tilly Rocket. I interviewed students at the convention center and it is such a beautiful opportunity for students to practice their skills and to have these great conversations with them about how they can improve interview skills. They nailed it. It was amazing. Oh come on what else did I do? The legislative thank you lunch was really lovely and it was great to have a tour of our support center. All of the things that are happening, thank you for all of the work you did on that miss O'brien because it was amazing. And attending the Campus Teacher of the year, the support staff's person of the year, and now having that culminate on Friday is just all super duper exciting. And I went to the National School Board Association conference in San
099Antonio and learned a lot. It's such a beautiful opportunity for us to learn from people across the nation, to see what they are doing, and quite honestly Las Cruces Public Schools is way ahead of the curve on so many things. We do so many things so well. Bravo everyone. And speaking of connecting schools, families, and communities, I am actually speaking on a panel tomorrow in New Mexico with two other fellow teachers. Tara Hughes from Santa Fe and the lovely and talented Nancy Quarter. So if you want to tune in and listen to the talk, it is going to be at six 30. I'll want to check the time. 6 p.m.. O. It's at six? Okay. It's at six. But if you would like to hear them come they are amazing and I'm just going to
100be talking about the school board and that connection and how being a teacher and so forth helps to create those connections with the community. If you feel like joining in and listening to some teacher nerd talk because it's cool, join in. All right. Thank you all. And with that, how are we doing? All right. With that, I would like to entertain a motion to >> So moved. Seconded. Moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Opposed? Okay. We are adjourned. 8:04. Thanks for your time this evening.