Nick Seibel, publisher and editor of the Silver City Daily Press, covers top stories each week on the Silver City Report. This week we hear about Silver Consolidated Schools latest development in receiving a federal award that the Trump administration rescinded, COBRE School Board getting ready to announce finalists for school superintendent, a behavioral health listening session and where girls can buy prom dresses in a rural county lacking department stores.
Susan Moree:
So Nick, I understand there's been yet another development in the Silver City Schools effort to get that award money from the federal government to pay for their behavioral health programs.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, back in 2023, the Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was a response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, back in 2022. And one of the things that came out of that were really big mental health grants to school districts. And the only district in New Mexico to receive one of those $5 million mental health grants was Silver Consolidated Schools. And they’re obviously very proud of that. They bought a bunch of equipment, materials, built special rooms in each school where kids could go to de-stress if they, you know, needed a break. And unfortunately, when the Trump administration came in last year, those grants through the U.S. Department of Education were all suspended because the department said they didn't align with the Trump administration's priorities. So there have been federal lawsuits about this. Silver schools filed their own suit, and then attorneys general from a number of states, including New Mexico, filed suit last year and basically won in federal court. The Department of Education was told, ‘hey, turn loose this money. You're not following the rules in suspending it.’ So the latest in that, at Monday's school board meeting for Silver Schools, the board learned that the latest is the district believes they'll receive potentially about six more months of funding from the mental health grant. That'd be about $483,000. But the federal government is putting a whole lot more restrictions and a whole lot more hoops that the district has to jump through to get that remaining funding. The school superintendent said he would jump through whatever hoops there were to get it, and he was very conciliatory with the Department of Education saying, if they were going to fund this, he was happy to use that funding and was glad that they were supporting rural school districts.
Susan Moree:
And is anything happening at COBRE?
Nick Seibel:
Oh, yeah. Well, last week, the COBRE School Board met and picked their list of finalists for their permanent superintendent. So that's kind of an exciting thing. And we'll have that story up online here later on today.
Susan Moree:
And speaking of behavioral health, there was a behavioral health listening session in Silver City, correct?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, there have been a number of those, actually. It's part of basically the state's plan to spend a whole bunch of money that they have set aside to fund better behavioral health across the state. It's a $1 billion fund that the legislature established in 2025. And the way that's going to be spent is basically guided by district. And so they funded, they set up districts across the state, 13 districts that mirror the judicial districts. So the six judicial districts is Grant County, Hidalgo County, and Luna County. And so those three counties are working together basically to build their priorities and go after some of that billion dollars to bring it here to southwest New Mexico and hopefully meet some of the priorities that have been identified by the public and community leaders in these meetings.
Susan Moree:
I didn't ever stop to think how it might be difficult to pick up a prom dress when you're living in a rural county. Where do you go to shop?
Nick Seibel:
It's definitely a challenge, that's for sure. It's the one that the Silver City Women's Club has really kind of stepped up and tried to address. Once upon a time, Silver City had department stores. We don't. So the cost of having to go out of town or shop online is added to the cost of, you know, what can be a $400 and up dress. And so the Women's Club decided, well, they had some members that had some lightly used prom dresses. Some other folks from the community stepped up and donated dresses. A number of the thrift stores in town, when they have appropriate prom dresses donated, they send them on to the Women's Club. So every year, including last weekend, they have their prom dress sale where they sell these donated dresses for $10 a piece. That $10 also gets each girl a pair of shoes to go with their dress and a piece of jewelry to complete their outfit. If they find other pieces of jewelry that they like, they can pick those up for a dollar per piece for additional pieces. We were out there during the sale and a number of girls came in and found dresses that they really liked. Some of the women's club members volunteered to do some alterations for at least one of the girls who found a dress she liked that didn't quite fit. And definitely filling a need in the community and sort of carrying on a long tradition of service by our women's club.
Susan Moree:
And where can readers find these stories, Nick?
Nick Seibel:
You can find all that and more at scdailypress.com.
