I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Like most Albuquerque Public Schools students, Amanda Otero will be back in school today. But unlike most students this ninth grader said she’s been counting down the days waiting for her school to start.
She’s one of about 500 freshmen enrolled at the Atrisco Heritage Academy high school, which is being built on Albuquerque’s blossoming Southwest Mesa. Unfortunately, Otero won’t be walking into the new school today because it’s not finished. APS said the $120 million dollar school hit some construction snags and won’t officially open until October.
Until then, Otero and her classmates will start school at the vacant Bernalillo Metropolitan court house at Fifth and Tijeras in downtown Albuquerque. APS spent about $80,000 to convert the old court house into a school building. It’s not perfect, but it will be home to the staff and students of AHA for the next several months, and that suits Otero just fine.
"My whole summer was about waiting for us to start school," she said Saturday wearing her AHA cheerleading outfit and a smile that stretched across her face. She took part in an open house at the school’s temporary site along with about 150 parents and fellow students of the new school.
I was there too. I’m a teacher at Atrisco and like Otero, my summer was spent eagerly anticipating today. I’m a first-year teacher and the butterflies in my stomach started about a eight months ago when I decided to leave a 20-year career at the Albuquerque Journal to teach.
The decision to leave my job was made easier in January when I started reading about the Atrisco Heritage Academy and its principal Karen Sanchez-Griego. Like me, she was a graduate of Rio Grande High School who was raised in the South Valley. I sensed her enthusiasm for the new school the first day I met her and asked her if I would be a good fit for her school. I didn’t have much teaching experience, would need to go through an alternative licensure program and would need a good mentor to be the kind of teacher I wanted to be.
I’m not sure if there were tears in her eyes, but she looked straight at me and said, "You’re what we want because you love what you’ve been doing all these years, you love the community these kids come from and you know what it is going to take to turn these kids’ perceptions around about what they are capable of."
Then she told me a part of her story.
"When I went to Rio, I was an average student," she said. "But I wanted to go to law school. Don’t ask me how I came to that decision, or why. But I said I wanted to be lawyer. I went to see my counselor and she took a look at my (college entrance) scores and said, `College isn’t for you.’ She actually told me that I should go apply at the local Piggly Wiggly (grocery store) down the street. No student should ever be given that kind of advice. None."
The Piggly Wiggly career didn’t happen, thank goodness. Sanchez-Griego went on to college, became an educator and will get her doctorate from the Univeristy of New Mexico within the year. She’s been a teacher and administrator in APS for 12 years and spent the last seven as the director of ENLACE, a nonprofit group that promotes academic successes for Latino youth.
When APS decided to build a high school on the West Mesa, Sanchez-Griego knew where she wanted to be.
"It was my dream to be a principal of a school," she said. "And to be the principal of a school in a community I feel so passionate about makes this extra special for me."
This is no ordinary high school. It’s not a charter school. Sanchez-Griego is calling this a college prep school in a part of town where in the past there has been very little college prepping going on. Our school is based on small learning communities and career academies. Every freshman walks into a college environment on a path to college if they choose.
They take two years of a foreign language, starting freshman year. If they’re not ready for English I, they give up an elective and take a reading lab in addition to English I. Not ready for Algebra I? Well, there’s Algebra I and a math lab waiting. No watered-down education here, Sanchez-Griego said.
"We are going to expect more and get more from these kids," she said.
I feel the same way. In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be telling the story of Atrisco in this column in the New Mexico Independent. Our challenges might make for some good reading.
For one, this school is 80 percent free and reduced-lunch students, which is how school districts determine socio-economic conditions of the community a school serves. There is a large number of English language learners, since this part of the South Valley has seen an influx of Mexican immigrants to the area. And, test scores for most of these students have not been good.
Many of us hope that all changes. Call us idealistic, but we’re going into this adventure thinking we can make a difference. Our principal hired us to do just that and she’s not taking `no’ for an answer. Neither should that community, which Sanchez-Griego affectionately calls "one of great promise."
