Santa Fe Public Schools - Education - Santa Fe, New Mexico



City: Santa Fe, NM
Category: Education
Telephone: (505) 982-2631
Address: 610 Alta Vista St.

Description: For its first public schoolhouse, which served the community beginning in 1891, Santa Fe paid rent on a home at 352 Palace Ave. The little one-room school, which sat on the edge of an empty field, welcomed students from 1st grade through high school.Today, Santa Fe Public Schools serve the city of Santa Fe and much of Santa Fe County—1,016 square miles—with a wide assortment of buildings, programs, and opportunities. The district includes a bilingual early-childhood center, 21 elementary schools, four middle schools, and two high schools. The district has also opened four new primary and secondary alternative “charter schools” since 2000. As part of the school system’s 2010 Turnaround program, a holistic approach to reenvisioning public schools, three elementary schools have recently changed status to Community Schools, designed to serve the whole community, and more intend to do so. In addition, Turnaround aims to increase the number of Magnet Schools (public schools similar to charter schools that operate by consensus and accept students by lottery, but with a specific theme). The school system enrolls approximately 16,000 students and operates an open-enrollment system, allowing students to attend schools in different districts. SFPS also provides educational services to registered homeschool students and to students at the New Mexico School for the Deaf, the Santa Fe County Juvenile Detention Center, and the New Mexico Girls Ranch.Enrollment in Santa Fe public schools reflects the racial makeup of the city. In the 2008–09 school year, the number of students enrolled included 10,256 Hispanics, 2,797 Caucasians, 369 American Indian, 210 Asian/Pacific Islander, and 134 African American for a total of 13,766 students. Santa Fe High, with about 2,000 students, is the largest school in the system. Next to state government, the schools are the biggest employer in Santa Fe County, with about 1,850 employees on the payroll. In 2009, the district was operating on a reduced annual budget of some $86 million from all sources. Santa Fe ranks among the worst school districts in the state for graduation rates—and New Mexico tends to place in the bottom quartile when it come to the percentage of students who graduate from high school (50 percent). The reasons for the Santa Fe public schools’ poor performance and high dropout rate depend on who’s doing the talking, but inadequate funding, children’s lack of preparation for school, family stress, and teacher salaries lower than the national average are usually mentioned. Fully 75 percent of students attending schools qualify for free school lunches.One of the strongest hopes for improving the public schools lies with school-community partnerships. Through an emphasis on volunteers as mentors, tutors, and guests in the classroom, the district wants to give the children in its care more opportunities for success. The nonprofit Santa Fe Partners in Education (505-474-0240) builds links between the community and the public schools to help teachers do their work better. The group underwrites those things beyond the district budget: field trips, special programs in the classroom, and supplies beyond the normal allotment. Partners also honors innovative teachers. The Santa Fe Public Schools do some things well. In addition to the state-approved curriculum, the Santa Fe Public Schools offer a wide variety of special programs, including art immersion, bilingual education, culinary arts, peer mediation, and after-school care. A Foster Grandparents program matches elementary-school children who need extra attention with senior citizens for tutoring and conversation. The district has been busy building new schools in recent years, a task long overdue.Santa Fe’s first two public secondary charter schools were The Academy for Technology and the Classics, at 74 Avan Nu Po Rd. (505-473-4282), and Monte del Sol School, located in the Nava Adé subdivision (505-982-5225). A third, Tierra Encantada (505-983-3337) is located on the Santa Fe Indian School campus and has 142 students and nine teachers. Although part of the public system, charter schools are responsible for developing their own philosophy and curriculum as well as managing their own personnel and budget. Because they have proven to be very popular, admission is usually by lottery.During the 2008-2009 school year, The Academy for Technology and the Classics, now located in a beautiful new building near the Institute of Indian Arts, enrolled 75 students in grades 7 through 12, with, as the name implies, an emphasis on modern science combined with classical sources of knowledge. Monte del Sol, enrolling 360 students in grades 7 through 12, stressed a mentorship approach incorporating “art, sustainability, leadership, and community.” An elementary charter school (the oldest in the area) is Turquoise Trail Elementary, beyond the city limits south of Santa Fe on Highway 14, near Cerrillos. It enrolls 495 students. The SER/Career Academy, the alternative high school within the public system, works with students who are pregnant, have dropped out and want to return to school, or who need attention not available at the other two public high schools. And, of course, we have sports: Students can try close to 30 different sports in grades 7 through 12.


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