The Española School Board convened a work session May 13 to discuss the logistics of temporarily relocating preschool and kindergarten students to a different facility.
Julé Skoglund, the principal of Los Niños Kindergarten Center, was on hand to discuss how the staff is preparing for the move and to address her main concerns with provisionally educating the students at a different facility.
Skoglund’s first request at the meeting was to ensure that the equipment that belonged to the school would be secured in a safe place.
“We’re concerned about storing over at Cariños because of the possibility that things go missing during the summer,” she said. “Every summer it seems like we have break-ins and things go missing, and we’re really not willing to let that happen with some of our items, so we would like to make sure they’re securely locked up.”
To accommodate her request, the District has made available a couple of storage bins to house the large items, as well as space in the Cariños library. The library will be locked all summer to ensure the items that are stored there will be safe.
Her second request had to do with the placement of the students and her staff, which has not yet been determined.
One possibility is to place the students at the Cariños Charter School, but that would depend on the outcome of the pending litigation between Cariños and the Española School Board. If Cariños is forced to move, they may also be looking for a new place for their students and staff.
The second option is to place the students, as well as the staff, at two separate locations. The majority of the kindergarten students would be placed at the Española Elementary School and the remaining students would be placed at Alcalde Elementary School.
Skoglund said she preferred that everyone be kept at one location.
“If possible, we would love to keep the team together,” she said. “That is one of our goals because it is an early learning center. Spreading everybody out would sort of water down the program.”
Since the Cariños Charter School is the only facility large enough to accommodate all students and staff, Superintendent Danny Trujillo agreed with Skoglund.
“Mr. chairman, members of the Board, I would like to go on record, because I know it is a work session, that our first option is to place the students at Cariños,” he said.
Additionally, the Cariños school will have to be retrofitted to accommodate the children should they be placed there, which will cost the District anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000.
Moreover, meals will be catered and sent in from other schools that have the facilities to prepare them.
The Los Niños Kindergarten Center was approved for a $2.7 million renovation by the state in August 2012. Sixty-three percent of the cost will be funded by the state and the remaining amount will be the District’s responsibility.
The renovation will include replacing the climate control system, to ensure the center has an adequate air conditioning and heating system. There will also be other updates to the facilities, such as new paint and new carpets in the classrooms. New tiles and lighting will be installed as well. The restrooms will also be remodeled so that each can service two different classrooms.
At the same meeting, the Board approved the advertisement of the project to the public, setting in motion the process to choose who will be contracted to do the remodeling of the center.
The construction documents will be made available to the contractors in October or November and the building committee will then negotiate with the contractor on the project.
Construction is set to begin in November, at the earliest, and the project’s estimated completion date is August 2015.
To prepare for the move, Skoglund sent letters to parents and informed the staff of the move’s timeline.