Jose de Wit
SUN Staff Writer
Frustrated by media accounts of low test scores, unlicensed teachers and dropping enrollment at the Española Military Academy and fearing for the school’s future, parents and students are taking charge.
A group of parents have begun attending Governing Board meetings to grill Board members on various subjects, defend the school against outside criticism and even offer to take over basic school functions usually reserved for administrators and the Board.
Already, parent and student volunteers have responded to the school’s lack of cafeteria staff by serving food themselves, and parents have also offered to help write grants and lobby legislators for construction funds.
“Our kids want to be here. We want our kids here. We want to help in any way we can,” parent Michelle Martinez told Board members at Sept. 24.
It was a concern about the school’s future that brought parents together, parent Brenda Lovato said.
Specifically, a SUN report in which Española School District Superintendent David Cockerham and one Española School Board member suggested the District could reject the Academy’s charter renewal and shut down the school. A week later, a handful of parents started meeting as the Academy’s “Parent Support Team,” which has by now grown to more than a dozen members, Lovato said. Lovato volunteers for lunch duty almost daily, along with other parents.
Parent Calvin Smith said his main concern are the school’s facilities. State law requires the Academy to be housed in a building that meets state standards by 2014, or else lose its charter. The school is currently housed at the National Guard Armory and a set of portable buildings on Industrial Park Road. He expressed frustration at the District, which earlier this year rejected a legislative appropriation earmarked for the Academy’s construction needs and has since been reluctant to use District resources to get the Academy a new home.
A decision by the Academy’s Board to break away from the District and become a state-chartered school (see related story page A1) could focus the parent group’s attention toward the Academy’s own Board. Until now, the group has focused its frustrations on the District.
Smith said when the time comes, the parent group also plans on holding the Academy Board’s feet to the fire.
“They’re public servants, and they need to be held accountable,” Smith said. “After all, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
The group even wants to take school governance into its own hands. At the Sept. 24 Board meeting, Martinez asked how the group can nominate one of its members for a spot on the Board.
The Board has been dominated by a group of former and current city of Española administrators and former Española School District officials led by school founder and former mayor Richard Lucero. Lucero resigned from the Board in August but the Board still includes President Patrick Trujillo, a former city councilor; Vice President Joe Duran, a city building inspector, member Pete Gomez, a former Española School Board member; and Leonard Padilla, a former city finance director. Trujillo said a representative from the parent group could replace Lucero.
If the parents’ fervent support for the Academy seems unusual, it is because they’re at the end of their rope, Martinez said. Most have had negative experiences with Española School District schools but cannot afford or prefer not to pay for tuition at a private school. Their only remaining option is the Academy.
“Where are our children going to go?” Michelle Martinez, whose son, Michael Angelo, is in the eighth grade, said. “Our children left District schools — because of overcrowding, because of lack of teachers, because of curriculum.”
Lovato said she wouldn’t dream of sending her daughter, Christy, to Española middle school, with its high student population and chronic discipline problems.
“When I send (my daughter) to the Academy, I don’t worry about drugs. I don’t worry about fighting, alcohol or truancy,” Lovato said. “I worry about academics, and it’s been a long time in the Valley where all you have to worry about is academics.”