A Harmful Mistake
Dixon Elementary is usually the highest performing school in the troubled Española School District. The have won national and statewide awards. But instead of celebrating this successful school, the Española School Board is considering closing it.
A company called Visions in Planning Inc. whose website says they help draft and implement policies for school closure, recommended closing Dixon and other schools. Their Vision is blurry, we don’t want what they selling.
The board would exhibit Real Vision if they studied why Dixon is so successful and implement their findings throughout the district.
Every day after school you can sit on the porch of the food co-op with the viejitos and watch a line of kids being shepherded across the street like a gaggle of geese to the library’s after-school program. There they get homework help, physical activity, and educational/cultural programming.
In school, community volunteers work with students on art projects, a vegetable garden, and a running club. The Embudo Valley Tutoring Association goes into the school to help kids who are struggling with math or reading.
The school is vital to the fabric of our community and the community nurtures it. Why rip that apart? Why make young kids ride a bus for hours every day on NM Highway 68 through the canyon on one of the most dangerous roads in the state? Why leave an empty hulking school building in the heart of our village?
Closing Dixon Elementary would be a tremendous and harmful mistake.
Shel Neymark
Embudo