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Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Schools to Offer Social Services

By Amy Miller
Journal Staff Writer
    The city, county and school board will work together to redesign schools to be year-round social service providers for both children and adults.
    The City Council unanimously approved an intergovernmental agreement Monday allowing the work to begin.
    "This is our response to the national commitment that no child should be left behind," Albuquerque Public School Board member Miguel Acosta told the council.
    "Schools by themselves will not close the achievement gap," he said.
    Each community will work with educators to decide what services its community school should offer. Possibilities include weekend or evening use of libraries and computers, health care, parenting classes, and job training.
    The school board, county commissioners and the Albuquerque Business Education Compact, a partnership of business, education and local governments have pledged $100,000 each to create a community school partnership.
    The City Council agreed Monday night to add another $100,000.
    The first step for the newly formed partnership will be to go into communities to find what services they need and to make sure schools do not duplicate services already provided.
    Some neighborhood organizations told the council they were concerned they had not been involved in the process so far.
    "My fear is with the collaboration, with all the big entities, where is the voice of the community?" said Christina Chavez-Apodaca, president of the Santa Barbara-Martineztown Neighborhood Association.
    Councilor Craig Loy acknowledged their comments and said, "If we have been derelict, it has not been intentional."
    The partnership will spend its first year writing operating procedures that all the participating agencies will have to approve.
    It will set up a board made up of city councilors, county commissioners and APS administrators to hire staff.
    And it will try to raise money from grants and other government agencies, such as the state.
    A separate nonprofit agency would oversee the partnership's finances to make sure no agency controlled the budget.
    After the planning phase is complete in about a year or two, schools and communities would work together to decide what kind of services to offer.
    Officials estimate it would cost between $43 million and $87 million to set up community programs at every Albuquerque public school.
    But about 80 percent of the estimated cost is already being paid by APS, the county and the city on programs such as the middle school initiative or after-school programs.
    Following the meeting, Acosta said he hopes to have the board appointed, and all the operating procedures in place, in the next two to three months.
    "Now there's some real substance," he said.
    Acosta would like to have all the organizational work in place by the time the Legislature meets next year.