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Friday, November 21, 2008

SFPS 'Underfunded by $11 Million'

By Polly Summar
Journal Staff Writer
      It was a stately affair, but it couldn't mask the bad news — most of which the listeners already knew.
       In her first state of the schools address, Santa Fe Schools superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez told about 125 people gathered in the Capitol Rotunda that high school graduation rates are down, ACT scores are below the state and national average, and attendance rates are below the numbers the state considers acceptable.
       Gutierrez blamed funding for many of the problems: “It has been determined that we are underfunded by $11 million annually ... based on our students' needs and our district's enrollment.”
       There's an assumption that Santa Fe is a wealthy district, she said, but that the evidence shows otherwise. “Our federal poverty indicator, the number of students who would qualify for free or reduced lunch, is two-thirds of the population...,” she said. In the county, she added, only 12 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty level.
        Lobbying the Legislature to make a much-needed change to the funding formula is crucial, she said: “Otherwise, our district will experience some very deep cuts to programs and staffing in the coming year.”
        Gutierrez also said the community has to adopt a different attitude in order for the schools to improve. Consider, Gutierrez said, that most students spend six to six-and-a-half hours in school, for 180 days of the year. “That, in reality, is less than one sixth of the year,” she said. “What about the other 85 percent of their lives? How else can the community step up and make a difference?”
        In discussing the achievement gap between the district's Anglo students and Hispanic students, Gutierrez said the latter students are “not our children that are newcomers to the country and are learning English as well as adapting to a new culture, but our Hispanic students whose first language has most likely been English rather than Spanish.”
        While only three schools in the past year made Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind — Wood Gormley Elementary, Tesuque Elementary and SER/Career Academy — Gutierrez said Atalaya Elementary had recently been added. “We protested the original ranking,” Gutierrez said.
        But Gutierrez said she has concerns about NCLB. “I fear NCLB has created tunnel vision by focusing solely on reading and math,” she said. “I believe NCLB has sucked dry the creativity and passion most teachers possess, and it is this creativity and passion that led them into the profession, and it is this rigidity within NCLB that is driving them away. Slowly, but surely, NCLB is destroying public education.”
        That said, Gutierrez said student achievement has improved in some cases:
       n Agua Fria and Piñon elementaries made significant gains in reading instruction;
       n Santa Fe and Capital high schools and Sweeney Elementary made significant gains in reading and mathematics instruction;
       n Capshaw and Ortiz middle schools made significant gains in mathematics instruction.
        Gutierrez urged the audience to become more politically involved in supporting the district. “We are eligible to receive about $160 million in capital funding through GO (general obligation) bonds and about $8 million per year through House Bill 33 for small projects and maintenance of our buildings without increasing taxes to our homeowners in the community,” she said.
        With the money, the district would like to build permanent classrooms at schools like Piñon Elementary, which has some 16 portable classrooms, and at Cesar Chavez Elementary, which considered closing its library this year to accommodate the growing student body.
        For Grace Mayer, president of the National Education Association-Santa Fe affiliate, who was attending the address, many of her concerns for the district came down to one major issue: fiscal accountability and how it affects students and teachers.
        “There's a lot of talk about whether our dropout rate is 20 percent or 35 percent,” said Mayer; the difference depends on whether the figures are calculated by following each individual student or by looking at numbers alone. “But either one is too high.”
       

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