Candidates for APS board share vision for district, speak on key issues at forum

Candidates vying for election to the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education shared their vision for the district Wednesday night and discussed some of the most prevalent issues faced by New Mexico’s largest school district.

This November, voters in APS Districts 3, 5, 6, and 7 will elect representatives to the board. Seven candidates made their cases at the district’s headquarters during the forum. Two candidates were not in attendance.

The candidates fielded questions on topics such as student academic performance, board member responsibilities and keeping schools safe. The public submitted the questions, according to the district.

This school year — which began Aug. 7 — APS officers have recovered six guns from students in separate incidents, including five retrieved on Aug. 20, the highest number the district has ever recorded in a school day.

“The district has been relying on a system of ‘if you see something, say something,’” Brian Laurent Jr., a candidate for District 5, said. “The challenge with that approach is it allows the weapons into the building.”

He added that a “broader community-wide conversation” needs to happen about juveniles getting their hands on guns.

Speaking from his experience as a father of a student at a K-8 school where a 12-year-old was caught with a 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun last school year, Joshua Martinez, the other challenger for District 5, said he wants to see APS use more technology to catch firearms.

“This is something I think about every day,” Martinez said. “There’s lots of resources and technologies that are available for school districts to utilize to prevent guns from being on campus.”

Since the pandemic, APS police have recovered 66 guns on or near campuses. In response, the district has invested in a multitude of security upgrades, including panic buttons, increased scrutiny of visitors, capital improvements in school buildings, and fencing.

“I’ve championed an initiative that brings together the district attorney, APS, Albuquerque Police Department, the sheriff, the DOJ, and the FBI to continue discussions with our students about violence intervention, and they’re bringing that directly into the classrooms,” Courtney Jackson, incumbent and District 7 representative, said. “I think this helps our students to understand the risks.”

In addition to guns on campus, candidates also spoke on other issues they see as potential deterrents to student academic success and sense of safety on campus. Kristin Wood-Hegner, a candidate for District 7, sees community schools as a way to counter poverty in underserved communities.

“One thing I really love about Albuquerque Public Schools is our community schools, and community schools are a really cool model that addresses the root causes of the challenges that families and students are facing that impede student outcomes,” Wood-Hegner said. “I’d like to expand on this model.”

Vying for the District 6 seat, candidate Warigia Bowman said that devoting resources to underserved communities is also crucial.

“I think when we talk about connecting with the community, we need to make sure that we include those English-language learners,” Bowman said. “I think we should do biannual audits, which give parents and community members a chance to say what they think is going well in terms of the goals and guardrails in the strategic plan and areas where they’d like to see improvement.”

Bowman’s challenger, David Ams, was not in attendance due to what he said was a medical emergency.

According to recent interim monitoring reports conducted by district leadership, student academic performance has been on par with the goals the board set in 2023 in hopes of turning around student outcomes by 2028. Some of those reports are specific to Yazzie-Martinez students.

“I think that we can adapt to community demand while remaining true to the goals by remembering what the community told us matters,” Danielle Gonzales, incumbent District 3 board member and current board president, said. “What the community told us matters most is, are our students learning? Are our students able to read? Are our students able to do math? Are our students ready for success in life?”

Gonzales was part of the board that set the goals, seeking community input before establishing them. However, her opponent said he believes there is more that can be done for underserved students.

“Something that I have talked about for a while now is an allocated funding model to make sure that we’re diverting resources over to our most vulnerable students,” Issac Flores, a candidate running for District 3, said. “When we look at our Martinez-Yazzie students, we see that not only have they been let down, but they’ve been let down repeatedly.”

The third challenger in the District 3 race, Rebecca Betzen, was not in attendance for the forum and said she was at a family wedding.

District 3 covers the city’s north-central corridor and stretches across the river to Corrales, bordering Rio Rancho Public Schools. District 5 encompasses the city’s central and far West Side, bordered on the east by District 3.

District 6 accounts for the foothills, part of Uptown and the lower end of the Northeast Heights, stretching to the East Mountains. District 7 covers the northern part of the foothills and the north end of Northeast Heights. It is bordered on the west by Interstate 25.

Election Day is Nov. 4. Early voting begins Oct. 7 and ends Nov. 1.