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By Rodd Cayton, City Desk ABQ
A divided Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education Wednesday night voted 4-3 to approve a “rightsizing” plan to close the North Valley’s Taft Middle School and repurpose the campus as the new home of Coronado Dual Language K-8 Magnet School.
Coronado is currently a K-5 elementary school. District staff says approval of the plan means it will get a larger space and be able to serve students who wish to continue their dual language education beyond fifth grade.
About 60% of the students who finish fifth grade at Coronado leave the district, according to agenda documents. One new grade will be added during each of the next three school years.
Among the motions approved is a boundary change to assign the current Taft attendance area to Taylor Middle School, which is 2 miles north of Taft. Superintendent Gabriella Durán Blakey told board members Taft families will be given transfer priority to enroll their children at the new Coronado school.
Another option, she said, is to transfer to Garfield STEM Magnet & Community Middle School 3 miles south of Taft, which will be the target of extensive investment.
The existing Coronado building near Downtown will serve as a newcomer resource center, as well as a new high school to serve immigrant students.
According to an application filed with the New Mexico Public Education Department, those students will benefit from the innovative pedagogical approaches and communal social-emotional learning support offered at the International High School.
The decision came about four hours into the meeting, and almost all who spoke during the meeting’s public forum chose rightsizing as their topic. More than a dozen people asked board members to reject the proposal or table the matter until more community input could be gathered.
Many of those said they had not been adequately informed by district staff of the matter and said the process felt rushed. Others expressed concerns about additional traffic in the area.
Blakey said the rightsizing initiative in APS began more than a decade ago to address declining enrollment. She has acknowledged some missteps in keeping the affected populations informed. Blakey said one oversight was in failing to engage the families of this year’s fifth-grade students, who would have started at Taft in the fall.
Deputy Superintendent Antonio Gonzales said district officials have been trying to connect with families “on an individual basis” to prepare students for the transition, pending approval.
Several public forum speakers encouraged board members to approve the creation of the international school. Those included immigrants who shared their struggles in adjusting to life in a new country and professionals who work with newcomer students.
Of the board members who voted against the rightsizing package, Josefina Dominguez and Heather Benavidez specified that they were voting against the process, not against the establishment of the international school.
“My no vote is against insidiously pitting one kind of group against another,” Dominguez said.
How they voted
The tally was identical on four agenda items: the boundary change, the repurposing of the Taft campus, the move of Coronado and the creation of the international school.
Yes: Janelle Astorga, Danielle Gonzales, Courtney Jackson, Crystal Tapia-Romero
No: Heather Benavidez, Josefina Dominguez, Ronalda Tome-Warito