Stuck in the Middle

Capshaw's interior hallways were lined with posters covered in points from class discussions, where students and teachers wrangled with the pros and cons of the proposal. The list of negatives often stretched far longer.

"I've heard from hundreds and hundreds of people," Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Joel Boyd said weeks later, at the Jan. 12 school board meeting. "There is not a popular decision to be made. There is not consensus on any one side of this issue."

The discussion of what's happening to these schools has been circulating as a series of dominoes have fallen. De Vargas, in particular, saw it coming—its enrollment having dropped to a third of capacity and leaving room to share its campus with Mandela International Magnet School, the district's recently launched International Baccalaureate program.

For Capshaw, the announcement that an out-of-state consulting company had recommended combining the school with De Vargas came as a shock. So Board of Education members agreed to sit down with concerned teachers, parents and students, who were sent off to their holiday break with word that the school would likely close. The Capshaw session was one of a dozen to gather feedback on the proposal in the month between the board meeting debuting the plan and the one in which board members would try to determine the next steps for these schools.

Enrollment at the district's three middle schools, Capshaw, De Vargas and Ortiz, has hovered below capacity in recent years. De Vargas has the highest rate in the district of students transferring out and saw enrollment drop from 325 seventh and eighth graders last year to 234 this year—in a school building with a capacity for 653. That's almost as many middle schoolers as are enrolled in Capshaw and De Vargas together, which has fueled the conversation about joining the schools.

"We have a total of 660 kids. We can't have two schools," Carrillo told meeting attendees. "The answer is yes, we're going to combine the two schools."

It's not a question of whether this happens, he said, it's when and how and at which campus. He's an outlier on the school board, however, where members have hesitated to commit to a course of action.

"We look at the facilities, and we know Capshaw is in need of some major improvements, and then we look at where our students are," said Cashmon, whose daughters went to Capshaw. "De Vargas, I think everybody knows, is a small community in a school far too big."

The meeting took place under a banner naming Leah Harvey Middle School and Harrington Junior High, schools closed and merged in 1976 to make Capshaw Middle School.

In a Dec. 14 presentation to the Santa Fe Public Schools Board of Education, Atlantic Research Partners, a consulting firm that focuses on education issues, suggested consolidating Capshaw and De Vargas into one middle school at the more centrally located De Vargas campus on Llano Street, both as a cost-saving measure and as a way to increase the number of "high-performing seats" in the district. That school would have enough students to offer a breadth of programs, from band to robotics, and save the district the overhead of running separate schools when the per-student funding doesn't fully support both.

The Mandela International Magnet School, the district's only International Baccalaureate Program, would then move to Capshaw's campus and use that space for the in-demand school to add grades and increase class sizes.

The Board of Education initially suggested it would make a decision on the proposal during its Jan. 12 meeting, but that quickly began to look hasty despite pressure to act in time to appropriately draft the 2017 bond to pay for school projects.

"I don't feel that I can make the decision to make this big of a change in this short of a time," Board of Education member Linda Trujillo said that day. "I quite honestly haven't heard how this is going to improve academics. I've heard how it's going to save operational money, and I've heard how it's going to increase choices, but those in my mind don't connect to how it's going to improve academics."

Public testimony, a presentation from school district staff analyzing the proposed changes and discussion among board members, all told, lasted more than seven hours. In the end, the board decided consolidating the schools in time for the next school year is too soon.

Carrillo challenged the choice.

"I don't think we're moving too quickly," he said, arguing the changes should begin in fall of 2016. "Otherwise, we're consciously leaving another class behind."

Pointing to the Algebra 1 scores, which show single-digit percentages for proficient scores of students at De Vargas and Ortiz, and 16 percent (eight total students) at Capshaw tested as proficient, he said, "There's always risk, but with risk comes gain. If we don't do anything, those are the numbers we can expect over coming years."

Boyd tells SFR his takeaway from the meeting is that the board wants him to find the funds to continue subsidizing the middle school program, not yet view the schools as in a transition period, and consider hiring a principal for a full year of program development before the new school opens. The total cost of that approach, he estimates, is $650,000.

"They brought me in here to initiate change and generally when we determine that change is warranted, then everybody wants to remain the same," says Boyd, who also points out that this study of kindergarten to eighth grade school programs was commissioned because of guidance from the board. "Every time we've done something large-scale in terms of our change agenda, there's been an enormous amount of resistance. Then after we do it, everybody celebrates it."

As evidence, he points to the success of schools like Engage, Mandela and Nina Otero.

"I think if we move too fast, and haven't put the proper thought, research, planning into the academic programming, that we could end up with basically just the merging of two schools and no better quality than what we have now," Board of Education President Susan Duncan tells SFR. "You can't just put the two schools together and assume or hope that the merged school is going to be more successful than the two we have now."

Duncan was working at Kaune Elementary when the district decided to close that school and merge it with three others to create Aspen Community Magnet School on the site of Alameda Middle School. Then, she worked at Aspen. The response to this proposal sounds all too familiar.

"A lot of what we're hearing from Capshaw is fear, fear of the other, that those kids are different. … Kids are kids, and they were all friends," Duncan says. "The social and cultural concerns about mixing the communities were not a big problem, even though there may have been, in the beginning, some concerns about that. Kids are very resilient, and they're open to new experiences and new people, so the students adjusted very quickly. Parents were a little slower."

Aspen struggled as a school for reasons she attributes to lack of a clear academic plan. Though it took time for people to forget Alameda's reputation and forge a new identity, that did come and, in a lot of ways, faster and easier than expected, she says. For those parents who were on board and positive about the change, it came even faster, and their kids picked up on those emotions—as they did with the opposite.

The district's recently launched "I love SFPS. There's a lot to love" campaign came up at the last school board meeting, as a Capshaw parent turned that around on the board, saying, "We love Capshaw. There's a lot to love."

"Capshaw has been around for a long time. We have a core of teachers who have established traditions, customs that we know work," Aaron Abeyta, a Capshaw teacher, said during the last board meeting. "We consider ourselves experts on middle school. Middle school is a tough time for a lot of students. We feel like we've figured out a way to make that transition smooth. … We embrace change, but don't change something that's working."

They cite their test scores, some of the best of any middle school in the area, as reason to preserve their program and argue that combining the schools could jeopardize those successes. They've enjoyed smaller class sizes, too, and a school packed to capacity with 660 kids doesn't sound appealing to some parents.

"Why should we move Capshaw? It makes more sense to have Mandela expand into the De Vargas campus," said Elaine Blaser, a teacher at Capshaw whose son also attends there. "Move the lower performing school into the higher performing school, not vice versa."

But Capshaw's building, with a capacity of 525, can't fit the 655 students and is past due for repairs and upgrades, like those needed to address structural integrity issues in the school gym and remove the burlap wall coverings used to hang student work that have since been deemed a fire hazard.

Capshaw, like the other middle schools in the district, was passed over by recent bond issues, which instead went largely to building new K-8 schools. Efforts concentrated on overcrowded Southside schools. With property taxes down, that income stream has also diminished. So Capshaw has languished with a growing number of concerns, including an ongoing need for lighting in the school parking lot, and it has been peppered with odd problems like an animal, perhaps a feral dog or coyote, taking up residence underneath one of the modular units.

"Since the new superintendent came on board, the district has done a tremendous amount of work at the elementary and high school level, and I think less at the middle school level," Duncan tells SFR. "Middle school hasn't had the total renovation focus that elementary and high school had. … It's really time now to focus on the middle schools."

The dream was to see the now 40-year-old campus scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up, but tearing down and starting over with a new building could cost up to $35 million. Unless the school board decides to ask for a tax increase, the next bond issue will provide less than $100 million, chipping away at a list of more than $200 million in needs. Long promised renovations at middle schools including Capshaw may finally be completed with the 2017 bond issue, in time for Mandela to move in.

"My question with this proposal is, they'll put a certain amount of money in the school for Mandela. Why not us?" says Theresa Anaya Burney, who has taught and coached at Capshaw since 1998.

None of the options considered are free. Whatever happens, De Vargas needs about $11.4 million in improvements and Capshaw needs $9.6 million. Whether the schools are consolidated or not, the district expects to spend those respective sums on those two campuses. But combining middle schools is expected to keep the facilites' cost around $24.5 million, compared to the estimated $30.6 million to $59.5 million if schools stay separate.

Laura Jeffery, principal of Capshaw, has said she stands by, willing and able to fill out the board's directives, once their decision is made, and trusts they've listened to the members of the community.

Maybe it was the rezoning two years ago that redistributed hundreds of kids who would have gone to De Vargas to other schools, or the opening of the K-8 schools on the Southside that drew students, or the move to place Mandela on their campus. But with just some 230 kids in a school big enough for three times that many, De Vargas knew change must be coming.

"We started here in October, fighting the imaginary fight for our life, because we knew that something had to happen," Zanet Ramos-Benavidez, a De Vargas math teacher, said at the January Board of Education meeting. "Our school has reached the size of too small."

Low enrollment makes it difficult to find enough kids to fill all the available programs, and so some have disappeared. Plus, running two underfilled middle schools essentially requires a $500,000 subsidy from the district.

"We can continue to subsidize them," Boyd said during the January school board meeting, "but that means it's going to be subsidized on the backs of other programs, because we don't have cash anymore."

The fight for De Vargas' future began with calls to rezone that would send more kids back to De Vargas, Ramos-Benavidez says, but they've thrown every idea they could come up with on the table, searching for ways to get more kids into the building. The wish is still to keep both schools open, Ramos-Benavidez later tells SFR, and the latest alternative suggested is to add sixth grade to each school to increase enrollment.

"Something has to happen, because it's financially irresponsible for our district to keep both the schools open without doing something to improve their enrollment," she says. "So are we willing to work with the option of doing the merger? Absolutely—if that is our only option."

"Grow us or put us together, and it's hard to grow us when the majority of the population is moving south. I think that's really the killer," says Marc Ducharme, principal of De Vargas. "It's going to have to happen, because if it doesn't happen now, Capshaw is going to be in the same situation we are four or five years from now."

Ducharme says he has hope for what a new middle school could achieve. Of the resistance from some of the Capshaw community, he says, "They're just not looking at the possibilities. They need to say, 'OK, we can do this.'"

For the principal of that new school, he advises a listening tour to gather input from teachers, staff and parents. And even before that new school opens its doors, he says, some groundwork should be laid for that community, like bringing parents, teachers and students together to get to know one another, build connections and craft programs.

There's potential at De Vargas' campus, he says, pointing to space for greenhouses and a home economics room that could be a feeder to the culinary program at Santa Fe High. Easy access to the Llano Street campus from the high school could allow for student mentors and professional coaches to work with middle schoolers.

"The only challenge in bringing these people together is that people are not looking at the possibilities and opportunities it provides and are only looking at, oh, this is going to hurt," Ducharme says. "The only problem is negativity."

Among the alternatives proposed to merging De Vargas and Capshaw is the suggestion that De Vargas join instead with Ortiz, a school located in the heart of Tierra Contenta on the Southside. But with a new principal and much work underway to address test scores and truancy, Ortiz is seen as needing to do what it can to right its own ship before adding students.

Atlantic Research Partners argues that following all its proposals, including adding grades and increasing enrollment at Tesuque, Atalaya, El Dorado and Gonzales, will provide "equitable access to high quality instruction" to nearly 1,300 students.

Mandela is already recognized as a successful program that's desired in the community, and the report suggests supporting that program with a campus of its own, rather than shared quarters at De Vargas, and giving it room to grow. The Academy at Larragoite campus has been proposed for the magnet school, but also comes with a multi-million-dollar price tag.

"I recognize there are a lot of good things going on with the other schools and a lot of things to balance," one Mandela parent told the board during its Jan. 12 meeting. "I just hope you'll take this opportunity to give Mandela a permanent home, which it really needs to reach full accreditation and reach its full potential as a school."

The aim is to add the full curriculum for an International Baccalaureate school, which means including sixth grade, even though many of the elementary schools are K-6 instead of K-5.

Look at the choices made in the last decade, and it's hard to think this situation was a surprise to anyone. There's little question that students who would have come to De Vargas and Capshaw rerouted to Nina Otero and El Camino Real Academy when those new K-8 schools opened. But the other reality is that those schools are located in neighborhoods that still have families living in them. Ducharme, who lives near De Vargas and Capshaw, both in the central part of the city, jokes that he no longer needs to buy Halloween candy. No one with small children lives in those neighborhoods anymore.

There's also an expectation that, reaching the scary age of middle school (read: puberty) and leaving the comfort of a place like an elementary school, where children have an existing support group, for a middle school means a voyage into dark, unknown country. Each year, hundreds of parents decide against that option. Over 20 percent of children in SFPS elementary schools, some 300, exit to private or charter schools instead of attending public middle schools, and perhaps 50 of them return for high school, according to school district staff.

Board members have expressed the expectation that combining the schools will cost the district more students—and remember, given the state funding model that grants money for each pupil, that really is a cost.

"It's very hard to convince people that have a strong attachment to one school or the other and strong feelings that somehow their school is better or their culture is better," Duncan says.

With a year and a half of community discussions and planning, she says, they might be able to craft a program people can get excited about.

Boyd says his priority is with making good choices for students.

"There are some kids who are doing well. Unfortunately there's a lot more kids who aren't doing well, and despite our best attempts to say we can do something that will serve all kids, there are still some families in this process, some adults in this process, who feel like they're losing something and there's a fear of loss," Boyd says, suggesting there's a silent majority who support making the changes necessary for increased student success. "What was clear to me is that there's a lot of fear of change, and there's nothing you can do to counteract that fear until you actually implement it and people see how it's working."

Santa Fe Reporter