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November 18, 2009
SANTA FE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
 
State of the Schools Address * November 18, 20091
State of the Schools AddressNovember 18, 2009[Press Copy]
INTRODUCTION…
Good afternoon. Thank you for joining me. It’s wonderful to be here in the Rotunda of our StateCapitol with so many of you who share a strong commitment to improving public education for eachand every one of our students. I know that for all of you a quality public education for our youth inSanta Fe is a very high priority, and it is because of you that our schools are good and gettingbetter.So let me just begin today by saying, “Thank-you.” Thank you to all the people you never read aboutin all the stories about budget deficits and school takeovers or test scores. Thank you to theteachers, the educational assistants, the principals, the school counselors, social workers andnurses, the school and district secretaries, and department directors. Thank you to the school busdrivers and transportation staff, the student nutrition staff, the custodial and maintenance staff,the human resources staff and the business services staff.I especially want to thank my Executive Team; Dr. Mel Morgan, Deputy Superintendent, DeniseJohnston, Associate Superintendent, Michael Erwin, Chief Financial Officer, Jim Romero, ChiefOperations Officer, Tracie Oliver, Human Resources Director, and Erica Landry, CommunityServices Director and the person responsible for today’s wonderful event. I want to also thank ouradministrative assistants, Krisha Leyba and Sheila O’Malley. They keep me pointed in the rightdirection and on time day in and day out.There are five people that are very important and that are our Board of Education. Angelica Ruiz,President of the Board of Education; Richard Polese, Vice-President; Mary Ellen Gonzales,Secretary; and Members Frank Montano and Barbara Gudwin. They work tirelessly for thestudents and employees of the district. We also have three student advisers; they are Penual(Penny) Bickley representing CHS; Nancy Martinez representing SFHS; and Sylvia Solanorepresenting SER/Academy. These are wonderful young people that give so unselfishly of theirtime.In addition, our local delegation of Representatives and Senators are strong advocates for Santa FePublic Schools and we are most appreciative of their support. They are: Representative JimTrujillo; Representative Lucky Varela; Representative Brian Egolf; Representative Rhonda King; andSenator Peter Wirth; Senator Phil Griego and Senator Nancy Rodriguez. I especially want to thankour lobbyists, Linda Siegle and Virginia Vigil. They work tirelessly on behalf of Santa Fe PublicSchools.We have with us today our Union Leaders that work in true partnership with the district to achievecommon interest and results for our employees and the management staff and they are: Laurie
 
November 18, 2009
SANTA FE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
 
State of the Schools Address * November 18, 20092
Longiaru, President, NEA-SF; and John Morrison, Vice-President, NEA-SF; and Benny Gurule,President, SFFSE and David Holguin, Vice-President, SFFSE. We all work in the true spirit ofinterest-based bargaining.Once again, thank you for being here today as we talk about the state of the Santa Fe PublicSchools. We will also be releasing today our second annual Accountability Report for Santa FePublic Schools. Last year was our first report, and we believe you will find this year’s report muchimproved in terms of the format and the information contained within the report.
OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS…
As you know,
Improving our lives through Education 
has become the learning signature, motto ormantra (call it what you will) for Santa Fe Public Schools these past two years, as we all have a verypassionate belief about education improving the lives of our students, as well as all the wonderfuladults that work with our young people day in and day out.I ask you to listen carefully to our accomplishments for the 2008-09 school year, and then I wouldask any of you to argue that Santa Fe Public Schools is not improving in tremendous strides.More than 100 of our 2009 graduates received scholarships beyond the state lottery scholarship.Our seniors averaged a 3.0 GPA, with our senior student athletes at CHS maintaining a 3.0 andSFHS senior athletes a 2.97. AVID Students (Advancement via Individual Determination) is aprogram which targets students as potential first-time college graduates in their families, and theymaintained an overall GPA of 3.2, collectively. More than 300 students participated in AVID thispast year, and are from CHS, SFHS, SER/Academy, OMS and DVMS.Capital High School’s CAPA students were the state champions in the NMAA One Act Festival forthe second year in a row. Film students received third place in the All Roads National GeographicFilm Festival; Jacob Cassell received third place for his music video, the River and Maria RocioFranco won first place in the statewide Spanish Literacy Competition for her work “Enscribo inEspanol” from a field of 250 contestants.Emily Pauline Estes received the Santa Fe Institute Outstanding Science Student Award and CliffRichardson received the Presidential Scholarship and Award to attend New Mexico Tech, andSergio Barraza and Patricia Maez received the Elks’ Club Citizenship Awards. All of these studentshailed from SER/Academy.Diego Trujillo received numerous awards in Robotics and Engineering competitions and Science Fairsacross the state, and he was also the recipient of the Student Star Scholar award through NewMexico MESA. Santa Fe High School MESA students took numerous awards in MESA competitionand Daniel Johnson, Hernan Gomez-Chavez and Kyle Ortiz took first place in Wind EnergyEngineering, and Diego, along with Steven Alarid and Marissa Segura took first place in Robotics.
 
November 18, 2009
SANTA FE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
 
State of the Schools Address * November 18, 20093
Santa Fe High’s music programs received numerous awards. SFHS Band, under the direction ofAnthony Schillaci brought home a gold medal from the Six Flags Fiesta Texas Music Festival andMark Jurgens received the “outstanding soloist” award for his saxophone solo. The marching bandtook second place in the Pageant of Bands Competition in Albuquerque and won the People’s ChoiceAward and the Best Color Guard Award.Choral students, under the direction of Marilyn Barnes received top honors in the Solo andEnsemble Festival sponsored by the North Central New Mexico Music Educators Association withthree out of four “Best Soloist” awards going to the SFHS Choir. The choir received the highestrating possible in this competition and guitar students also ranked very high!Numerous students participated in the Spanish Spelling Bee last fall and Soledad Sanchez y Lucero,a sixth grade student at Pinon took first place and advanced to competition in Albuquerque.Fiona Jensen-Hitch took second place in the Santa Fe County Spelling Bee last spring, and RajatSingh (former Pinon student, currently at ATC) went all the way to National Spelling BeeCompetition in Washington, D.C. this past spring.More than 1,500 K-7 SFPS students competed in the Science Expo Challenge with first, second andthird place winners (5 in each category) receiving savings bonds between $100 and $500 hundreddollars. Numerous Santa Fe Public Schools students also received the Earth’s First BirthdaySunflower Prize Award. This award consists of students competing in independent scientificinvestigation around the life cycle of sunflowers and engages students in the pursuit of scientificdiscovery.Budding elementary scientist, Dehila Balsomo from Atalaya Elementary was awarded a $1,000scholarship by the Bonnie Plant Growers of Union, Alabama for growing a 20 pound cabbage!Many more of our students received awards and those can be found in our Accountability Report,and were simply too numerous for me to name in the State of the Schools Address today.
OUR ATHLETIC PROGRAMS…
Our Athletic Teams struggled a bit, but we continued to achieve in all areas including sportsmanshipand program. Our athletic programs are considered very competitive, and remain in contention forthe district championships every year. Students also rank academically at the top of the district.Our teams and coaches work hard. Here are some highlights from the 2008-09 seasons:
 
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