October 26 – Spring 2010: A budget shortfall of more than $7 million for Santa Fe Public Schools prompts school board members to vote to consolidate Larragoite, Alvord and Kaune elementary schools into a single K-8 campus on a former high school, despite opposition from families.
Fall 2010: Aspen Community Magnet School opens on La Madera Street, serving children from the three closed schools. The school board is considering — but ultimately halting — a proposal to consolidate the east side of Acequia Madre and Atalaya elementary schools after parental opposition.
February 2011: Newly elected board members who had opposed plans to close Acequia Madre criticize a plan by the current board to renew then-Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez’s contract before taking office on March 1. But the contract has been approved until 2013.
February 2012: The board terminates Gutierrez’s contract early with a $168,000 payout.
August 2014: The new K-8 El Camino Real Academy opens NM 599 to replace the old Agua Fría Elementary School, and the K-8 Nina Otero Community School opens on the city’s southwest side. Both are intended to help reduce overcrowding.
January 2016: The school board and Superintendent Joel Boyd, who stepped into the role in August 2012, propose consolidating Capshaw and De Vargas high schools, both downtown. The plan causes a lot of commotion.
April 2017: The school board and Superintendent Veronica García, who started the job in August 2016, announce a plan to consolidate EJ Martinez and Nava elementary schools to address a new budget deficit. The plan was ultimately abandoned, after much resistance from parents and students.
August 2017: The new Milagro Middle School opens on the Capshaw campus following a gradual consolidation of Capshaw and De Vargas, with plans to renovate the De Vargas campus to eventually house the school. Instead of a renovation with additions as initially planned, the district ultimately remodeled the existing facilities in De Vargas and built a brand new campus.
Spring 2018: EJ Martinez and Nava elementary schools approach the chopping block again as school board members weigh shrinking student populations at the two downtown schools against overcrowding at schools to the south. After parents again lobbied the school board to leave the two schools alone, the board took no action.
September 2019: As her time on the school board comes to an end, former board member Maureen Cashmon urges her colleagues to make the “tough decision” to right-size the district. “This board has discussed this before, and the only new information is that the facilities have gotten older and the number of elementary school-age children in Santa Fe has decreased,” she said.
October 2019: The issue of school closures resurfaces, and members of the Acequia Madre, EJ Martinez, and Nava elementary school communities publicly push for the preservation of their small schools. The proposal to close the schools was ultimately voted 3-2 in November 2019. Meanwhile, the first signs of Reimagining are starting to take shape. In an op-ed published in The New Mexican on October 5, 2019, then-board chair Kate Noble wrote: “Let’s not talk about closing schools. Let’s talk about improving education for all children and providing better options for Santa Fe Public Schools. ‘families’.
March 2020: Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announces the temporary closure of New Mexico public schools to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Initially scheduled to last just three weeks, the state-ordered closure lasted until the end of the 2019-2020 school year, with students learning online. Santa Fe Public Schools would remain in remote or hybrid learning for much of the 2020-2021 school year, with efforts to “reinvent” the district largely on hold during the public health emergency public health.
March 2021: García announces her retirement, citing the pressures of the pandemic, and her retirement will take effect in June.
August 2021: Noble makes a public pitch to “reimagine our schools together.” In an op-ed published in The New Mexican, she called for a concerted effort to improve equity and academic performance across the district.
December 2021: The Department of Public Instruction releases 40-day enrollment figures for Santa Fe Public Schools, confirming that the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated an ongoing decline in student populations. The district lost nearly 1,000 students between 2019 and 2021, enough to fill dozens of classrooms and several small schools.
September 2022: After a pandemic delay, efforts to reimagine Santa Fe’s public schools officially begin. At a school board meeting, Noble described the initiative — which is expected to last 12 to 18 months and cost about $210,000 — as “an alternative to the proposal to close schools.”
October 2022: The Santa Fe Public Schools Reimagining Steering Committee holds its first meeting and begins a year-long research process seeking perspectives from teachers, administrators, families and other community stakeholders.
August 2023: The school board approves a measure outlining procedures for closing or repurposing a school campus based on declining student numbers or economic factors, and a recommendation resulting from the Reimagining effort. It also adopts a policy that affirms its commitment to student involvement in decision-making processes.
January 2024: The board approves a resolution declaring a local “renaissance” in bilingual education, with efforts to bridge the gap between primary and secondary education.
October 2024: The board approves a resolution to create an internal “Mid-Level Education Council,” which will recommend best practices in secondary education to the Superintendent, and launch a communications campaign – funded by a $150,000 grant – to advertise Santa Fe Public Schools’ high school offerings to prospective students and their families.
January 2025: The board is expected to consider a resolution on “innovation schools,” creating a process through which schools can establish a specialized focus.
