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In Deming, Charter High School Fights For Its Life

 
  Commentary:  Just north of the railroad tracks, the Deming Cesar Chavez Charter High School occupies what used to be Martin Elementary School. Principal Stan Lyons gave me a tour last week, frequently stopping to welcome students back from the holiday break and urge them along to class. It looks much like other schools, but with a smaller faculty and smaller student body. The building seems much larger than the school it houses. 

A recent Deming Headlight report states the school's total enrollment as 112, but Lyons acknowledged that attendance fluctuates constantly. There is the voluntary truancy one might expect - kid stuff - but students cope with adult problems as well. Some are now parents themselves and must work to support their families. Some students move for work reasons. Some do not have secure homes.  

The school has struggled with staff  turnover, management problems, and disappointing scores under the state's grading system. Now there is a new fire for Lyons to confront, midway through his first year as principal. In December, the Deming school board declined to renew the school's charter, recommending instead that it be absorbed into the district as an alternative school. School board President Ron Wolfe attributes that vote to the school's performance: "The graduation rate had fallen from 28 percent to 6.6 percent in a three year period and was not serving the students well." The Chavez high school will appeal the decision to Secretary Hanna Skandera of the Public Education Department. They can also seek to be chartered directly by the state if the appeal does not go their way.

Charter schools are publicly funded yet independently managed. They must meet the same state benchmarks, but their independence allows the schools to limit class sizes, implement course material or teaching methods differently than traditional schools, and develop individualized approaches based on local needs.

Yet charter schools are controversial in large part because public education is a political football. Under Presidents Bush and Obama, federal policy has pushed to evaluate teachers by student performance on standardized tests, closing down schools deemed to be failing, and promoting privately-managed, non-union charter schools instead of building smaller, better traditional schools. New Mexico has backed charters aggressively. In a seven year period, the funding formula for public schools in our state has increased by nearly $212 million, of which $98 million went to charter schools. This means 46 percent of the increase in funding went to schools serving just 7 percent of the students. 

It is easy to confuse the charter school with Deming's alternative school. As Wolfe explains: "The alternative school is there to aid current students" and "the charter school is for individuals who have left the public school and wish to complete their high school degree." There is also a secure school "for students that have gotten into trouble and need to be placed in a separate environment." 

Lyons likes to draw with marker while expressing his thoughts.  He draws a box and says, "We take the kids who don't fit into the main system," and illustrates with lines that bounce off and away from the box. 

Those broken lines represent kids with adult problems, kids who got promoted in a system that did not teach them how to read, kids who need one academic year to count for five to make their own way in the world - not just to avoid prison and earn a wage, but to live a healthy, meaningful life. If that's something we want for them. 

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Algernon D'Ammassa writes the "Desert Sage" column for the Deming Headlight and Sun News.  Write to him at DesertSageMail@gmail.com