Turquoise Trail delays studio campus plan
Permit issues mean students in media program will be at different site for first year
Turquoise Trail Charter Elementary School’s plan to launch seventh-grade classes in the fall at the nearby campus of the Santa Fe Studios has been delayed by Santa Fe County zoning requirements that may take months to fulfill.
The school’s leaders said that won’t slow their plans to open a separate middle school and add seventh and eighth grades within three years. Instead, they plan to use space at the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Fe/Del Norte at the Zona del Sol property off Jaguar Drive for at least a year.
“It works really well for us because our programming doesn’t start during the school year until kids get out of school, so the building is available during the day,” said Roman Abeyta, head of the Boys & Girls Club. “It’s a natural fit.”
School leaders said they will stick to their plan to offer film and media programming at the site and still work with Santa Fe Studios to arrange field trips and workshops on movie-related topics — a curriculum chosen in part because of the plan to expand into portables at Santa Fe Studios.
School for Turquoise Trail’s new seventh-graders — about 60 — will start on Aug. 13 at the Zona del Sol site, which can accommodate up to 75 people.
School principal Ray Griffin said the zoning challenges were unexpected and involve going through a number of steps — including holding neighborhood meetings and appearing before the county’s planning commission — that are “very legal but will take months.”
Jose Larrañaga, who oversees conditional land-use permits for the county, said that because Santa Fe Studios is located in the Santa Fe Community College district, any school must apply for and obtain a conditional permit, which requires a site development plan, among other criteria. He said if the process moves “smoothly,” Turquoise Trail could get permission in four to six months.
But that would still be too late for the school to open at the studio in August, Griffin said, making the Zona del Sol property a safer bet for now. Ultimately, he said, the school still plans to expand on the Santa Fe Studios property serve as many as 350 students in grades 6-8 there.
The news comes as the charter school, which serves about 500 students at its campus off N.M. 14, continues to battle with the school district over the future of its current site.
The district wants to reclaim the Turquoise Trail property, which it owns and leases to the charter, to help ease crowding in schools on Santa Fe’s south side as the city’s population continues to shift in that direction. The school board informed Turquoise Trail in January that it will not renew the building lease after that agreement expires in 2021.
On Tuesday, the school board plans to vote on possibly relocating Turquoise Trail to one of its existing elementary schools — with E.J. Martinez Elementary School on West San Mateo Road a likely candidate for that action.
Floyd Trujillo, president of the governing board for Turquoise Trail, reiterated a stance he and Griffin have held for months: “Our intention is to stay at the Turquoise Trail premises we are using. We are continuing to explore legal and other options [to fight the district]. We have not changed our intention.”
But school board President Steven Carrillo said the district is ready for the battle.
“The lease is very clear. It’s up,” he said. “And it would be extremely unfortunate for Turquoise Trail to spend operational dollars, taking money directly from the classroom, for a lawsuit that they really don’t have a chance to prevail in.”