Bobroff committed to education changes
Acting secretary is first Native to run department
Those who’ve worked with Kara Bobroff say she knows how to get along with people, build consensus and forge ahead.
Those qualities will come in handy as Bobroff takes the wheel at the Public Education Department, rocked by a pair of shocking incidents in the past two weeks.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s sudden and surprising dismissal of Secretary of Education Karen Trujillo on Monday evening, two days after a funeral for a well-liked employee who was killed in a shooting outside department headquarters, have shaken the agency around which K-12 education in New Mexico revolves.
And the changes didn’t stop Monday. A day after Trujillo was dismissed, her chief of staff, Daniel Manzano, submitted his resignation.
But Bobroff — whose career as an educator, particularly as head of a successful Albuquerque charter
school for Native American children that has long drawn admiration within New Mexico education circles — seemed to take the uncertainty in stride.
Less than a month before the first day of school in most New Mexico districts, Bobroff said she is committed to maintaining the department’s nascent transformational efforts.
“Supporting schools and districts as they prepare for school to begin in a few short weeks, that is what we will continue to work toward,” Bobroff said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. “I served on the transition team and was able to get to know the staff within the agency and understand the things that need to be prioritized to move forward.”
Few state departments have received the attention — and the funding — afforded to the Public Education Department in the 2019 legislative session. When New Mexico’s kids return to school in August, an additional $480 million in new funding means their teachers will be paid more. The department also has spent much of the past six months changing evaluation systems, replacing standardized tests and adding instructional time to the school calendar in an effort to improve learning outcomes for the state’s educators and students.
“There are so many amazing new programs to be excited about going into this next school year,” Bobroff said. “The deputy secretaries and I share a mission for holding students at the center of everything we do. That’s the message that resonates with principals and teachers.”
Bobroff, who is of Navajo and Lakota descent, is the first Native American to run the Public Education Department and knows the work well — her father, the late Jack Bobroff, headed Albuquerque Public Schools for many years.
Kara Bobroff began her career in education in the early 1990s as a special-education teacher in Albuquerque Public Schools. In 2003, she became principal at Newcomb Middle School in northwest New Mexico, where she worked with around 250 Navajo students from seven reservation communities.
In 2006, Bobroff became the founding principal of the Native American Community Academy in Albuquerque. According to Public Education Department data, the school’s student body is 91.9 percent Native American and had a four-year graduation rate of 75.3 percent for Native American students in 2018, compared to a 65.8 percent four-year graduation rate for Native students statewide.
The academy, which offers language classes in Navajo and Lakota, is considered by many as a model for culturally relevant education.
“She laid the foundation for one of the state’s top charter schools. She is a pioneer in cultural education that does not force any student to assimilate,” Albuquerque Public Schools Director of Charter Schools Joseph Escobedo said. “I’ve never been in a meeting where she draws a line in the sand. She is very respectful and understanding of where the other person is coming from.
“It would clearly be a difficult circumstance for any institution to go through this,” Escobedo said, “but I think she brings a breath of calm and collaboration.”
The challenges facing the Public Education Department are significant. New Mexico lags behind almost every other state in test scores and graduation rates, and the state still faces questions in the Yazzie/Martinez v. State of New Mexico case, in which a district judge in Santa Fe determined the state hasn’t done enough to provide an adequate education for students with the greatest challenges, including those learning English as a second language, special-needs students, kids from low-income households and Native American students.
Last month, Wilhelmina Yazzie, one of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed court documents claiming the state so far has not complied with the judge’s ruling that New Mexico must do more to support Native American children with culturally relevant education.
“Every student has a sense of connection to their culture and language,” Bobroff said, referring to cultural relevance. “To have that connection inform their learning is a power.”
The department’s deputy secretaries — Kata Sandoval, a former administrator at Albuquerque Public Schools and the head of a successful South Valley charter school; Gwen Perea Warniment, a former bilingual education teacher and program director at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation; and Tim Hand, a former deputy director of the Legislative Education Study Committee and administrator with Las Cruces Public Schools — remain on board at the department, Lujan Grisham spokesman Tripp Stelnicki said.
But chief of staff Daniel Manzano is not staying; he resigned Tuesday morning.
“All I can say is I was caught by surprise. I was taking some time off to recover from the event of losing a wonderful coworker. So when I heard about the Secretary it was too much for me,” Manzano said in an email. “While I was committed to serving alongside Secretary Karen Trujillo and her vision for public education, I believe it is appropriate for the next Secretary to have the opportunity to choose their own chief of staff.”
In an interview, Stelnicki pointed to the rollout of the K-5 plus program as a factor in Trujillo’s dismissal. The optional program requires commitment from parents and teachers to add 25 days to the school year.
Trujillo told the Legislative Finance Committee in May that her department planned to spend $53 million to bring K-5 Plus to 25,000 students. Stelnicki said the Public Education Department spent $39.7 million to enroll 23,139 students in the program.
The Governor’s Office said it is conducting a nationwide search for Trujillo’s replacement. At the end of a phone interview, Stelnicki cut in to field a question about whether Bobroff would accept the permanent position if Lujan Grisham offered it.
“As we do this search, we’re not ruling out any candidates by any means. The timeline going forward is still a little hazy,” Stelnicki said. “At this point in time we feel good about the interim secretary and the team of great deputies.”