Santa Fe doesn’t need another charter school

The Public Education Commission this week is considering an application from a potential K-8 charter school to be located in Santa Fe. Called Thrive Community School, the proposed educational center would open in 2022 with grades K, 1, 2 and 6 — if the charter is approved. The commission should say no. Here’s why:

The individuals behind the school are top-notch. They plan to emphasize science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics, as well as teaching children using evidence-based methods and incorporating social and emotional learning practices.

At a hearing last month, organizers of the school offered a vision of a place that emphasized educational equity, recruiting in underserved communities. None of this is revolutionary, but at least it has a claim to be an alternative to traditional public school offerings.

Charters, if you remember, are supposed to offer an atmosphere so exceptional that they deserve to exist. Under New Mexico law, a charter can be established within a district — or apply to the state Public Education Commission, the route Thrive school organizers are taking. The grand idea, at least when charters were being pitched in New Mexico, is that techniques that worked in experimental schools would work their way back to improve mainstream education.

There’s little evidence that has happened. Instead, what we have seen is the explosion of charter schools in New Mexico spreading resources too thin. What’s more, duplication begins to occur.

Already in Santa Fe, there exists a K-8 charter — Turquoise Trail, the oldest charter school in the state. Santa Fe also has its own public K-8 schools, two middle schools and more than a dozen elementary schools of various sizes. Under New Mexico law, students can attend any school where there is room, and Santa Fe has a transfer policy that makes choice easy.

In other words, opportunity of many kinds already exists for parents and children at the elementary and middle school levels in Santa Fe Public Schools without adding another school, paying more adults to run it, searching for a location and, eventually, asking taxpayers to foot the bill to build another multimillion-dollar campus.

The world also is in the midst of another year of pandemic schooling, with COVID-19 threatening the return to in-person learning and educators continuing to innovate so children learn whether at a desk in a classroom or on the couch at home. With the pandemic have come millions in stimulus funds from Washington, D.C. — money to supplement classroom learning on top of state dollars designed to be directed at serving high-risk populations to help ensure their education is adequate.

Under the Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit, New Mexico is on notice that it must improve educational outcomes for children who typically don’t do as well in school, poverty being one of the top reasons.

Santa Fe Public Schools is a district with thousands of those at-risk students. The proposed Thrive school is planning to grow to around 600 students. Not all but most of these students would come from within the Santa Fe school district. Losing that many students would be another hit to an already stretched budget. The district currently faces a possible $6 million budget shortfall because 615 students left during the pandemic.

Before state officials approve any more schools, duplicating services already available, New Mexico and Santa Fe need to make it through this year into what we hope becomes pandemic-free education.

As for the adults who want to build yet another school, we have an alternative proposal — one that could eventually assist many more students. Form a Thrive nonprofit and make tutoring, enrichment and other services available at after-school programs across Santa Fe. New Public Education Department Secretary Kurt Steinhaus wants schools to spend stimulus money to create systems of long-term improvement in New Mexico.

Don’t focus on 600 kids, in other words. Take these ideas and use them to enrich education across the district and serve thousands of children. Santa Fe doesn’t need another school. It needs to better support and assist the schools already here.