SPACE TO GROW
SFIS to get new schoolyard from program, with hopes it will allow students to embrace Native identity
Christie Abeyta envisions Santa Fe Indian School as a thriving campus, filled with spaces that foster Indigenous culture, art, language and teachings, something that’s closer to reality now that the school has been selected to receive a newly developed schoolyard through a federal pilot program.
“We want to remain in line and in tune with place, as place is significant to Native people. Everything revolves around your place in this world,” said Abeyta, the school’s superintendent.
The campus’ open-air environments — a community garden, outdoor classrooms with facilities to prepare traditional meals and plazas where students interact, dance and sing together — are a start, she said. But she said she believes the school community and tribal elders will have even more ideas on ways to enhance the campus as the school joins the Tribal Community Schoolyards Pilot Program, a new partnership between the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education and the nonprofit Trust for Public Land.
Santa Fe Indian School is one of nine Native American schools across the country — and one of two in New Mexico — selected to receive the upgraded schoolyard.
Danielle Denk, the community schoolyards initiative director for the Trust for Public Land, said the new program is designed to transform vacant or drab schoolyards in Indigenous communities into vibrant spaces for outdoor learning and play.
The Trust for Public Land has constructed more than 200 community schoolyards in the past 25 years, she said, adding the yards improve community health outcomes by providing space for outdoor activities and climate resilience by reducing the effects of urban heat islands and conveying water to prevent flooding.
Community schoolyards also improve educational outcomes, Denk said, because the outdoor environment offers a stimulating space for learning.
In many places, the outdoor schoolyards also have decreased behavioral incidents. Denk noted one Philadelphia school in which student suspension rates dropped from
30 per year to zero after the Trust for Public Land constructed a new schoolyard.
The Tribal Community Schoolyards Pilot Program is intended to offer the same benefits in tribal community schools, Denk said.
“At the Department of the Interior, we have a solemn duty to honor and strengthen the federal government’s nation-to-nation relationships with tribes,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo, said in late November when she formally announced the pilot program. “Today’s announcement affirms that commit
for a bench warrant filed in court Monday.
Along with verbally threatening his mother, Martinez is accused of throwing a litany of household items at her Thursday. The standoff with Santa Fe police — including the department’s SWAT team — lasted about seven hours. It was at least his second encounter with police related to an incident involving his mother, who has told authorities her son struggles with mental illness, according to court documents. A letter his mother wrote to a judge last year said her son was left homeless for two weeks following an arrest.
Martinez’s current plight and possible disappearance raise questions about how courts should address a defendant with mental health issues who also might pose public safety risks.
Khalsa said in an interview Tuesday he wasn’t aware Martinez had failed to show up for pretrial services Monday, as he was ordered to do. The hearing he oversaw Friday was routine, he added.
“The hearing I was a part of was just really rote, you know. There’s not a lot of meat in that proceeding,” the judge said.
Asked if Martinez could have been held in jail over the weekend to ensure was able to show up for pretrial services, or if there would have been another way to handle the proceeding rather than releasing Martinez, given the man’s mental health conditions, Khalsa said he did not care to speculate.
In the letter Martinez’s mother wrote to a judge in a September 2021 case, in which her son was charged with battery after he was accused of pushing her, she pleaded for mercy for him due to his numerous behavioral health issues.
The letter details the woman’s efforts to get help for her son. She reached out to the Santa Fe Community Guidance Center and Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center’s psychiatric ward after he pushed her, she wrote.
The guidance center and the hospital both told her to call police, which led to Martinez’s arrest. After his release from jail, she wrote, he had no place to go.
“He lived outside in the cold weather for over 2 weeks after being released from jail due to being arrested for the domestic violence against me,” she wrote. “… No car, no money and no phone. HOMELESS!!”
Martinez’s battery charge was dropped Jan. 18 after a judge found he was not competent to stand trial, according to online court records.
It’s unclear when he returned to the home he shared with his mother until last week’s attack.
Martinez’s mother did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Maggie Shepard, a spokeswoman for the state Law Offices of the Public Defender, said she could not comment on Martinez’s case because he refused legal counsel from the office Friday.
Assistant District Attorney Morgan Wood, who had questioned at Friday’s hearing whether Martinez was competent, said in an interview Tuesday she was uncomfortable with his responses during the proceeding.
“It just did not seem like he knew the nature of the proceedings … and didn’t know the participants and wouldn’t be able to participate in his own defense,” Wood said. “In my experience, those are all red flags.”
Wood added it was unusual for a defendant to be released on his own recognizance after telling the court he did not have a phone or a place to live.
However, she added, the competency ruling in Martinez’s previous case should not have had any bearing on Friday’s hearing.
“The brain’s not static, right? So things can change. You could be medicated, you could have had therapy or something like that,” Wood said. “Just because you’ve been incompetent before doesn’t mean you’re incompetent now.”
While she will not be handling Martinez’s case going forward, Wood said, if Martinez is arrested on a bench warrant, another prosecutor likely will file a motion requesting that a judge order him detained until his trial.
“We’re concerned about his mom’s safety and his safety,” Wood said. “Once he’s picked up on that warrant, he would presumably be held for seven to 10 days. … I think that would give everybody a chance to rethink the case and see what needs to be done to make sure he comes to court [and] everybody’s safe.”