ABQJournal Online – January 26, 2012

SF City Council Approves St. Kate’s Resolution

With little fanfare, the Santa Fe City Council agreed on Wednesday to move forward with a plan for the city to potentially buy the old St. Catherine’s Indian School campus and lease it to the New Mexico School for the Arts.

The council passed the resolution on its consent agenda along with several other items. Councilors later discussed the city’s “status of communications” with the property’s owner, New Mexico Consolidated Construction, in an executive session barred to the public.

A recent appraisal paid for by the School for the Arts has pegged at $1.9 million the 10.7 acres the city would acquire.

City Manager Robert Romero has previously said the city is bound, with some leeway, to pay the appraised price.

But Coss said Wednesday that New Mexico Consolidated Construction, owned by businessman Max Tafoya, has told the city it won’t accept a $1.9 million sale and disputes the appraisal.

An attorney for New Mexico Consolidated Construction said in September the property is on the market for $8.6 million, although that includes several additional acres the federal government is interested in acquiring for expansion of the nearby Santa Fe National Cemetery.

A detailed financial discussion is scheduled for the city’s next Finance Committee meeting on Monday.

New Mexico Consolidated Construction bought the campus several years ago from the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, who closed the school in the late 1990s. The historic school dates back to the 1880s.

In 2006, the City Council designated 13 of St. Catherine’s 19 structures as city landmarks. The buildings had been named to the State Register of Cultural Properties in 2001.

Dear Friends of NMSA:

You may have seen in the January 12, 2012 edition of the New Mexican that the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) has released their new grading system for Santa Fe Public Schools. New Mexico School for the Arts (NMSA) received a grade C. We have contested this ranking.

Under the new A-F Grading System, New Mexico schools are rated on 6 different factors.  In the category of Graduation Rate, NMSA was given a D. Since NMSA has only been in operation for a year and a half and will not graduate its first senior class until June 2012, we do not yet have any data on graduation rates, so PED took the score from the Santa Fe Public Schools data from the last 3 years.  In the area of Career and College Readiness, PED overlooked NMSA’s Career and College Indicator data of ACT, Explore, Plan, PSAT, SAT, ACT, and AP scores that was submitted and therefore ranked the school an F.

NMSA has filed an appeal with the PED to augment these two areas of assessment so that NMSA receives a fair grade under the new ranking.  The purpose of the A-F School Grading System is to measure growth, but the system does not account for a new school such as ours.

Do contact us if you have questions or would like additional information about the rigorous academic curriculum we provide at New Mexico School for the Arts.   Please remember the school’s 2011 designation of AYP, or Adequate Yearly Progress, honoring NMSA for achieving a 95% participation rate on state assessments for proficiency in math and reading.

Thanks again for your continued support,

Cindy Montoya, Principal, NMSA – Charter School

and

Adelma Hnasko, Executive Director, NMSA- Art Institute

PDF of State Grading Report