The Lessons of Riverhead Central School District. Would an Alamogordo Charter School Result in AHS Layoffs?

A headline from March 15th, 2024 from New York's Riverhead Community, Teachers Union President: Funding Inequities, Charter School and IDA are to Blame for Teachers Layoffs, could very well be the same headline, we see in Alamogordo, in the very near future, if the plan laid out by charter founders and Main Gate United of bringing a charter school to Alamogordo moves forward.

Alamogordo High School has a long tradition of excellence and as a center of pride for the community of Alamogordo. Riverhead Central School District in New York is very similar to the city of Alamogordo, New Mexico and there is a clear lesson to be learned from their experience!

Riverhead New York is a city with the population of 35,902. Alamogordo is a city with a population of 31,309 per the US Census.

The town of Riverhead up until a charter school opened had one public high school. Alamogordo has one public high school.

The number of students attending the Riverhead Public School system is 5688 students with 1959 attending the public high school. Alamogordo has a total of 4,731 students enrolled according the the Charter Pre-Application filed with 1562 attending AHS.

Each system is very similar in rankings, income levels of the community and other dynamics related to the education system

In Riverhead similar to Alamogordo the Charter School proponents have spread false information promising significantly higher outcomes to the public school system. "It is the district’s belief that Mr. Ankrum (leading the charter school programs) is putting forth a spurious and false narrative in an effort to confuse parents and attract more students to his charter school,” the school board’s statement said. "To this end, the district believes he is attempting to obfuscate the issues and falsely discredit the Riverhead [Central] School District, the dedication and commitment to excellence of our teaching and support staff, and the achievements of our students.”

Flickinger Center Director, Lorrie Black, championing the Charter School project in Alamogordo, is using the same scare tactics to garner support for a STEM Charter in Alamogordo...

Email from Charter School board founder suggesting a need for a charter school is due to safety citing a Holloman Air Force Official.Photo byAlamogordoTownNews.com (Alamogordo Public Schools)

The difference, Alamogordo does not yet have a charter school, but a closed group, with the backing of Main Gate United ,is attempting to launch one. Riverhead launched a charter school and its impact has resulted in budget struggles for the Riverhead Public School System and layoffs.

Per March 15, 2024, Riverheadlocal.com, Last Friday, Riverhead Central School District began the process of eliminating the positions of 38 Riverhead Central Faculty Association members....We cannot have a conversation about the fiscal state of the district without being honest about the significant and ongoing impact that the Gap Elimination Adjustment, Riverhead’s Foundation Aid shortfall, the Riverhead IDA, and the Riverhead Charter School have had on our students, our school and the taxpayers of Riverhead...This year alone, $14,362,107 has been siphoned from our coffers. $2.7 million is from Riverhead IDA tax abatements and the other $11,662,107 is for tuition to the Riverhead Charter School."

The report continued that in Riverhead a school system comparable to Alamogordo's, that the charter school impact cost them, "$14,362,107 which is the equivalent of over 145 educational professional positions that could have an immediate, direct, and lasting impact on our students.."

The report concludes, "...Since 2011, the Riverhead Charter School has received nearly $75 million in taxpayer dollars, yet the taxpayers of Riverhead have no legal right to see how their money was spent...this year alone Riverhead Charter School has siphoned $11.6 million from Riverhead Central School District, depleting funds that are needed for essential services for the children of our school district. Every dollar given to Riverhead Charter School means fewer resources available for Riverhead Public Schools and once again our students will suffer a reduction in programs, while the Riverhead Charter School funding per student will increase next year.

This is a parasitic relationship and Riverhead School District is the host organism."

The above statements are from Gregory Wallace who is the president of the Riverhead Central Faculty Association, serves as a valuable lesson to the Alamogordo Public Schools Board of Education, Main Gate United and to the citizens of Alamogordo of the consequences of opening a charter school in a small community that can only support one public high school.

Alamogordo be warned!

However this small group of individuals within Alamogordo, who do not represent the majority of taxpayers, are setting the school system onto a path of economic collapse of Alamogordo High School, once the center of community pride.

Our, Alamogordo High School, has produced a gentleman that discovered a comet, a gentleman that holds multiple patents on membrane technology that is used by homeland security and in heart valve replacements, a Ms. USA, five individuals that went on to play in the NFL, several professional PGA Golf professional players and more.

What would happen to the depth of educational programs, sports and extracurricular programs at Alamogordo High School if the school was split into two or three difference high schools as suggested above?

Alamogordo High School was founded in 1912. From the 60s thru the mid 70s it was ranked in the top 10 in the nation and ranked as one of the highest paying school systems in the nation. It recruited the best and brightest teachers and was featured as an example of progressive leadership to the nation. From it came an Olympian and decades later multiple Olympic trails athletes. It was sited as an example of intergration without incident. The building trades department once built houses and teachers included rocket scientist that worked also with the Department of Defense.

Yet, a vocal group of individuals led by Lorie Black, Cindy Stong, MainGate United and the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce has chosen a path of alternative control via the Charter School laws, without significant LOCAL oversight, rather than work within the recently elected leadership of the Alamogordo School Board, to fix concerns from within, and to establish the best programs within.

This tight group that has gathered, little broad public input has not held public workshops nor engaged the legitimate press, would have the public believe, the best option for Alamogordo is to create a charter school, for a STEM programs that would be OUTSIDE of the Alamogordo Public School System.

This charter school would then compete with AHS for students, rather than develop the best program and best practices within an already existing framework of the APS System.

This group has argued that they have New Mexico PED state oversight so taxpayers are protected, but are they?

An advisory was submitted to the New Mexico legislature in 2022 warning of a lack of transparency and flaws with the existing framework of state regulations related to Charter School financial oversight of taxpayer dollars.

The Office of the State Auditor (OSA), together with the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC), issued a joint risk advisory to alert the legislative bodies and policy advisors in the State of New Mexico of risks related to a significant lack of oversight and accountability failures concerning the technical relationships between charter schools and non-profit charter school foundations. The technical relationship between charter schools, governed throughout New Mexico under the “Charter Schools Act,” and its charitable foundations, considered blended
component units, is opaque and absent of oversight.

"Due to a significant accountability gap, there is a lack of transparency concerning the expenditure of public funds made by a charter school’s charitable foundation. There are no oversight mechanisms to account for public funds transferred as payments, disbursements, payables by the charter school to its charitable foundation allowing for the possibility of fraud and mismanagement of public funds."

Yet, the same group has criticized PED policies that the existing APS system must follow and demanded the ouster of the prior school board due to their embracing NMPED directives. How can one criticize state control but then champion it all in the same breath?

The charter school would be focused on STEM or so says the pre-application filed with the state. The details of the pre-application can be read at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-YTeg7cptyjpAcqWMCgi4sitqwrpIt1_/view?…

The lessons of Riverhead show that a smaller 156 student facility would not have the extensive opportunities that a larger school provides it students, to include a robust athletics program, many diverse extracurricular clubs and activities, expanded vocational technical opportunities that only a large public high school can provide students. In the Riverhead case, the charter is expanded facilities to secure more students in an attempt to grow in order to fund additional programs. That would be the same path that Alamogordo chartered, Sacramento School of Engineering and Science would have to follow putting even more financial strain onto APS.

The charter school concept works well in large communities! Large population centers can afford specialized schools, without adversely impacting the overall student population at the primary high schools.

However, the lessons of Riverhead Public Schools show that small communities, such as Alamogordo falter when a competing charter pulls significant funds from the primary education system and places those public funds into the charter with limited public oversight. Each school suffers over the long run, with a lack of necessary funds to provide the overall breath of educational needs for the needs of the overall community.

Opening as a charter school, if approved, the Sacramento School of Engineering and Science with a planned 156 in attendance, pulling a majority from AHS, to a charter school, would have a significant negative impact on the school programs offered, number of teachers and staff. Layoffs at Alamogordo High School would result!

Why don't proponents champion the Sacramento School of Engineering and Science concept to be launched WITHIN the APS system?

By creating a charter program the Alamogordo Public School would be forced to make some hard decisions, were it to lose 156 students. The result would be the layoffs of multiple teachers and aids, support staff, and of course the athletics program would be paired down, the class of sports competition would drop from 5A to potentially 3A or 4A and other programs in arts, languages, vocational technical and beyond, absolutely would be cut, due to decreased enrollment and decreased funding.

The students that remain at Alamogordo High School, would then be penalized, as the funding for the 156 kids that went to the charter would be pulled from the APS system, and funneled via public funding into the alternative charter system.

The charter school advocates suggest that they will have a higher caliber of teachers with a focus on the STEM education that it is chartered to offer. That slaps at the face of the dedicated teachers within the present APS system, that are lifting student outcomes and are championing STEM education, and new expanded vocational technical programs from within. Without the numbers of students to sustain those programs many would collapse.

By losing 156 students to a STEM specialized charter school the STEM programs at AHS would then suffer as well. And all students that might want a STEM education may have a two tiered system as a result of a new proposed Charter High School and potentially a lesser quality program at AHS.

The charter school advocates per advocate statements would have the public believe, that Holloman Air Force Base is considering a DOD Satellite School on base High School due to "safety concerns at AHS"and that they too want to break away from the APS system. (AlamogordoTownNews.com has sent a request to base leadership to confirm or deny the truth in the statement and will post the statement once received.)

Ms. Black's email invited local legislative members and elected officials to a training on the charter school concept. However the public was NOT invited. When the pre-application was submitted there was no public fan fair, nor press release that the process was beginning.

Where is the transparency? The only reporting that occured was the coverage by an AlamogordoTownNews.com investigative series that continues.

The whole proposal and project is being done tight lipped, with closed door meetings of Main Gate United and meetings at the Flickinger Center (which is engaged in a lawsuit against APS that has yet to be settled and is proceeding) without significant BROAD public input, though our tax dollars will fund the project. The advocates for the charter school, site safety concerns and poor academic outcomes of the APS system, as reasoning for the charter alternative.

If the full APS system is failing how will a Charter High School fix the overall failing system?

If the issue of failure is only, Alamogordo High School, then again, how is building a charter school addressing those failures for the remaining students that won't attend the charter school?

If safety is indeed a concern, how is abandoning the APS system and specifically Alamogordo High School fixing the safety and curriculum concerns?

How does creating an alternative system "enhance safety at Alamogordo High School" or the area middle schools, and concerns by a representative of Holloman, as alleged?

Questions the public must ask, now before it is too late, and loudly of Mrs. Black and of the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce and specifically Main Gate United, is how does creating a Charter School fix concerns each may have with the existing APS system and Alamogordo High School?

How does the charter fix the issues of concern raised to justify the charter school for the systems remaining 4000 students?

Why is the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce, which is now led by a gentleman that was a past superintendent of the Alamogordo Public Schools, championing an initiative that would reduce the quantity of students attending the system of which he was formerly superintendent and advocated for?

When one pulls the curtain from behind the pre-application, when one looks at the small interconnected group that is championing the charter program, there are many questions the local taxpayers deserves answers. We will delve more into behind that curtain and the close knit group advocating for the charter program in another article to be published in this series this week.

It is your public taxpayer dollars that will pay for this competing school system. It is time that the public demand information and full disclosure from the APS Board Members and from those on the founding board of the proposed Charter School .

There are many unanswered questions and the justification presented in the application does not solve the alleged concerns within the APS system.

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