Out in the cold
Brrrrr ... Kids freeze outside Gallup Mid School

Students at Gallup Middle School cluster together in the morning's cold air before classes began Wednesday morning. [Photo by Daniel Zollinger/Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — For Gloria Billy, the Cold War has never ended.

But instead of fighting the power of the Russian communists, Billy finds herself facing the mighty Gallup Mid School in a battle over the right of pupils to remain warm in the morning.

“I was there Monday morning and kids were freezing their butts off,” she said, adding that it was 7:40 and it was 19 degrees outside and pupils on the outside were not being allowed to go inside before school started.

This is a battle she said she has been fighting for the past year since she began dropping off her daughter between 7:30 a.m. and 7:40 a.m. each day.

Last year, she spent a couple of days last winter talking to other parents who were dropping their children off early to school on their way to work and urged them to complain to school officials about providing a warm haven for pupils before the school doors opened at 7:50 a.m. While she hoped that some complained, the situation hasn’t changed — the pupils are still being left out in the cold.

“My heart went out to these students,” she said. “When the weather is good, the teachers are out there with the students, but when it gets cold, the teachers go inside where it is warm, leaving the kids to stay out there in the cold.”

She has another daughter who goes to Washington Elementary. She drops her off at 7:20 a.m. there and the school provides a place for pupils to go inside. “Why can’t Gallup Mid School do that?” she asked.

Peggy Taylor, the school’s principal, said school officials realize that pupils get cold and makes arrangements when it is really cold for the gymnasium to be opened so the pupils have someplace to go to keep warm.

But on most cold days, the doors aren’t opened until 7:50 a.m. because that’s when most of the staff arrives.

Teachers and other staff are supposed to be in school half an hour before the school day starts and the middle schools on up in Gallup use this as a signal as when the doors can be opened. While custodians may arrive as early as 4 a.m., their job is to maintain the building and not supervise pupils who get to the school, some as early as 7 a.m.

The main reason seems to be liability issues.

Having a pupil in the building unsupervised could lead to liability problems if the pupil is injured or gets in trouble so many district schools take the position that once people are on hand to do the supervising, it’s then all right to open the doors.

Frank Chiapetti, principal of Miyamura High School, which is still a junior high, said that officially pupils there can also come in half an hour before school starts although he allows them to come in a little before that to keep warm in the hallways on cold days. There have been no problems, he said. Pupils can also go to the library, he said, but that can hold only a certain number of people.

At Gallup Mid, the school is opened early for pupils who have a reason to be there early, such as tutoring classes.

Otherwise, pupils are expected to time their arrival for when the doors open.

Parents who have to be in Window Rock at 8 a.m., for example, are advised to make arrangements with other parents so they can drop their child off and have them delivered to school when the doors open.

Taylor also suggested that parents make arrangements to have their children picked up by a school buses since all of these are timed to get to the school at or after 7:50 a.m.

As for Billy, Taylor said that she hasn’t received any complaints from her, adding that she welcomed her to come by for a visit so they could try for “détente” and the possible end to another Cold War.