Students have room to roam
Only 143 attend county’s ‘forgotten school’

Scott Hedgelan talks to his students Tuesday afternoon during class at Tse Yi Gai High School near Pueblo Pintado, NM. The school, the most remote for the Gallup McKinley County School district, has a current enrollment of 143 students, though bad weather, muddy roads and other problems have attendance numbers average out to 87 percent. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — County School Superintendent Esther Macias traveled to the far reaches of the county recently and spent a day at the county’s “forgotten” high school — Tse Yi Gai.

While there, she said she saw a lot of teachers and staff. What she didn’t see was a lot of students in the school, which is located up in the extreme northern portion of the county about 40 miles west of Cuba.

“I went to one class and there was one teacher and one student,” she said. Other classes had between seven and 10 students.

On that day, she said, the school attendance was 37 students out of an enrollment of just more than 140.

So where were the students?

Macias said she didn’t know but school board members Monday expressed alarm that the district had spent millions of dollars to build a new school just three years ago and the number of students attending the facility was that low.

Chris Spade, the school’s principal, said Tuesday that the attendance at the school wasn’t as bad as depicted at the school board meeting. The school is averaging about 87 percent attendance, which still puts it at the bottom of attendance for county high schools, which average from the low to mid-90s.

“Monday and Fridays are the worst day for attendance,” he said.

The facility, according to the district’s Web site, has 17 instructors, which gives it about an 8-1 ratio with students, also the lowest in the district.

The issue about the students at Tse Yi Gai came up because at the last school board meeting two weeks before, board members were upset at complaints from staff at the school that they didn’t have enough money to pay for things like books and uniforms for the school’s football team. It was said at that meeting that the school was unable to participate in this year’s football season because of lack of uniforms, which cost about $500 a player.

It turns out, Macias said, that even if they had uniforms they still wouldn’t be able to field a football team. Only five students came out for the team this year and some of those dropped out when they learned that they would be expected to spend time daily on the weight machines.

Macias said there is enough interest to field teams in other sports, like basketball, volleyball and cross country.

And despite the fact that there still isn’t a football team, staff and parents are asking the district for a wide range of extras for the football field — which Macias said was first rate — such as a scoreboard, a concession stand, a press box and lighting, things that are expected to cost the district between $500,000 and $600,000.

The school will be getting bleachers for its football field.

These are the old bleachers at Ramah High and school officials estimated that it will cost about $30,000 to transport them to Tse Yi Gai.

Board President Genevieve Jackson said she wasn’t happy with Tse Yi Gai getting things that are being discarded from other schools, and other board members aid that the district should possibly think of improving the athletics at the school to attract more students.

Something needs to be done, said board member Annie Descheney, who said she was shocked to learn of the enrollment figures and she and others pressed Macias to come up with a plan to get the enrollment up.

Macias said her staff is working on a plan and would have it ready to present to the board at its next meeting.