More teachers staying in Gallup

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — For the first time in nine years, the county school district is starting a new year with only a handful of positions to be filled.

As the district held orientation for new teachers Thursday at Gallup High School, the school’s library was filled with teachers anxious to begin the new year in McKinley County.

Some, like Joshua Lauren, are familiar with this area.

Lauren taught last year for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and is joining the public school system as part of Teach for America, a program that helps supply teachers to rural areas and other places that have a hard time recruiting teachers.

He’s headed to Thoreau to teach junior high social studies..

From Baltimore, he, like many of the new teachers that are coming here, decided he wanted to teach in this area because of the natural attractions and the joy of hiking in the outdoors. But after having taught in this area for a year, he said he realized that students here had the same values he did.

“Family is really important to students here,” he said, adding that the idea of giving something back for the advantages he had growing up was one of the main reasons he joined Teach for America.

Others who came here didn’t have too far to go.

Rebecca Murphy grew up in Gallup, attended and graduated from Gallup High School, and now that she’s ready to go into teaching, she decided to stay here because it was close to family.

That’s also part of the reason Leo Combs said he decided to accept a job in Gallup.

His family lives in Durango, Colo.., and he had decided when he graduated from college at Ottawa, Kan., that he would look at New Mexico as the place to start his teaching career because the teacher salaries were pretty good and he heard a lot of good things about the state’s attitude towards teachers.

“New Mexico attempts to keep its teachers,” he said. He now heads to Ramah to teach English.

For the upcoming year, the district had less than 100 positions to fill, as compared to more than 300 just a few years ago.

One reason for this, said County Superintendent Ray Arsenault, was the economy.

“I hate to say this but the poor economy is helping us,” he said, “because it’s keeping teachers from leaving.”

The atmosphere at the orientation was a little different this year as well as officials for the local teacher’s union remarked about the change in the administration’s attitude toward teachers.

“This is the most teacher friendly atmosphere I have seen here in years,” said Tom Payton, a former president of the McKinley Federation of United School Employees.

The new teachers, as well as returning ones, will start to work on Monday, attending meetings and starting to fix up their classrooms for the school year. Classes will begin on Aug. 11.