The man who would be super
New school head has experience with Native students

Gallup-McKinley County superintendent candidates took the stage to answer questions from community members Feb. 26 during a "Meet and Greet" session at Red Rock Elementary. Seen from left to right, Raymond Arsenault, the superintendent select; James Hennings, Ester Macias, and Gorman Swinney. [Photo by Daniel Zollinger/Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

Maybe things won’t be as serious within the Gallup-McKinley County School District when the new superintendent comes riding into town.

After all, the new superintendent, Ray Arsenault, just happens to be the great-great nephew of Cherokee humorist Will Rogers.

Arsenault was the top choice of all five members of the county school board who are hoping that he can accomplish what former superintendent Karen White never could — increase the test scores of Native American students attending the city and county schools.

While Anglo and Hispanic students have generally passed AYP at the various schools in the city and county, the students who have English as their second language have generally been lagging behind, and school board members are hoping that Arsenault can turn this around.

“His experience in working with Native American students is one of the reasons he was chosen,” Genevieve Jackson, the school board’s president, said.

She pointed to his years in the Minnesota school system, where he taught Native American students and supervised programs for Native Americans would help him out immensely when he came to Gallup.

Board members also said they liked the fact that he appeared to be energetic.

“He’s going to spend a lot of time visiting the schools in the district,” Jackson said. “He also seems willing to work with this board.”

Arsenault, who is still a dean of students at Cibola High in Albuquerque for students whose names begin in P-Z, said he has spent most of his teaching and administrative career in Minnesota, where he came in contact with tribal members who would get $60,000 checks from their tribe from casino profits to members of some of the poorest tribes in the state.

“The problems I faced in Minnesota are some of the same ones I will be facing here,” he said, adding that his time here interviewing for the job showed him that the problems that were mentioned to him here can all be solved in one way or another.

He also comes with another set of credentials that should put him in good stead here — he’s been a school coach for 25 years, coaching everything from football and basketball to track. Because of this, he said, he could see why community members are hoping that some way can be found to keep Gallup in the top tier of the state sports program.

He’s been thinking about coming to Gallup for the past couple of years since one of his associates at Cibola, Bill Miller, began talking about his experiences as an assistant principal at Gallup High School.

He was so serious about the prospect that he has made several trips to Gallup and once even brought his wife to Gallup for a visit on the last Mother’s Day and discovered that his wife, Judy, seemed to enjoy the town as much as he did.

This wasn’t unexpected, he said, since he and his wife, who have been married for 38 years, have lived not only in St. Paul, a major metropolis, and in towns that only had a population of 350.

His contract still has to be negotiated, and the school board members are expected to take that up when they meet on March 17 in Tohatchi for their next regular school board meeting. In the advertisements for the position, the projected salary was listed as between $120,000 and $140,000 a year. Both White and the current interim superintendent, Esther Macias, made a little less than $120,000.

Arsenault said he is in negotiations with the school board about when he take over as superintendent. The plan was for him to take over on July 1, the start of the next fiscal year but he said he may be able to come as soon as May.

“The sooner I get here, the sooner I can start tackling the district’s problems,” he said.