Miyamura students
Gallup High School gets all the perks

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Although she is only a freshman at Miyamura High School, Arianne DePauli knows inequality when she sees it, and she sees it every day when she goes to school.

Although district officials promised when the decision to have two high schools in town was made that students at each school would have the same opportunities, that’s not the case, according to both students and parents.

“I think students at each high school should have the same opportunities,” DePauli told members of the Gallup-McKinley County School Board on Monday.

But when she went to visit Gallup High School, she saw programs such as choir and drama there that are missing at Miyamura High and she wondered why that was happening — was it a money thing or could it be the fact that there are only two grades currently going to the school.

If it’s the latter, she said it means that it will take two more years for the schools to be equal, and by that time she will be a junior and will have missed out on some of the opportunities students at Gallup High have that Miyamura students don’t.

Tommy Haws, who is a member of Miyamura’s parent advisory committee, agrees.

Miyamura did not have a choir program or teacher all year, and while there has been talk of getting one next year, the school has not posted the choir teacher opening on its Web site. The school also didn’t offer driver’s education or drama, he said.

Something else that concerns parents, he said, is the fact that athletic directors at both schools have recommended to save money that the two schools share swimming and golf coaches next year and have them practice and attend meets together.

He pointed out that in the 2010–11 school year, both teams will be 4A schools in the same district and will be competing against each other in all sports.

“How is a coach supposed to strategically train and support two separate high school teams when they are competing against each other,” he asked.

It’s important, he said, that coaches and players identify with their own school, and it does not make sense to take this away from them just to save a few dollars. He pointed out that coaches only received about $1,000 extra a year, so the cost for each school to have its own coaches will not be that much.

When it was announced that there would be two high schools, many parents argued against it, saying that it would wind up that students who went to the new high school would get an inferior education.

“The district assured all concerned parents that there would be a sufficient budget to fully operate two high schools that mirrored each other,” he said.

School board members listened to the concerns but took no action at Monday’s meeting.

It was also pointed out at that meeting that students going to Miyamura next year will have to put up with a lot of problems that don’t exist at the other high school because plans to rebuild the high school will force the school to do without a lot of things, such as a gym, for much of the school year.