Santa Fe ditches its public education superintendent

Bobbie Gutierrez, Santa Fe Public Schools
Photo COURTESY: SF Reporter

From Capitol Report New Mexico.com - Back in 1962, an angry Richard Nixon uttered a famous line – “You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” — after he lost his bid for governor of California. On Monday night (Feb. 27), the outgoing superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools made a similar comment to a reporter at the city’s alternative weekly newspaper. “You don’t have to deal with me anymore,” Bobbie Gutierrez told Wren Abbott of the Santa Fe Reporter, “and that will be one of my greatest pleasures.” Wow. On Monday night, the Santa Fe school board bid goodbye to Gutierrez, voting 3-2 to buy out the remaining one year-plus on her contract. That means Gutierrez will receive $168,428 — a pretty nice payout but the fact that three school board members were willing to do it indicates the level of frustration parents and taxpayers in Santa Fe are experiencing with its struggling public school system. And the word “struggling” is an understatement. Recent statistics show a shockingly low graduation rate for Santa Fe public school students — just 53 percent. “In some other studies, the number is 60 percent,” school board member Steven Carrillo told Capitol Report New Mexico, “but regardless, those numbers are … pretty bad.” Gutierrez and others in the Santa Fe system had pointed out that nearly two-thirds of the city’s public school students qualify for free and reduced lunch programs but critics countered that while the poverty level has to be considered, the fact remains that 56 of the 89 school districts in New Mexico have higher percentages of students who qualify for free and reduced lunches than Santa Fe and that 55 of those 56 districts have higher high school graduation rates. Read more

Santa Fe ditches its public education superintendent