Las Cruces Academy

Newsletter for the Las Cruces Academy, 21 May 08

If you’re reading this as HTML and not plain text, these links will be colored and will take you to the respective topics.  In a browser, these links might not work, so we added headings:

• Opening as planned

• Found – a suitable building for lease

• More teachers and students

• Donations and endorsements

• Help on the way

• Outfitting the school

• Meetings and publicity

• The job(s) ahead

• Your comments valued

• Our brief absence

Opening: We have been busy assuring that the Academy will open in August – that we will have a fully furnished building, eager and talented teachers, and, of course, eager and talented students.

Building: The biggest challenge has been obtaining a suitable building, as it had been earlier.  The short version of the story is that we are starting a lease with David and Cathryn Blanchard to use half of their building, Blanchard Engineering, at 212 S. Downtown Mall.  Cindy Fargo, the Executive Director of Las Cruces Downtown, steered us toward this site.  We verified that it has proper zoning for a school (C-2), and the city planners, particularly Carol McCall, have been very helpful in guiding us through city zoning, inspection, and licensing requirements.

We just met today with Dave and an architect friend of his, Andy Barela, to 1) map out building modifications that we will do to meet code for a K-3 school, and to make the space function best for us, and 2) get architectural and engineering drawings that will be needed for the business license and the attendant city inspections.  It appears that the plans and the modifications will run about $20-25K.  Fortunately, the rent is modest, so we are near our original budget.  Our working relationship with Dave and Cathy is very congenial; we feel comfortable.  

Some of you have expressed a willingness to help with setting up the building.  We can’t do work that the contractors must do and that Dave requires that they do, but some cosmetic work will be needed, plus final planning of the furnishings and setting them out.  We’ll be calling on you and we’ll be grateful for your help.  Nothing will start before the variance hearing on 24 June, and then it will be a bit of pandemonium.

The one tentative part of the plan is that we must get a zoning variance (fortunately, not a rezoning, which takes lots of time and money).  This is needed in order to use the site, which is only 0.14 acre, not 1 acre or more as mandated for schools.  Because the school enrollment is small, at least during the time we will be renting this site, we have a good chance of getting the variance.  Parking is the biggest concern in variances, and there is a good deal of parking at the site.

To close a chapter on the building: the Porter mansion, after all our work, was bought out from under us, which is a mixed blessing.  Financing for its purchase would have been an enormous effort; local banks do not fund startups now without extensive collateral and independently wealthy guarantors.  We did detailed inquiries (walk-throughs, check for services, checks for zoning) at five more buildings after that and had a board meeting on 20 April to regenerate our options

A longer-term solution may be the former Court Jr. High building complex, which is eminently structured for classes.  Monty Sarvo, Executive Director of the Alameda-Depot Civic Association, notes that another civic group with ties to the Association, intends to buy it, and some members of the Association are eager to have us there.  The even longer-term solution is building a full-sized school on clear property; it is premature to obtain the property, of course.

More teachers and students: Three more teachers have expressed interest in teaching with us, and three more students have been proposed by their parents.   Media advertising is in our plans; we have the information about radio spots on KRWG.  We continue to distribute brochures, which have brought in potential students and teachers.

Donations continue to come in.  We have received approximately 500 more books for the school, bringing us to over 2,200 books, plus the other donations of cash, goods, and services noted last time.

We’ve also received a very nice letter of endorsement from Dr. Don Birx.  He was the Vice-President for Research here at NMSU until about 2 years ago, and he’s now in a very effective position of the same title at the University of Houston.  We’ll post his letter on the Website soon.

Lou Ellen is updating the Website and more will be done soon.

More help is on the way.  Our son, David Gutschick, is graduating from Caltech in mechanical engineering on 13 June, following which he’ll be here is Las Cruces to work essentially full time on the school.

Office function: We have begun outfitting the Academy office.  We purchased a multifunction printer (printing, scanning, copying, FAXing; networked; color and B&W; toner-based; capable of 2-sided printing), a Xerox Phaser 6180 MFP_D.  It works like a charm.

Meetings, meetings, and many contacts.  We feel it is critical to establish relationships with the business community and the education community in Las Cruces, as well as in broader venues.  We participated in all three large meetings noted in the April newsletter:

• The Southern New Mexico High-Tech Symposium, on April 17th, at the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum. We made a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation in the afternoon.  One more student may be enrolled as a result, and we’re known more broadly in the community.

• Education Day, on April 18th, at the County Building, organized by Dawn Starostka.  The meeting was intended to familiarize the young leaders of Las Cruces with educational options for students in the city.  These leaders are currently participating in the Leadership Las Cruces 2008 program.   Lou Ellen gave a short presentation about the Las Cruces Academy.

• ENGAGE-New Mexico, on April 25th, at the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum.  We had a table with a poster.  We participated in numerous discussions with leaders of other education initiatives (there are over 1,000 in the state, with about 20 represented at this conference) and with national leaders in business and education (among them were SAS, MicroSoft, Intel).   Some hard-hitting presentations made us feel we are not alone in our concerns about the state of education and the need to engage the talented students.

In addition, Lou Ellen attended the monthly meeting of PAGE, Parents and Advocates for Gifted Education, on 13 May.

On 15 May, we attended a meeting of the Alameda-Depot Civic Association.  There was discussion, especially informal, about the fate of the old Court Jr. High, now home of Alma de Artes.  The Association is eager to foster the sale of the building and some key members are eager to have us in it.

The job ahead has a number of facets and some challenging scheduling.  One task is simply waiting for the variance hearing, while getting the architectural and engineering drawings.  Assuming that succeeds, we then rush into contracting the building modifications and getting city inspections.  At the same time, we can be buying all the furnishings and supplies, arranging services (phone, DSL, other utilities),  writing about 50 school policies on all issues (needed before we can get insurance), and getting insurance.  We can use a lot of help here.  Please let us know if and how you might contribute.

Your comments: Please send us your comments and suggestions, your offers of help, and anything else that you feel will help us, the students, and the teachers.   We are grateful for your interest.

Brief absence: Please note that we will be out of the country from the evening of 26 May through the afternoon of 10 June.  We’re taking a long-planned trip to Thailand.  Our friend, George Barber, will be available to take messages at our usual phone numbers, and our friend, Catherine Abeele, will be handling the real-estate dealings that might come up.  We’ll be off to California for David’s graduation right after getting back from Thailand, but we will be in cell-phone and Internet contact.  We’ll be back in town late on the 15th or midday of the 16th.

Thanks for listening and for your very much appreciated interest.