Las Cruces Academy

Abundant Good News

We've included an introduction to Las Cruces Academy for those of you who are just hearing about us for the first time (but it’s interesting enough you might want to read it even if youve been following us since last year).

We have two new teachers, both of whom are incredibly dedicated and experienced! Not only have they accepted our job offers, they're passionate enough about the school that they've started volunteering months ahead of the start of their contracts. Doing what, you say? Lots of things! They’ve met with us to explicitly set out our philosophy of education, daily schedule guidelines, teaching methods, and more. They’ve also come to our space in the downtown mall to get familiar with the building and start designing their classrooms before renovations started, which brings up other good news: we've signed a contract for renovations with a scheduled completion date in the first full week of May! We're planning a grand opening soon after renovations are finished, but for those of you who can't wait to meet the teachers (I hope that's all of you), we've asked them all to come to the Director's house this Friday (April 10th) so you can meet them. To make it better, this is just one of several events you can meet them at. If you navigate to our calendar, you'll see that we've started posting chess events held by David Lither, a national chess coach who also happens to be one of our teachers.

We've got students! We got off to a slow start with admissions because we decided to write a formal admissions policy and select a committee, but now it's done. We've started sending out acceptance letters, and parents have started sending in those first tuition checks. It's an exciting feeling to finally have everything coming together after two and a half years of work! As a small celebration—and a teaser for those of you thinking about coming to our open house on the 10th—you can take a look at the front of our building on the downtown mall below. If you're wondering why it's a teaser, it's because we'll have the final floor plan for you to look at on the 10th, and maybe more. Details on everything above and more after the pictures!

Our Building

We have an architect and a contractor doing the heavy lifting on getting 212 S. Downtown Mall, Suite B ready for its life as a school. We will be renting the space, which is the East half of Blanchard Engineering, for our first two years of classes. The lease is signed with our beloved landlords, Dave and Cathy Blanchard. The Williams Design Group has made the architectural drawings and is handholding us up through final city inspections. Tim Curry is the contractor upgrading the firewalls, redoing the bathrooms in ADA compliance, and redoing some internal walls and doors.

Renovations won't be finished for a little over a month, but we wanted to give everybody a little taste of what to expect. The picture above is the mall side of 212 S. Downtown Mall, which is hopefully where you'll be at our grand opening after we’re finished renovating it. You can come see the floor plans on the 10th at the Director's house, or see the real thing at the grand opening (at 212 S. Downtown Mall) if you don't mind a wait.

On to yet more good news, but first a request: when the contractors have major parts finished, we really need volunteers to help us with perking up the insides, installing cubbies, cataloguing books electronically, and such. Please let us know if you can help.

Introduction to Newcomers/Philosophy of Education

If someone forwarded this newsletter to you but you haven't heard of Las Cruces Academy until now, you're probably wondering what kind of school this is. It's far from a full description, but we're a private school focusing on math, science, and languages for gifted and advanced children. There are plenty of reasons for that, one of which is our belief that those three subject areas provide important tools for understanding all the other subjects, besides being tremendously important in and of themselves.

Just as important as what we believe in teaching is how we go about it. You learn much more when you're interested in something than when you're not, and you're much more likely to continue learning about it if it interests you. Because of that, our classes will be student-interest driven with an emphasis on hands-on learning and critical thinking. By student-interest driven, I don't mean that all day will be recess; I mean that we will make sure to teach the necessary fundamentals in ways that make them interesting to the students, and once the students have the background and maturity to learn more independently, they will. They will use the critical thinking skills we've nurtured since the moment they enrolled to explore subjects they find interesting, and will follow our motto (I give so that you may give) by sharing what they find with the public in exhibits at an affiliated museum.

Other points in our teaching philosophy:

• People are more important than programs. We are not wedded to fixed programs. Our teachers have autonomy and teach in the ways that they find effective
• Team teaching is one of our tools for making experiences consistently good for the students and for improving our teaching skills
• Students are grouped by ability, rather than age, for keeping the challenge level appropriate
• We teach subjects in integrated thematic units, rather than in isolation from each other
• Homework is occasional; the extended, enriched school day is meant to be sufficient
• We expect students to read at home
• Critical thinking is taught in all subjects
• Parents are encouraged to visit; please call ahead or give us advance notice
• We would like parents to give about an hour a week to the school so that they * are truly part of the LCA community
• Field trips will take us to real learning experiences
• We have a chess club run by a chess expert to help with critical thinking

In our startup, we have no dedicated classes for sports and music, but we integrate both into other classes. We anticipate help from the community in developing programs in the future.

Meet Our Teachers

As I mentioned above, we'll be having an open house this next Friday (April the 10th) at 4904 Calabazilla Rd. from 6-9PM. We've asked all our teachers, along with several of our volunteers and advisers, to come so you can meet the people who will be educating your children if they enroll at Las Cruces Academy. We've been impressed with all of them, so we want to give you the chance to meet them and see what impressed us so much. Everybody is welcome to come to the open house, but we would appreciate it if you let us know you're coming so we can plan to feed the right number of people. Please contact us by email () or phone 575-521-9384 to RSVP.

Upcoming Events

Kathy Groves and her family just opened a new gallery space, and although the opening just passed (April 2nd), we'd like to encourage you to go visit them (Picture Frame Factory Outlet at 382 Walnut, just north of Lohman).

David Lither, a full time teacher and national chess coach, will be holding chess exhibitions at the Farmer's Market in front of COAS Bookstore on May 9th and June 6th. He's also holding three chess camps at the Doña Ana Community College for children from age 6 to 11. The camps are on June 2nd -4th, July 7th -9th, and July 28th -30th. The camps will be from 1-3 PM each day, and children can sign up for one or all of the camps.

Leadership Las Cruces

I (the Director) have been admitted to the Chamber of Commerce's premier educational program, Leadership Las Cruces.  Among other things, it is helping me make contacts that will really help the Academy grow and thrive.  We spend one day per month covering a different facet of the community (such as the community’s history and the educational community).

Best Wishes,
Dr. Lou Ellen Kay
Director, Las Cruces Academy