La Academia Dolores Huerta evicted from building

On a recent afternoon, head administrator Sylvy Galvan de Lucero greeted students lined up in the main corridor of La Academia Dolores Huerta in Mesilla Park, passing bulletin boards festooned with children’s artwork and handwritten biographies of historical figures.

Walking into an empty classroom, she sat in a student desk-chair to talk about the 20-year-old charter school’s impending move from the historic building it has occupied on Bell Avenue since 2018.

“We’re going to miss this neighborhood,” she said, “having the green space around us, the park. We collaborate a lot with the Frank Papen community center across the street with our afterschool program.”

La Academia is a dual-language public charter middle school founded in 2004 and named after New Mexico civil rights leader Dolores Huerta. The school’s curriculum embraces Mexican arts and culture, with instruction in ballet folklórico, mariachi and conjunto.

The school leases the building on a year-to-year basis from the Las Cruces Public Schools; but the district is evicting the school due to the building’s physical condition.

Galvan de Lucero said the district initially issued a 60-day eviction notice in July, just a few days before the beginning of the school year, but later agreed to let the school remain through Dec. 31 as it sought a temporary location and prepared to move its facilities, staff and 94 students from sixth through eighth grade.

Galvan de Lucero said the district communicated to the school that the eviction was necessary because the state of the building rendered it unsuitable for students.

Steve Rodriguez, the district’s chief of operations, said in an interview that the building was not too dangerous to occupy, and that the district might even use the building as a temporary quarters for its nutrition department while a new facility on Tashiro Drive is under construction.

He indicated, however, that the older building does not comply with standards set by the state Public School Facilities Authority for classroom space, equipment and related infrastructure; and that continued maintenance on the building was cost prohibitive.

“It is a historic kind of building – it’s adobe, parts of it,” he said. “You’re limited in your electrical upgrades that you could do, you’re limited in your HVAC, you’re limited in a lot of things.” To offer an equitable learning environment, he added, school buildings needed up-to-date IT and WiFi technology. He said the needed upgrades, roof repairs and maintenance far exceeded funds available through La Academia’s budget and applicable state money. The roof replacement alone would likely have to be funded through a general obligation bond.

Rodriguez also said the issue was nothing new. Mesilla Valley Leadership Academy, which previously occupied the building, relocated in 2018 for similar reasons.

Galvan de Lucero agreed that the building was deteriorating, a process documented in a stack of maintenance requests followed by patchwork repairs.

“The roof is leaking, the entryways need work. We even had to go remote for a week last school year because the plumbing was backed up and they ended up having to dig up old cast-iron pipes,” she said.

At its September 17 meeting, the Las Cruces Public Schools board unanimously approved a sublease permitting La Academia to share the school district property leased by Alma d’Arte Charter High School.

Galvan de Lucero said La Academia would occupy part of the second floor of the school building that opened in 1941 as Court Junior High School on Court Avenue, as well as part of a side building on the property.

The move would not affect Alma’s plans to build a new exhibition space in the second building, she said.

Alma d’Arte principal Adam Amador did not respond to several queries from the Las Cruces Bulletin.

Rodriquez said a walk-through of the Court Avenue building with representatives from both charter schools, the district and the state was set to take place on Tuesday, Nov. 12. The district will assist with some modifications to provide discrete entrances and exits for the two schools and to keep the high school students separated from the middle school students and assess other maintenance needs. The respective schools’ scheduled meal times, dropoffs and pickups would also be arranged so as to avoid overlap and commingling.

Once situated, La Academia will have to focus on applying for a five-year renewal of its charter through the state Public Education Commission while also searching for a permanent home. Galvan de Lucero said the latter was a daunting task, and it wasn’t clear how long LADH and Alma d’Arte would be able to share a campus, particular if either school’s enrollment grows.

She said the school would need to find a space “at least close to ready to be a school, that doesn’t need tons of maintenance,” and with a lease the school can afford.