New high school only temporary

solution for overcrowding in RRPS

By Eric Maddy
The SCORE

Al Sena watched parents look at the maps, and he couldn’t help but smile.

As the executive director of facilities for the Rio Rancho Public Schools, he was watching 4½ years of planning move one step closer to reality as members of the public talked about the boundaries for the city’s second high school.

But as the a member of a second group discussing two plans for the boundaries developed by a 50-person committee over the past few months, Sena also shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s not going to make much difference. Both schools are going to be over capacity in two years anyway,” he said. “That’s just the way it’s going to be.”

That’s why Sena already has his eye on a third – and even a fourth -- high school over the next 10 years. Both will likely be located on the western edge of the current developed area of the city. Whether the next high school will be in the northern or southern part of the city largely will depend on development and infrastructure, like roads and water, being available.

Rio Rancho High was designed to accommodate 2,400 students; the capacity at the new V. Sue Cleveland High School is 2,350. Right now, there are 4,425 students enrolled in grades 10-12 at Rio Rancho High and in ninth grade at the mid-high, so at first glance it would seem that enough high school space will be available after Cleveland High opens for the 2009-10 school year.

But current enrollment figures already show there are 4,909 students in grades 7-10, the age block that will make up the high school population in two years when the new high school opens. And that doesn’t account for growth.

Using a map that would place all students who live north of Northern Boulevard at Cleveland High and those who live south of Northern Boulevard at Rio Rancho High, enrollment that first year would be 3,258 at RRHS and 1,651 students at CHS.

But just a year later, with a bigger ninth grade class coming in to replace graduated seniors, enrollment figures would be much closer – 2,553 at RRHS, 2,207 at CHS.

And that doesn’t even account for growth, projected at 4 percent in the RRHS area and 6 percent in the CHS area. Using those estimates, the 2009-10 figures would have 3,519 students at RRHS the first year and 1,849 at CHS; the second-year totals put 2,859 students at RRHS and 2,604 at CHS.

Using those growth rates, 5,463 students would be at the high school level in 2010-11, well beyond the intended capacity of 4,750.

“We’ve obviously done it before (at RRHS, before ninth-grader were moved to the Mid-High) and we’ll have to do it again for a while,” Sena said.

If the district were to adopt what it is calling Option 2, which takes most of Vista Hills and puts it into the Cleveland area, the new high school would be larger than Rio Rancho High by its second year of operation, even if there is no growth at all.

And that’s just at the high school level. A fourth and fifth middle school, and several elementary schools, much also must be worked into the district’s funding plans and bond issue cycles.

Officially, Theresa Saiz is the district’s executive director for student transportation and serves as its government liaison. Unofficially, she is the jack-of-all-trades who serves as the district representative on seemingly every committee.

Her assessment on Tuesday: “We’re going to have to build at least one school a year. I had hoped we would be able to take a break next year, but I don’t think so now.”
The reason that Saiz and the district had hoped for a breather was that the projected growth rates – around 5 to 5½ percent across the district – is actually a slowdown from the 8 percent-plus the district has seen in recent years. After that, future trends indicate a spike in enrollment for two or three years at a 7½ percent level starting in 2010, then a leveling off period to follow.

But if the housing market picks up again?

“Now you know where my head is at,” Sena said.

The enrollment figures may be somewhat skewed on the high end in one respect. Once CHS opens, high schools will return to a grade 9-12 format, with middle schools having grades 6-8. That will free up some space at the Mid-High, which will probably be used to create some special programs that may draw away students from both high schools.

A committee has been formed to begin looking at what special programs could be created. Among the suggestions: an advanced language center, health program, film/television center, remedial learning center or perhaps a central staff library.

Those parents at the first of two sessions on Tuesday endorsed Option 1, making Northern Boulevard the dividing line for the high schools. Only one family objected to Option 1 during the evening session.

The boundary committee, who began the process in August, is set to meet Thursday night and could make a final recommendation to the school board in time for a vote on Dec. 17.