Assembly of New School Waldorf – Santa Fe Reporter

As the leading organization in New Mexico, which is advocating for charter schools, paves the Waldorf Education path to return to Santa Fe this fall through a $ 2 million grant, the Trump Administration’s current Plans for the Ministry of Education Cloud Future for Financing , which makes the creation of alternative schools possible.

This year, public charter schools in New Mexico awarded grants to seven charter schools across the country, with $ 2 million going to the Sun Mountain School. If the school meets all the requirements set by the Commission for Public Education, when approved the initial application last year, it can be opened this fall.

Zoe Wilcox, one of the founders of the school, tells SFR that they are “so grateful” for the grant of the charter school program.

“All the requirements for setting up a safe school to be prepared on the first day to get students in, it requires finance for it,” Wilcox says. “It would be impossible to open without the CSP grant.”

The Sun Mountain Public School is offered a school that would again introduce Waldorf education in the Santa Fe Community as a public charter school after previously existing private school Waldorf unexpectedly closed before the beginning of the school year 2023-22.

The Sun Mountain Community School, like all Waldorf schools, will use the philosophy of education oriented to the education and imagination of the 19th -century philosopher and occultist Rudolf Steiner, adapted to comply with state education standards.

Matthew Pal, the public charter schools of the CEO of New Mexico, tells SFR that grant will help with the fundamental costs that the new schools face. Funding cannot be used to buy a building or construction of a school, but it can be used for staff, technology, furniture, work on curricula and communications to get the word for the new school.

“It really helps them have full -time staff to work on the curriculum and all the things they will have to open the school that after the fall,” says Pal, adding that Thrive Community School, another charter school in Santa Fe Fe, received a similar grant to expand the school.

Last August, the Committee on Public Education listed a great concern for the school of the Sun Mountain School when approved the application: they think ,.

Nearly six months after the necessary year of implementation, the growing community of Sun Mountain Community School to the broader Santa Fe community.

According to Wilcox, the year of planning was “fantastic”.

“We have a stable list of candidates for our lottery,” Wilcox says of SFR.

As of February 7, the school received 177 applications during the lottery process, exceeding the capacity of students from 132 for its elementary year. Wilcox says the school has also held a meeting for school administrators and teachers who may be interested in working for the school, which has about 30 participants.

The school also hosts several meetings of the State School Council, music classes and storytelling events to engage local families from last fall.

“Having a nucleus of a community already there, I have to say that they have done a really good job to contact other parts of Santa Fe, which can now benefit from the fact that the school is a public school without training,” He says Pal about the constant efforts to promote the school. “I see that they really reached for those parts of the city that otherwise had no access to the Waldorf school, which was there before.”

Sun Mountain Community School continues to accept lottery applications for students in class K-4 and 6 for the upcoming school year. Within a few years, the school plans to expand to serve students in Class K-8. The school will host the Lottery Pull Party at 2pm February 28 at the former Waldorf School Campus, according to his website chart this year.

One of the Sun Mountain School – and all other charter schools in New Mexico, which depend on the funding of grants – is that the grant of the charter school program is funded by the US Department of Education. Last year, President Donald Trump announced his intention to dismantle the department or seriously reduce staff and funding of the department.

A recent Associated Press report states that Trump is finalizing an enforcement order to direct his education chief to “begin to conclude the Agency”, but calls on the congress to accept a measure, as it cannot simply remove the department itself through enforcement order.

Asked about the possibility of losing grant funding and Wilcox, and Pal said they were confident that funding was safe this year, as public charter schools in New Mexico had already received their funding for this year.

“I cannot live with this fear because I go to work every day and create a school all day long, so I trust our legislators to defend this money,” says Wilcox. “” I don’t even want to explore what-if, because they would be quite tragic. “

Pal says that since they have received their annual funds, they believe they have and will be able to spend grants this year, but the concerns that public charter schools in New Mexico have are about the Ministry of Education’s commitment for the full amount of grant.

In 2023, the Ministry of Education awarded the $ 52.7 million grant to the organization, which will be paid for five years, supporting the development, expansion and replication of charter schools in New Mexico.

But if the Ministry of Education had to encounter extreme budget cuts or eradicate in the future, Pal says that ambitious charter schools in New Mexico will have to find a way to do all the work that is needed to create clean New Public School this year of planning without much on the path of financial support. “

“They would certainly feel the eating not to have access to such grants if we are ever in a place where we do not have them,” Pal says.

He usually says that the state has one or two new charter schools every year, all of which usually applies for grant for the charter school program. However, the organization has received between a dozen and 20 applications from already existing charter schools to expand programming during the two cycles of grants that the organization has worked so far.

“We will just continue to execute according to the plan we have sent [the Department of Education]Until we hear anything else, “Pal says.

The Sun Mountain Public School will host another event of an open house for interested families on February 15, following an event to tell stories. Wilcox says the school will have two local storytellers, Regina Rese and Ehren Key there.

Neta, a Facebook post about the event, is an artist, musician and storyteller of Santa Fein, who “shares powerful stories that celebrate the rich traditions and stories” of their heritage of Dine and Keva Pueblo by telling stories and cultural education.

More information

Open House & Storytelling: On Saturday (February 15th) from 2-4: 30 am, Sun Mountain Community School, 26 Puesta del Sol, will host a free open house between 2:00 pm, and stories start in 15: 00.

The lottery process

As required by state legislation, all charter schools must participate in a lottery system to enroll their students. The lottery process intends to eliminate any real or perceived injustice in the process of admission of the charter school, preventing discrimination based on disability, race, gender or sexuality, religion and others.

Sun Mountain Public School, in accordance with the state legislation, only those who apply to the school to provide contact information to the parents, the student’s first and surname, the student’s birthday and in what class the student will start. Families applying with more than one child must complete individual applications for each student.

In the process of the lottery, the applications are randomly withdrawn until each space is filled to capacity to any degree. If a degree is full and a student in this class is then drawn into the lottery, the student will be placed on a waiting list if a place in this class is opened. If there are still vacancies at the end of the drawing, the school will open another lottery cycle until all the spots are full.

According to his website, the Sun Mountain Community School only prefers to children of employees, families with an active military obligation and siblings of admitted students.

Wilcox says Sun Mountain’s Community School will host Lottery Party on their campus at 2pm on February 28, and families are encouraged to apply through their website at any time before the party.

Click here to find an application at Sun Mountain Community School.