After community members voiced their concerns about the Moriarty-Edgewood School District’s plan to consolidate schools and demolish historic buildings, the district held a public meeting on April 9 seeking community input.
Several dozen parents, teachers and community members came before the school board seeking answers to their questions and ready to share their concerns about how the plan would impact students, parents and teachers of Moriarty and Edgewood.
The MESD Facility Master Plan proposes consolidating the middle schools, which means Moriarty Middle School would be moved to Edgewood Middle School, making the Moriarty Middle School a freshman academy. Another proposal would demolish the buildings that were formerly Edgewood Elementary School, which now houses the Edgewood town hall and library.
Todd Bibiano, MESD’s superintendent, said the district started this planning process in June 2023 when they contracted with Capital AE, a company that develops facility master plans for school districts in New Mexico, Colorado and other states.
“Capital AE started collecting data in person visiting schools, visiting sites, they collected financial data, student demographic information and Public School Facilities Authority data and information,” Bibiano said. “In August we moved into an advisory committee. The process of developing that committee was put on me and I followed the process that I thought was the process that was going to be good for developing the options for the school board to vote on and move on the FMP. It’s a process that the MESD has used since 2006.”
Consolidating schools
One of the main concerns parents have centers on student transportation. One community member asked the school board how the bus transportation would work if the Moriarty community had to move to the Edgewood community. Parents who have students who attend Moriarty Elementary School and MMS would have to drop off students both in Moriarty and Edgewood at the same time since the schools have start times that coincide.
“This is a proposal, these are not concrete events that are going to take place so if it would be decided that we wanted to pursue this we would then have to go into asserting all these things you’re talking about,” said Linda Hudson, school board member. “You would have to look at transportation and this issue and that issue. Anything you have to research, you have to put the idea out there.”
Patrick Riley, who has taught at both middle schools for almost 11 years, said consolidating the schools would bring the communities together.
“I have seen a divide between Edgewood and Moriarty kids,” Riley said. “I have also seen that both staff and students think that the other one has it better and combining that can eliminate some of that. I have also coached for nine years and combining the middle schools would increase those numbers for sports and other extracurricular activities.”
There were also concerns about how making MMS a freshman academy — which would house approximately 200 freshmen — would eliminate the number of electives for freshmen. Edgewood Mayor Ken Brennan said this plan only causes isolation from upperclassmen.
“One of my biggest years of learning both in education and socially was my freshman year because I was interacting with upperclassmen constantly,” Brennan said. “To take that away, you are going to be degrading their social growth. That freshman year is their time to start interacting with older kids.”
School board member Denny Young said MMS is only 50 yards from Moriarty High School, so freshmen would still be able to socialize with upperclassmen. Community members asked why they would propose a freshman academy if they were that close in proximity. Kris Armijo, education technology coordinator who was on the FMP committee, said the freshmen would still be around upperclassmen and consolidating the middle schools would increase opportunities for electives.
“Freshman Academy really just means that the core subjects ELA, math, science and social studies would be at the middle school campus, so for core subjects, they’re together kind of learning what high school means in those settings,” Armijo said. “There would be other classes also offered in that same building, as well as the building just a few hops away, so they would be intermingling with upperclassmen. We also have shared staff right now that work half the day at one middle school and half of the day at the other middle school. If those teachers could be at one school, we would have more opportunities for more electives for middle school students.”
Demolishing EES buildings
In March, the Edgewood Commission held a town meeting to tell the community how the district’s proposal to demolish the historic EES buildings would negatively impact the town and waste taxpayer money. At the district’s community input meeting, Commissioner Jerry Powers again advocated for the buildings.
“Why did you add the library for God’s sake?” said Powers. “That is the biggest thing for the children in Edgewood, so why add Town Hall now to knock down and the library? There are 40 acres there that you all own and there are 20 vacant acres near the EES if you want to build a future school. Right next door is 480 acres reserved for the use of schools, so there is no lack of land anywhere to build a new school.”
Charles Armijo, who was on the school board when the plan was developed, said every decision he made was for students and every dollar the board spends should provide opportunities for students. He said the town still has a leasing agreement for the buildings with the district and the district needs to honor that and he recommends striking down the north side of the buildings rather than the south side.
Members of the school board reiterated that the master plan is only a proposal of ideas, they held the meeting to receive community input to add to their research for the ideas. Former school board member and current commissioner for Edgewood, Filandro Anaya, said from his experience, that the plan is not just ideas.
“Those are true documents, they are working documents,” Anaya said. “They are not ideas, they are in black and white. The idea that you guys are asking people from the communities to come and give you ideas about them now, is a shocker.”