In The News.
SLC has ‘over 1,000 students’ on waiting list
By Hailey Heinz
A popular Northeast Heights charter school is looking to open a West Side campus — a move that would ease the school’s waiting list and would fill a clear need on the West Side, the founder says.
“We’ve had a lot of requests for many years to open a school on the West Side,” said Scott Glasrud, who heads Southwest Learning Centers. “Over 1,000 students on our wait list live west of the Rio Grande.”
The total waiting list for 7- to 12-grade spots at Southwest Learning Centers is about 4,000 families.
SLC is technically three schools in one building, serving elementary, middle and high school students. The school uses online courses for most of its core subjects, in addition to a learning lab that provides students with technology to do handson projects. The school also has an aviation component that allows interested students to earn a pilot’s license while in school.
If approved, the new charter would be called Southwest Aeronautics, Mathematics and Science Academy, would serve grades 7 to 12 and would be somewhere north of Interstate 40 and west of Universe.
Glasrud said the new school would essentially duplicate the practices of SLC, but would have a more particular focus on science and math. He said the school will have an independent governing board and will probably have its own head administrator, while Glasrud expects to take on the role of founder and consultant.
Glasrud said the school would meet a clear demand, and said he also hopes to demonstrate that his methods work with every population, not just for students in the Northeast Heights.
SLC is at Candelaria and Morris NE.
“We always have naysayers who say our success is because we have the best and the brightest and because of where we are,” Glasrud said. “I want to prove that our system will work for every kid, that all children can learn, it doesn’t matter if you’re on the south side of Albuquerque or in the Northeast Heights.”
According to the latest Standards-Based Assessment results, 75 percent of high school juniors at Southwest Secondary School are proficient in math, and 76 percent are proficient in reading. Juniors are the only high school students who take the test.
Proficiencies at Southwest Secondary are not broken down for students with disabilities, English language learners or for several other subgroups because the school had fewer than 20 juniors in those categories. However, the school did measure economically disadvantaged students, of whom 64 percent were proficient in math and 73 percent were proficient in reading.
The school has a graduation rate of 61 percent.
The state Public Education Commission will consider Glasrud’s charter application next week, along with 20 others.
The PEC will consider the Southwest Aeronautics, Mathematics and Science Academy application on Tuesday at the Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, beginning at 8 am.
Posted August 07, 2011