by Bryan Gibel
Daily Lobo
A charter school that lets high school students take college courses for free has a new home at UNM.
Representatives from the city, the state and UNM celebrated the opening of the new facility Saturday for the Albuquerque Institute for Mathematics and Science at UNM at 933 Bradbury Drive S.E.
It was a milestone for secondary education in New Mexico, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish said.
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"When we talk about how to redesign high schools to capture children's intellectual curiosity every day, AIMS is a big part of that," she said. "It makes middle school and high school relevant to its students because they can see the path to a productive life in a high-paying job."
The school has about 150 students and 13 faculty members, all specialists with professional experience in their field, said Kathy Sandoval-Snider, the school's principal.
The curriculum is rigorous and includes science, math, two years of Japanese or Chinese and karate rather than standard physical education, Sandoval-Snider said.
Starting their junior year, students are required to take core courses at UNM for high school and college credit, she said.
The school offers students practical experience that can't be found at other charter schools, Sandoval-Snider said.
"We group our classes by ability, so if you go into our classrooms you will see, for example, a calculus class with students of all ages," she said. "Students also become used to being on UNM campus and begin to look at college as not such a scary thing."
The charter school is a vital development for public education in New Mexico, UNM President David Schmidly said.
"It is very important that higher education begin to work more closely with public education," he said. "AIMS does just that. Over time, the graduates of this school will become doctors, nurses and leaders in research and scholarship."
The school began in 2005 under the name High Tech High and was at 2500 Yale Blvd. S.E.
It had three principals in its first year and was poorly located and managed, Sandoval-Snider said.
"It was a dive," she said. "It was located in the most inappropriate place for a school. The discipline of the kids was horrible, and the teachers were beleaguered and embattled."
Sandoval-Snider was hired
in 2006.
That year, the school began to work more closely with UNM, changed its name and received a $1.3 million grant from Gov. Bill Richardson for a new facility, said Chuck Fleddermann, associate dean of the school of engineering.
"Very quickly, everyone got on board and were working like crazy to make the change and all the little details happen successfully," Fleddermann said.
Graduates of the charter school will thrive in an international setting and have the skills needed to get good jobs, Sandoval-Snider said.
"This is a global economy, and people are fooling themselves if they think a kid can graduate from a regular high school doing the minimum that is required and be able to compete," she said. "When a kid graduates from this school, I want them to get the education they need to be able to succeed in college, compete in the global economy and have the lifestyle that they want."
More information on the school is available at Aims-Unm.org.
