The State of New Mexico has condemned the former Eastside School, currently housing the Family School, after a structural survey revealed serious problems.

“The old Family School, where it’s located right now, for all practical purposes has been condemned because of the structure,” said Belen Consolidated Schools Superintendent Patricia Rael.

The survey that led to the condemnation was requested by Rael, who last spring expressed her own concern about the safety of the school. On a walkthrough, she took note of the stink from sewerage and cracks in walls.

“I had been looking at the floor, looking at the building, and thinking it doesn’t look safe,” she said. “I had no idea if it was or not. It just didn’t look safe.”

She got a structural engineer to look it over around the time school ended. Then she got a formal interpretation of the engineer’s report, which Board Member Adrian Pino summed up as showing the school is “falling down.”

It wasn’t until last week that the New Mexico Public School Facilities Authority provided a letter to her verifying the school was unsafe and should be shut down until further action could be taken.

While the building is most commonly referred to as the historic Eastside School, located on River Road in Belen, it most recently was used to house the Family School, where home schooled students take some classes.

The board of education acted quickly to address the issue, tonight unanimously voting to have the students start the new school year next week at Valley Community Plaza, located off Highway 47 in Rio Communities.

The approval took place to loud applause from parents who have followed the issue closely.

Rael explained that a part of the plaza, which will be leased by the Valley Improvement Association, has been used for classes by the University of New Mexico Valencia Campus and a now-defunct private school, so it is already divided into classrooms. She said there will be some very minor renovations to get it ready.

“I’ve had members of our administrative team looking at how we’re going to set up computers and how we’re going to do repairs and a little bit of polish on it so we can open the doors and be ready to start school along with everyone else,” she said.

Neither the board nor Rael had made any decisions about how long students will be at Valley Community Plaza or what might happen to Eastside School.

Rael and board members, however, refer to the issue as a “temporary relocation.”

“The reason I’m calling it temporary — it could be a more permanent one — is because I want families to give us feedback on how it’s working,” Rael said of the new location. “I want the board to look at what it will take to keep it operating and whether or not they want to do something different. That’ll evolve. Right now my main goal is to get the students in school, get them started.”

This page was published on August 11, 2009 at 9:29pm and is filed under Archive.