Silence in Taos

Despite lay-offs affecting 43 teachers and other “non-tenured” personnel, according to a TMS source, a great silence has descended over the schools. Only a year ago the mob showed up with pitchforks ready to burn two board members at the stake for terminating a single disobedient superintendent. The Taos News depicted the culprits in technicolored cartoons—incessantly–and for weeks and months. This season, while a majority of the board and their favorite administrators drive a stake through the hearts of 43 handpicked victims, nary a word is said by the public or the press.

“Oh, blame the economy for the movidas.”

At the board meeting on Wed. May 25, the day after the mid-day massacre, a couple of teachers, Flavio says, mentioned how they were rudely served their walking papers. One teacher sat at a basketball game with her kids when she informed: “We don’t want you back.” A second was served in the middle of an IEP hearing for a special needs student, who had used a weapon inappropriately—but it was the teacher, who got stuck in the back with the knife by CRAB Hall. The bad manners of the administrators, backed up by the Gang of Four, suggest the anti-community tenor being fostered by El Weston during this economic crisis.

Site-based management, local control of schools by parents and teachers, is just one way of saving money, keeping teachers employed, and improving student success rates. But that alternative would cost the CRABs their fat paychecks. Hey, we hear the Fat Cats are spending their discretionary income in pursuit of Arsenio and the “Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

The Taos News published pabulum on Thursday, May 26 for readers on the subject: No outrage, no compassion, and no tears for those reeling from betrayal by the board. The Gang of Four was supported in the last election by the teachers’ union and the right-thinking people in the community. Now Superintendent El Weston and his sidekick, Chuby, have given new life to the Machiavellian admonition: “It is better to be feared than loved.” Speak up and your name goes in the black book. Keep your mouth shut and you might get keep your job or get hired back in autumn.

“Pray for me, Mama. My babies grew up to be politicos.”

Note: TMS has yet to report in public on the numbers of kids graduating this year from Taos High. Approximately 131 individuals are pictured in a congratulatory photograph in the May 26 edition of the weekly’s advertising supplement featuring the Class of 2011. Last year, 2009-10, according to PED, some 200 students were enrolled in the senior class and 192 graduated but based on what criteria?

(In 1997, there were reportedly more than 1100 students at the high school. As the year ends, there are about 675 total students. Administrative salaries have skyrocketed.)

PED changed criteria a few years ago when THS showed up with a 40% grad rate. Now, instead of four-year cohorts per the practice in 07-08, the schools can use a five-year cohort and include GED grads as part of their stats. So the rate jumped up to almost 70% for 09-10. (UNM et al graduated 114 GED students in 2011.)

We understand that not all seniors attended the photo op.

Luisa Mylet

Given last year’s community obsession with Arsenio’s every comment whether about “Tortillas” or “La Raza,” and the general resistance to audits, we can only conclude that TMS today neither merits interest nor deserves discussion. Hey, downplay the tenor and tone because our guys and gals are at the center of the drama. Perhaps The Taos News took a cue from Judge Peggy, whose ambiguous decision disallows the member’s right to recall and is calculated, whether consciously or unconsciously, to tamp down the voices of dissent at the Coop.

Before signing off on politics here for my annual sabbatical, I want to mention the two Cassandras, who would make a Women’s Studies student or professor of feministas proud. At the COOP and the TMS, Luisa Mylet, Trustee, and Stella Gallegos, TMS Board member, respectively, have demonstrated the courage and compassion of Mama Bears—despite

Stella Gallegos

shunning and censure by Los Hombres Machos.

Cassandra surrendered to Apollo for a night of love and according to the myth, as reward was given the voice of a prophet. But, when Cassandra rejected Apollo’s amorous advances later, he threw down the curse, saying, “tell the truth but nobody will believe you.”

Ay Caramba, the voices of Luisa and Stella, like Ovid’s Philomela and Procne, grow fainter and fainter while the bellies of Los Traveling Trustees and Las CRAB Cakes grow bigger and bigger.