Parents: Alamo school board wasting money

Posted by Pauly Denetclaw | Jun 28, 2018 | News |

WINDOW ROCK

Charlotte Guerro, a resident of Alamo, New Mexico, has 22 grandchildren who attend Alamo Navajo Community School, so you can bet she’s concerned over the recent turmoil at the school.

“I would like for them to stay there and continue to go to school,” she said.

Like other community members, Guerro is worried about whether that will be an option as the Alamo school board continues to spend profusely on travel.

One document shown to the Navajo Times shows the board has now spent $497,000, nearly half a million dollars, on travel, reimbursements, pay adjustments, cash advances, bonuses, and other expenses not directly related to educating children.

Shockingly, the four board members — Stephen Apache, Bucky Apache, Hector Guerro and Edward Padilla — have only been in office for the last six months.

One board member doesn’t have any children. Another doesn’t have any children or grandchildren who attend Alamo School Inc.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” said Beatrice Guerro, another community member. “It seems like they put their wallet before our kids. They’d rather make their wallet bigger, fatter and live in a luxury home and have all these things.”

While the school board continues to spend, the children who attend the school are falling behind. According to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, during the 2015-16 school year only 4 percent of student were proficient in English and language arts and in math only 3 percent were. These percentages are up from the 2014-15 school year, when only 1 percent was proficient in math. This is the most recent data available on the school.

An employee who answered the phone at the Alamo Navajo school board office Wednesday said the board was “on travel” to Window Rock for a week and would return Friday.