ALAMOSA — While it may feel like summer went by in a flash, students attending Alamosa School District (ASD) were “up and at ‘em” on Thursday morning for Day One of the 2024 to 2025 school year.
Before the school year even started, ASD was already on a roll with the second annual – and most successful - Registration Road Trip and Back to School bash held on July 29 -July 31.
“We initially thought we weren’t getting as many people because people weren’t standing around and waiting,” says Dr. Luis Murillo, assistant superintendent who, along with Dr. Diana Jones, superintendent, assisted in registering students. “But then we realized that we had gotten so good at the process that people were just moving through registration much faster.”
As successful as those first two nights of registration proved to be, they were actually just a foreshadow of the grand finale. Known as the Back to School Bash, the third of three nights spent registering students for next year, Murillo estimates there were more than 600 kids registered for school, doubling the number who participated last year.
Over one third of the student body registered, signed up for free lunch and registering for Friday activities at the SLV Boys and Girls Club in just three days. Not bad.
While many school districts across the state are reporting a decline in enrollment, ASD is going into the school year in as good of shape as last year if not even a little bit better.
“It’s looking like we might be able to retain our enrollment,” says Dr. Luis Murillo, assistant superintendent. “What I mean by that is that we were projected to be right around 2,000 or a little under, which is where we were last year. Our last projection was somewhere around 2081 but there are still some kids that we need to disenroll.” After all those changes, enrollment at ASD is projected to be around 2035. “So, we gained some students,” Murillo says.
When asked about staffing of teachers and counselors, Murillo says, “We left the school year being fully staffed and then summer happened, so we’re looking for one possibly two teachers at the middle school and one counselor.”
Over the summer, there were also some significant changes among principals. After decades in his position as principal of Alamosa High School, Andy Lavier left ASD to become the new assistant superintendent in the Center School District.
Amy Ortega, former principal of Ortega Middle School, was hired to be the new principal at Alamosa High School, a move that, Ortega says, “feels like home” as that is where she first started her career at ASD over twenty years ago.
The leadership team at ASD has always been a strong proponent of growing each staff member’s capacity, as is evidenced by their hiring Nathan Gonzales – former assistant principal at Ortega Middle School (OMS) – to take over the helm at OMS. Adam Martinez was hired to take Gonzales’ former position as assistant principal.
When asked about priorities for this year, Murillo talked about continuing the extraordinary growth last year, including PSAT and AP classes. He also sets continuing the strong upward trend in academic achievement the district has been experiencing as well as greater focus on student attendance.
