BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com 

While trying to find out why complaints about discrimination involving Los Alamos Public Schools that she sent to the Public Education Department’s Anti-Racism Anti-Oppression (ARAO) Portal at the Identity, Equity, and Transformation Division, LAPS parent Luckie Daniels received some public documents from PED that indicated that something else was going on between PED and LAPS at around the same time.

Daniels’ initial complaints were filed from October 2022 through December 2022 but when October 2023 rolled around and she still had not received a response from PED to the filing of her Office of Civil Rights complaint and request for a formal PED investigation, she started sending requests for documents under the Inspection of Public Records Act and received only a partial fulfillment, but enough to cause her concern. It became apparent that top PED officials had paid a visit to Los Alamos High School and Los Alamos Middle School on November 18, 2022, which was kept under wraps by LAPS. The PED documents indicated that former LAPS Supt. Jose Delfin had requested technical assistance from PED through then Secretary of Education (and former LAPS superintendent) Kurt Steinhaus following an October 5, 2022 incident where some members of the LAMS football team had chanted “Go back to the rez!” referencing members of the Santa Fe Indian School team following a game.

In the records requested by Daniels that have been released by PED, it is clear that Steinhaus turned the matter over to PED Deputy Secretary Identity, Equity, and Transformation, Vickie Bannerman, who brought a team consisting of Simone Vann, Director of Identity, Equity and Transformation; Julia Rosa Emslie, Director of Hispanic Education; and Alicia Bailey, FII and Innovative Coordinator to LAHS and LAMS.

In a “pre-trip” meeting held by Dr. Bannerman with her staff, she tells them to just think about resources from their lenses and work they already had in their pockets as possibilities. She listed “racialized aggressions against Native Americans, against African Americans, a community that is not inclusive, not very diverse, not very supportive of Education Acts and the work that we support surrounding inclusivity. Think about what it looks like to not just train minds but change minds. It will not be easy but that’s what we come to the table to do,” Bannerman said.

Although not all the written documents requested have been received to date, Daniels had received notes from a December 9, 2022, Zoom follow-up meeting on the LAPS visit and a proposed path forward. Daniels said no details of the PED visit to LAPS or the resources offered and recommended by PED were even mentioned to her when she met with Supt. Guy on December 15, 2022, just days after the follow-up meeting or when Daniels presented Supt. Guy on December 27 with her proposal for equity work for LAPS, which Supt. Guy reviewed and approved.

LAPS internal concerns that led to the PED visit itself, what exactly happened during the visit that caused references by participants to students being traumatized, the PED’s recommendations and resources offered to LAPS going forward have never been disclosed to the community.

Those in attendance from Los Alamos were Jennifer Guy, then Acting Superintendent, Julie Dare, Liaison for Native American Students and Families, Kristine Coblentz, Prevention Specialist, and Caron Inglis, Healthy Schools Director.

On audio records Daniels received last week from PED, new details of the December 9, 2022, meeting were revealed. Dr. Bannerman explained that the team was not going into LAPS for “discipline or to investigate” but that Supt. Delfin had requested support because “he began to notice the beginnings of racialized aggressions as a trend” and “he wants to nip it in the bud now all the way around and attack it at the roots”. Bannerman said Delfin was giving them access to student leadership groups to have the discussion about things they have experienced to inform the team of “the supports they think might be most beneficial to the students they lead”.

The LAPS students who met with the PED team in Los Alamos were Student Council members and Native American students from the Native American Parents Advisory Council group (NAPAC).  None of the students from LAMS who were allegedly involved in the October 5 chanting incident were at the meetings. Besides the NAPAC students, reportedly no other marginalized students were represented at the event.

Julie Dare, the LAPS liaison with NAPAC spoke at length explaining her frustration with not having been notified about the visit or asked to get the “proper entities” notified such as NAPAC or anyone else.

“So from the get-go I felt completely out of the loop,” Dare said. “My families have as well.”

She went on to say she has a very good relationship with the NAPAC families so there’s frustration. 

“I’m completely cut out of it in terms of what we do in terms of how we make reparations, what we do in terms of the notifications for families – what to do, because we can’t just sweep this under the rug and continually I have not been involved in conversations concerning the students I represent,” Dare said.

She said there are 139 Native American students at LAPS and it was frustrating that even leading up to the PED visit, she was telling Delfin that they needed to figure out a formal way if they wanted Native American involvement.

“We need to formally notify parents. We cannot bring their students into a meeting without them knowing and getting their permission. It took a lot of effort to ask (Supt. Delfin) to give me enough information to notify parents. We don’t even notify students’ governors to come and see them at school without a formal form filled out. My frustration is that even up to the meeting and beyond the meeting, in my position as liaison I have not been consulted,” Dare said. “This translates into my families not being respected. They’re not getting the resources they’re entitled to.”

She said that at the visit she felt that if they had an opportunity as a team to be part of the conversations they could have given “so much more insight”.

Dare reminded the group that she was raised in Los Alamos.

“I told you I grew up here and I’m the first person that’s going to say, ‘Yes, we have racism in the district’, but we have so many angles and dynamics. If anything, I could have deepened the conversation and equipped you all with information coming up here. That’s my perspective,” she said.

Further on in the audio record of the meeting, Kristine Coblentz noted that going forward she would like to have resources that speak more to the cultural sensitivities of the region and that they work with students to be “more thoughtful about how we set up focus groups”. Coblentz noted that there was some “student fallout from the events where students needed some counseling support afterwards” and she indicated that Delfin’s vision had not been shared with staff. She noted that lack of preparation at Delfin’s direction affected students that experienced trauma or “re-traumatization” during the PED visit.

At another point in the meeting audio, Supt. Guy noted that LAPS has “challenges occurring with specific incidents and specific students who live outside Los Alamos”.  This was during discussion of resources and changes going forward.

“So we know that whatever we can participate in regionally, whatever we can partner with some of our surrounding communities on as far as education goes is going to help us as a district as well, so those are also things I’m interested in,” Supt. Guy said. 

Another speaker, possibly Julie Dare, said one of the nuances of Los Alamos is the “on the hill off the hill dynamic regardless of race”.

“But there’s something about that that interplays and intersects so if you are a student that lives off the hill but you play sports and all those different rungs and tiers and all that, I can say from growing up here one of the biggest issues in equity really does stem from that on the hill off the hill dynamic,” she said.

Another issue addressed in the meeting was the New Mexico Activities Association (NMAA). Julia Rosa Emslie discussed how the NMAA handbooks are long overdue for revision. 

“Yelling racial slurs at each other has been going on since the beginning of sports time in New Mexico,” she said. “It might be really powerful if your NAPAC and the Equity Council group could advise your superintendent and your board about what you could say to NMAA in terms of training for students and coaches because it is a huge issue. I know Los Alamos has a lot of other problems but this really unfortunate incident has been a really important impetus for this conversation so this could be something to explore in terms of advisement from your Equity Council to your board and to your superintendent,” she said.

The Los Alamos Reporter reached out to Supt. Guy Monday to let her know a story about the audio received from PED from the 2022 visit by PED was being published. The Reporter asked Supt. Guy for some time to meet and discuss what measures suggested by PED have been implemented in the last year and that meeting is expected to take place Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, Ms. Daniels told the Reporter Monday that she has submitted a formal request to ACLU New Mexico and NAACP Santa Fe for further investigation and released all cited records for their review.

Editor’s note: Quotes attributed to those who attended the meetings with PED are taken directly from the PED audio files released last week.