from the New Mexico News Connection - A statewide news service for New Mexico
Alamogordo - It's American Education Week and New Mexico educators are highlighting communities in the state that play an active role in education and fighting our high dropout rate. This week is National Education Week, and educators in New Mexico say they want to send the message that improving the state's dropout rate and our kids' chances at success is a team effort that goes beyond the classroom. Judith Pingel is the president of NEA in Alamogordo. She says a great example of community involvement in education can be found in her town where Alamogordo's Corinth Baptist Church has set up an after-school program for parents and students, "They've setup an area of the church with all kinds of computers and they have teachers who have volunteered to tutor, so if you're missing a credit or you need to get caught up."
Parents can also use the computers at the church to monitor their children's progress at school via an online system. NEA Alamogordo contributed 25-hundred dollars to the church toward the development and support of their computer lab. The program is the final phase of a community conversation held in Alamogordo this year with support from local institutions, NEA and NEA New Mexico. But according to Pingel it's just one way that communities and schools across New Mexico are working together to support each other.
Pingel says efforts to improve the state's high dropout rate have begun to work, but it will take a continued cooperative commitment, "Children just don't pop out as seniors and graduate without a lot of years of everyone working together." The importance of involvement from parents, elected officials, administrators, communities, teachers and support staff in education is being highlighted during American Education Week, which runs November 16-20.
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